In Europe, a group of organisations financed a study that found “the cost of electricity by 2050 could be no higher than it would be under a high-carbon ‘business as usual’ regime*.”

* Editor’s note: Def. regime (pronounced, ray-gimme-dat-ree-mote-igotta-watch-thuh-Shopping=Channel), see Banana Republic.

The capital cost of building the vast amounts of renewable power infrastructure needed will be huge, but the advantage is that once this cost has been paid, the running costs of renewable power generation are far lower than for conventional power stations.

In addition, Europe’s creaking power infrastructure will have to be updated in any case. Replacing old coal-fired power stations with new coal-fired power stations will also be expensive, so building wind turbines and solar farms instead will look less expensive by comparison.

Finally, investing in a smart grid that runs across the continent will be a huge help. There will be two key advantages. One is a massive improvement in energy efficiency, as the demand can be evened out and the supply matched to demand across vast areas at once. The second is that it takes away the potential instability from relying on renewables, because if the renewable energy sources are geographically dispersed – hydroelectric in the north, solar power in the south, wind in the North Sea and other coastal areas, waste and biomass everywhere – then that removes the problem of relying on a single intermittent and unpredictable renewable energy source such as wind.

To get to this future will be hard, though, as the report makes clear. Capital investment in low-carbon energy infrastructure must double in the next 15 years, the authors estimate. That will almost certainly push up the price of electricity in the shorter term, even though efficiency savings could offset much of that cost to consumers and businesses.