Researchers Alarmed at Rise in German Brown Coal Power Output

Ontario's role model for "green" energy programs.

Researchers Alarmed at Rise in German Brown Coal Power Output - SPIEGEL ONLINE:

Germany plans to wean itself off CO2-belching coal-fired power stations. But new figures show that coal power output in 2013 reached its highest level in more than 20 years. Researchers blame cheap CO2 emissions permits, and demand urgent reforms.
In 1990, Germany's bown coal-fired power stations produced almost 171 billion kilowatt hours of power. At the time, many old eastern German plants were still in operation.
It was a situation that the German government wanted to change, with the aim being that of radically reducing the output of the CO2-polluting lignite plants, but that's not happening. In 2013, it rose to 162 billion kilowatt hours, the highest level since reunification in 1990, according to preliminary figures from AGEB, a collection of industry associations and research institutes.
Electricity output from brown coal plants rose 0.8 percent in 2013, said Jochen Diekmann of the German Institute for Economic Research. As a result, Germany's CO2 output is expected to have risen in 2013, even as power from renewable sources has reached 25 percent of the energy mix.

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From the article:

The increase in coal-generated power also led to a new record in German electricity exports to around 33 billion kilowatt hours. "In 2013 Germany exported more power than it imported on eight out of 10 days. Most of it was generated by from brown coal and anthracite power stations,"

The exports are driven by markets - the coal plants won't have viable capacity factors without running for exports, while the capacity remains necessary to meet peak demand.

Similar in Ontario (as is currently being demonstrated during widespread cold).

Ontario "exported more power than it imported on" 364 out of 365 days in 2013 (and 9 of the past 1096 days).

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Related: German regulator forces EnBW power units to remain open | Power Engineering

One of Germany’s largest power suppliers is being forced by the country’s regulator to remain open in order to maintain security of supply.
Despite the unprofitability of some of EnBW’s (FWB: EBK) power plants, Bundesnetzagentur has stipulated that four units with a total capacity of 668 MW remain open to prevent disruption to Europe’s largest energy market.
The units, based in the south of the country, must be kept online for at least two years...
“We are now in talks with the grid regulator about the compensation for keeping the plants available,”