I don't think I would have exactly phrased it that way, but you are close enough. What I was getting at was the emissions controls - eg scrubbers and electrostatic precipitators - work best at constant high temp. Throttle a coal plant, the emissions systems are offline for most of that process, hence dramatically higher particulate and sulfur emissions The design of the firing units and flash boilers, throttling will tend to cause undesired thermal stress. Do that often enough, you have to deal with cracks NG plants are usually run from aero-derived turbofan engines. A "co-gen" or CHP plant will usually remain online longer to use the GG section exhaust to provide heat to other parts of the process. A regular NG power plant, is fairly easy to throttle Typically, you can go from cold start to stable power in under 20 mins, faster with more modern digital control