To misquote a well-known mobile phone ad of old: The future’s bright, the future’s energy storage. This is one part of the received wisdom on how to solve Europe’s craving for secure, clean and energy efficient sources of energy. A continent which had arguably grown fat and complacent on Russian gas is working hard to develop greener, less manipulative, less politicised alternatives.

Storing more energy derived from a smart, interconnected grid is undoubtedly part of that future. Domestic consumers are already getting an increasing proportion of their requirements from renewable energy, but industry needs new, reliable sources of more intensive power to take the place of gas, oil and coal as part of Europe’s energy security and decarbonisation agenda. The result, perhaps inevitably, has been a new momentum for energy R&D.

‘There’s enormous impetus and an enormous amount of support for energy research in Europe,’ says Professor Tony Roskilly, Professor of Energy Systems at Durham University and co-Director of the university’s Energy Institute. ‘The biggest problem is getting things commercialised.’