Shockingly...yes, and in some cases that is being done intentionally e.g. solar/battery systems require communication within the grid and the Internet is being used as the network.

What makes this particularly embarrassing is that power companies literally run thousands of miles of cables and could easily build a private network instead of using the Internet. The regulations should be amended to require it.

Yes.

Consider the old joke, "what do you call the medical student that graduated bottom of his class? 'Doctor'".

Same thing applies to sysadmins and IT. Sure there's plenty of skilled people working in facilities out of bumfuck, but also consider how few people want to work in the low-paid, low-respect IT jobs.

Those roles are often filled by the apathetic, mid-skilled, and close in proximity. They're connecting shit to the internet because their boss wants more data points.