The supermarket where my wife used to work when she was working through college used to take over a million quid a week. If the shopper spend an average of £50 a shop, they see 20,000 people through their doors every week - about 3,000 a day. The net energy use of a supermarket
per customer isn't that high - if the customers turn out the lights before they leave, it's probably a saving to have them there, because their density is higher and they are under flourescent lamps, not incandescent ones.
The way I understand it, the energy use of a Westerner can be broken into three about-equal thirds: domestic; transport; and industrial. If the Western world was to generate all domestic and transport energy near their homes, from renewable sources, our non-renewable energy use would fall by over 60%. If the price of energy triples, then the result will be a cost-of-living that has not changed, without altering industrial processes at all.
As the price of PV panels falls, we're seeing more and more local renewable generation here in Britain. Grid generation of electricity is almost exclusively windmills, (and about a tenth of our energy use) but I've seen PV and windmills on both schools and supermarkets within twenty miles of my home in a London suburb.
Most people don't want to think, yes, but they do want to continue with the lifestyles they enjoy. If the only way they are able to do so is to buy electric cars, windmills, and PV panels, they will. The Soviets discovered that getting people to do what you want with guns and tanks results in attrition, terrorism, and passive resistance: the occupying armies in the Middle East will discover the same thing. Then the voters will demand alternatives - and they will get them.
When that happens the technology you people are proving today will be taken up by commercial engineers and offered to the masses. When oil and grid electricity costs as much as it soon will, the masses will buy.
The middle classes among them will congratulate themselves for their intelligence and sensitivity for being "early adopters", of course.