Can't buy power from neighboring city

I have two cities in a region. One is out of power and all my services have shutdown, and the other city has a coal power plant with a ton of extra power.

I purchased buy from city A to city B, but nothing is happening. When I go to the region view and look at the stats for buying the power. It says Using 0 MW/154.3 MW for $0.

I thought maybe it was a server issue, but it's been like this now for two days.

See image below.

EDIT:

I'm confused. Most of my city is red without power, but the power stats say Needed 42 MW, 106 Capacity. With 64.5 excess

What is going on? My solar power plant says it's shut down because of a lack of workers, but I need power to get workers.

EDIT:

I shutdown both power plants, and now it says -40 deficit but it's still not buying power from the other city.

EDIT:

Great. Now my power plants won't power back up and the entire city is dead. This game sucks.

If your city is out of power for whatever reason it seems to take a while after you get a power plant online for power to reach the entire city. First a power plant has to get workers, then after that it seems to take a while before it actually starts supplying power.

Buying power from other cities may be buggy. I played a city for several hours buying power from neighboring cities; then saved and reloaded that city the next day only to find the city without power despite power still being available in the region (it is possible that not enough power was available) so I broke down and built a power plant and observed the city slowly get powered up.

It's a communist nation. Resources are split between all the cities in the region even if nobody owns it yet, so you don't have the freedom to choose. It doesn't matter who earned it.