The Yuneec e430 electric plane is the world’s first electric airplane to be commercially produced. Electric cars are becoming quite popular so it was only a matter of time before electric planes started being manufactured. Electric planes can no longer be considered futuristic.

Bulky mobile phone chargers could soon be a thing of the past with handsets running on soft drinks instead.

Future hybrid cars may no longer need large batteries to store the kinetic energy created by braking with several new alternative technologies being developed in Britain.

If you’re concerned about water use in the home, power showers are a good place to start looking for savings. The EcoCamel shower head restricts the flow of water from the shower to 7 litres/minute – around half the flow of a decent power shower – which should result in significant saving if you use the shower a lot.

There’s no doubt solar energy is a compelling alternative to fossil fuels, but implementing it has traditionally meant installing the standard, costly and ungainly solar panel. SRS Energy’s dual-purpose roof tiles offer one way to get around that requirement; now another comes in the form of thin, flexible solar sheets that can be integrated with architectural building materials.