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World could save £20 trillion on energy costs by switching to green power

Groundbreaking report finds that a rapid switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy would save 'hundreds of billions of dollars a year' by 2030

Ditching fossil fuels and replacing them with renewable power globally would save nearly £20 trillion in energy costs in the coming decades, a landmark report has found.

Oxford University researchers have produced a major study which overturns the common thinking that decarbonising the global economy will be hugely expensive.

They argue a swift and dramatic shift to green energy would be saving ‘hundreds of billions a year’ within a decade and estimate that by around 2080 it would have saved a total of at least $26 trillion in energy costs.

The manufacturing costs of green energy power plants have fallen sharply while efficiency has increased considerably as wind turbines become taller with longer blades, components become cheaper and more effective and solar panels convert ever more sunlight into electricity.

At the same time, batteries and other forms of mass energy storage are rapidly improving, meaning that excess electricity produced can be saved in increasingly large quantities and used when the wind stops blowing or the sun goes in.

“I am not surprised by the direction of the findings, but I am surprised by the sheer scale of the win that is on offer here. The numbers that emerge are really incredibly good news for the clean transition, and for humanity. It is a wave we should ride, and accelerate,” said Cameron Hepburn, professor of environmental economics at the University of Oxford.

The working paper is currently being peer-reviewed for potential publication in a journal.

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