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It's been a cold winter, and it lasted a long time. But have you noticed how little wind and rain there has been?

Scottish and Southern Energy noticed. Its annual figures, published on Wednesday, showed power generation from renewable sources, primarily wind and hydro, had fallen 10% below expectations.

It's a reminder of the unpredictability of those power sources. But it hasn't cooled the energy of Ian Marchant, chief executive of the Perth-based company which counts as Britain's second power utility.

With profits topping £1.31bn, the sector's critics focussed on the sharp increases in customer prices over recent years. U-Switch issued a reminder that companies that blame forward commitments for the stickiness of prices downwards should be equally sticky if energy prices rise.

Saudi Arabia of renewables

SSE isn't in much doubt about the direction of power prices. Its annual figures tell the story with the extraordinary breadth of its activity to replace ageing generating capacity, at the same time as meeting the hugely demanding aspiration of moving from carbon-intensive power to renewables.

The scale of that has been underlined by the activity in Aberdeen this week as the renewables sector confers in the All Energy gathering. To mark the occasion, an industry-government assessment has set out the potential Britain has in the next 40 years, and it's even bigger than the Saudi Arabia of renewables that we've heard about.

The 'full practical resource' of Britain's wind and water resource comes to six-times its current level of electricity demand. The most ambitious scenario suggests harnessing 76% of that resource, at a cost of nearly £1 trillion - or £993 bn, to be more precise.

Just to meet Britain's current targets by 2025, rather than its potential by 2025, Ernst & Young has calculated that the total capital requirement would be nearly £200bn.

Loch Ness hydro

The scale of that challenge raises big questions about the capital constraints, and if the banks are up to the task in their current state. And if this is the bonanza that's going to be the next phase of British economic growth, are there elements of capital constraint that could result in other sectors?

SSE seems to get on well with its lenders. Through two years of credit crunch, it has negotiated £4.6bn in new and continuing finance.

This is backed by rapid expansion. The number of customers has doubled in eight years to 9.3 million. Generating capacity almost doubled in six years to 11.3 gigawatts.

Some of that finance is to upgrade its existing assets, with Scotland's hydro infrastructure hitting the age when the rest of us could expect to retire.

There are two new hydro schemes planned above Loch Lochy and Loch Ness, and the Glendoe tunnel near Loch Ness requires a new tunnel to get round the rock fall that knocked it out within months of starting its flow.

Grid links

A new gas generating plant has just been opened near Southampton, the first in Britain for five years. There's a stake in nuclear developments, but without taking the lead.

Its efforts at carbon capture and storage continues, with the focus on an industrial-scale trial in Yorkshire.

Grid upgrades include a stake in the controversial Beauly-Denny pylons marching through the Highlands, but also plans for sub-sea links with Shetland and Lewis. A bid is still being prepared for the English grid connections being offloaded by EDF, though it seems there are problems with the reliability of the current £4bn-plus system.

The past year has seen £666m of investment in renewables, with lots more to come through SSE's stake in the next generation of offshore wind farms.

The reach of the utility comes downstream to domestic metering. Alyth in Perthshire was one of three pilot communities in Britain set the target of cutting its energy use by 10%. It hit it. The company is working with other communities and businesses wanting to invest in their own wind turbines and renewables.

A new housing development in Slough is intended to be carbon neutral, with SSE showing if and how the same can be achieved more widely, as building standards get tougher.

Electric cars

The perverse end of this is that customers are not only using less of the company's wares, but the company is being told that trend has to continue. It reckons electricity generation among its domestic customers is down 6% and gas use is down 8%, saving the average customer £70 last year. The drive to cut use goes on, with improved insulation and rising prices helping subdue demand.

Coming down the highway is another huge increase in demand, if transport is to lose its dependence on fossil fuels. Electric cars will be plugging into the grid in significant numbers within the next 10 years - one estimate suggests 1.5 million, or around one in 15 - and that's going to require a huge lift in the generating capacity to provide for them.

SSE is in two of nine pilots to see how that works, one of them with Strathclyde University, the other with BMW in making electric Minis and providing the hardware necessary to plug them in and keep them going.

The company is, probably, the most diversified of utilities in Britain. But as it's one of the smaller power companies operating across Europe, it's worth remembering that all this transition within the energy market has global dimensions.

There are plenty pressures crowding in on the new administration at Westminster, but getting the framework right for this energy revolution has got to be one of the biggest and most daunting ones.