Wind farms, connected to the general circuit, at a european scale can be the answer (among a few others) and we might be going in the good direction, but the cultural needs of our societies (lighting at night as we work all day,"security" lighting of cities, multiplying appliances as a fashion trend, etc.) that have to be addressed at the same time or it won't work... "What can I do, What can I write, Against the fall of Night". A.E. Housman
Anyhow you're far north to me :-) "What can I do, What can I write, Against the fall of Night". A.E. Housman
Your point about costly investment is good, especially if you keep in mind that to have renewable house heating, you have to have both. Heat pumps to allow efficient electricity based heating, plus wind/solar to have renewable electricity, and this has to compete with a gaspipe+central heating,or even coal ovens.
A question to which I do not know the direct answer: is a heat pump run on fossil-fuel generated electricity more efficient than direct fossil heating? I seem to remember that a heat pump's big savings came from replacing aircos in summer, not from heating in winter.
On the other hand, we have plenty of coal and natural gas, so we'll burn that all up first.
