FUTURE STUFF POWER TO YOUR PAD

Tom Wi ins has been shoppin in Ikea to find the best method of savin a tonne on your ener y bills

Ikea used to be all about meatballs, insanely long queues and infuriating flatpack furniture with funny names. But since launching its own wireless charging kit and inviting itself into your smart home with its Tradfri lighting, things have taken a turn for the techy at everyone’s favourite Swedish bookcase-flogger.

The latest product heading towards its catalogue might look like an astronaut’s fridge-freezer… but this is Ikea’s home battery, which you can have installed in your house to store the surplus energy generated by that bank of solar panels you had fitted to the roof.

Right now that energy gets sold back to your supplier at a loss, so storing it for future use, or to charge up your new Tesla, makes much more financial sense. Ikea won’t make the batteries – a UK company called Solarcentury will supply