German coal use at highest level since 1990

[FBaggins]

8. "the main two culprits are the Netherlands and France"

Flat wrong.

Renewables are must-run plants in Germany, meaning that their power has to be purchased even if conventional plants have to ramp down commensurately. Germany’s neighbors who import a lot of power – the main two culprits are the Netherlands and France – are the main driver behind the growth in German coal power production...

Policy doesn't change reality. If a coal plant is chugging along at a constant rate of production and the wind stops blowing... that power needs to be dealt with. Enacting a policy that calls something "must run" doesn't change that. The power that's getting dumped is clearly the wind power... not the coal that policy says should be shut off. If anything, the blame is with coal being so much cheaper than gas... since expected wind generation should be balanced by gas, not coal (which can't just shut down for 15 minutes and then start back up again)... so they export it (but it's the wind power that's causing the need to export... not coal).

Then we come to the claim that France and the Netherlands are the "culprits" - as if they need to import power.

France certainly doesn't... they were almost exclusively the exporting party when we're talking about Germany. Germany likely couldn't keep the lights on without that French (nuclear) power covering for their transmission weaknesses.

The Netherlands did import lots of German power... but not because of their own demand. They were sucking up the wind power that Germany had to dump (cheap) and then selling it (to other countries) when prices were higher. Again - Germany is the needy party in that exchange.

Both France and the Netherlands are taking advantage of Germany's errors. They aren't driving demand for coal.