The facts speak for themselves, however. On an international scale, the IEA highlights that the world’s electricity use will need to grow 20% faster in the next decade than it did in the previous one – and that’s just to meet countries’ existing (and inadequate) energy and climate goals. Demand will need to grow even faster to hit net-zero emissions by 2050.

If the world is to meet even the existing goals, the IEA reports that countries will need to add or refurbish the equivalent of the entire existing global grid by 2040 – some 80 million kilometres of cables and infrastructure.

In the UK, the goal of achieving clean power by 2030 remains alive following NESO’s landmark report from November last year. However, it is set to be a close-run thing that will “push the limits of what is feasibly deliverable”. More than twice as much transmission network needs to be built in the coming five years than the previous 10. And February’s report by the National Infrastructure Commission warns that between today and 2050, £37-50 billion of investment in the distribution network could be needed to support additional demand and generation.

The challenges facing the energy sector are therefore significant, but there are some exciting technologies on the horizon that could help to overcome them.

Squeezing more capacity out of existing infrastructure in a cost-effective way is one key avenue of innovation. Over the past decade, superconducting cables have been used to boost distribution in several European and US cities, and multiple startups are working to make the technology suitable for full grid integration. The commercialisation timelines for these technologies mean that they may only start making a significant impact towards the end of the 2030 target period. However, other innovators are working on ways to boost existing transmission and distribution technologies – such as by tackling overheating and other capacity-sapping, lifespan-limiting phenomena.