2016 has been a breakthrough year for Energy Storage, and to crown it off, it will be the subject of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. Professor Saiful Islam of Bath University will host the 2016 lecture series, which is to be titled ‘Supercharged: Fuelling the Future’.

Professor Islam’s stint at the podium will mark the 80th anniversary of televised lectures, and he says he will be honouring the past by revisting classic moments in Royal Institution history, such as Michael Faraday’s demonstration of electricity generation. He is also planning to catch his audience’s attention with a stunt that will see him cut the mains power to the Lecture Theatre’s lighting, and then bring them back online with batteries. It will need some planning to get right, as he wryly admitted in an interview with The Guardian: “What I haven’t worked out is how much power the lecture theatre requires.”

At the pace of progress today, there are few outside the field who fully grasp the potential of today’s energy storage revolution. With Professor Islam at the helm, the Christmas Lectures will be a superb platform to demonstrate just how exciting that revolution has become. We look forward to seeing him.