Hydro-electric plants are also very often Black start-capable, even more so than nuclear plants. Basically you only need someone to go up to the upper reservoir

Hydro-electric plants are also very often Black start-capable, even more so than nuclear plants. Basically you only need someone to go up to the upper reservoir and open the hatches manually. Same holds for dips and surges, you can ramp a pump storage very quickly, same order of magnitude as a fossil plant. Additionally you don't need to have it running on base-load. That's why this mode of operation is currently not feasible for many gas-fired power plants. Gas prices vs electricity prices are so bad (at least in Germany) that you will always loose even in the most modern and most efficient plants if you try to provide control reserve. If you don't run on maximum efficiency you'll loose all the time, if you do, however, you cannot control dips in the power production as the point of maximum efficiency is often near maximum load. You can run solely on renewables if you have enough hydro plants (see Norway).