The effect is used to rationalize the ability or inability of certain metal complexes to function as photosensitizers, which in turn is relevant to photocatalysis.
These species have similar ground state properties: they are diamagnetic and undergo reversible oxidation to the trications.
Such charge-separated states have relatively long lifetimes of 900 (Ru) and 25 (Os) nanoseconds.
Nanosecond lifetimes are sufficiently long that these excited states can participate in bimolecular reactions, i.e. they can photosensitize.
One consequence of the primogenic effect is that first-row metals are usually incapable of serving as photosensitizers.