IT'S hard to believe that just over a hundred years ago, in 1900, there'd never been a radio programme or light from a tungsten filament bulb. That really wasn't long ago, just part of my grandparent's experience, but now we have colour television, the internet, orbiting satellites, world wide telephone communication, and electricity is now taken for granted.

So we clearly know how to make all the little electrons speed along to provide us with almost unlimited power for immediate use, but we're still struggling to find a way to store it to meet future demand. This holy grail of unlimited power would be the ability to capture the electricity from solar farms in deserts, and from wind turbines and the tides, and then store it for future use – just like a petrol station where we can purchase the energy lurking in fossil fuels which learned this trick in the geological past. We could then tap into it just when we needed it.

It's not that we haven't tried, and perhaps we could have been a bit more determined, though the fossil fuel companies haven't been too helpful. We have managed all sorts of batteries, from small ones in hearing aids and watches, to those in our cars, the even larger stand by ones used for emergencies, and now we are developing lithium-ion batteries to power cars rather than just turning on the ignition and providing the lights.

There's also the promise of lithium-titanate batteries, larger and longer lasting, but it will be some time before their usefulness is properly established or they become economic. So until we develop a technology to provide unlimited electrical storage we'll have to depend on other, proven methods to store electricity. One in particular is in use every day, pumped storage.

It doesn't create any extra energy but it does make it possible to store surplus for use at a more appropriate time. There are peak demand times during the day, while at other times less is needed, so it's possible to use some of the spare to prepare for later, more expensive, demand.

There are schemes in Wales, and Scotland, using hollows produced by glaciation and slate quarries, where spare power is used to pump water into a high level reservoir at night for use later in the day. There's a proposal for another in the Llanberis valley, at Quarry Battery, in north Wales, and it would be possible to have smaller versions dotted around on high coastal cliffs.

It's even better when the pumping doesn't cost anything, as in tidal lagoons with the moon and the tides chipping in, and these simple technologies have much to commend them.