Reply #5: Of course it is.

[FBaggins]

You can't just decide:

"I think I'll start a power company. I think they'll need more power around Gotham in three years so there will be demand for my product if I set up shop there. I want to make a big profit and don't care about the environment, so I'll build a coal plant. The ROI seems to be greatest at around 750 MW so that's what I'll build. There's some cheap land right downtown where that old tobacco plant was shut down 20 years ago. I can get that land for a song and it's right along the river. Great for cooling and dumping ash and easy access for my coal barges!"

Of course you can't. It starts at the opposite end entirely. Local government decides where they're going to allow expansion and where the supporting infrastructure will be placed. Part of that planning includes the generation of electricity and they decide what forms will be acceptable (>20% renewables etc). They zone what land can have a power plant, what types can be built, and how it will connect to the grid. If they want a hydro plant they'll ask for bids on that alone. Bring in your bid for a coal plant and they'll laugh you out the door.

Even after you build just what they tell you to build and just where they tell you to build it... they also set the rates you can charge and when you can increase (or even decrease) them.

Doesn't matter whether it's natural gas to your home... or phone lines... or cable tv... or electricity... or plumbing/sewer. Whether the company is for-profit or outright government-owned... they are at least "quasi" governmental because the government controls how they operate their business.

Ever been part of an annexation? try telling the private water company that you won't allow an easement for the new pipes they're putting in and there's nothing they can do about it.

Call it quasi-governmental or call it a "public-private partnership" if you prefer. It's the same thing. Government is (and should be) a key player in all of these industries.

And once again... let's not pretend that wind/solar are any different.