I like to think they're saying "We'll make contact when they realize they don't have to build a fusion reactor because there's already one in their sky."
It's interesting how you're assuming that a species which obviously has been navigating way past the point where any useful power can be extracted from their star would not see the utility of developing fusion power
I'm assuming that such a species would themselves have fully exploited the energy output of their local star(s) before they embarked on building an artificial one. And that they would view any species trying this in reverse order as unintelligent.
That's assuming a lot I think. Having the ability to create a large amount of power on demand is a lot more useful than it's popular to think these days.
On a lower end medium time scale maybe.. but the kind of power we're talking about here and needed by society, is still a few discoveries and a few decades away from actually being, let alone being practical on a large scale. And the worst part is that only then does the discussion even begin about adopting, using and manufacturing/installing it at scale.
Large scale HUGE capacity electricity storage is a LOT further away than a lot of people and interests are willing to... well.. as we see in europe.. allow for. We are going ahead with the first half of a system that isn't even complete in theory.
Large scale electricity storage is just waiting for the economic conditions that would justify rolling it out. Once those conditions arise, storage will pop up like mushrooms after a hard rain, and will move down experience curves, and become cheap.
The biggest open question with grid storage is which of the many competing technologies will come out on top.
