Crossword Genius

Difficult storing energy that's picked up (5)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

heard

'picked up' is the definition.
(hearing is a kind of picking up)

'difficult storing energy' is the wordplay.
'difficult' becomes 'hard' ('hard' can be a synonym of 'difficult').
'storing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'energy' becomes 'e' (physics symbol as in E=mc2).
'hard' placed around 'e' is 'HEARD'.

'that's' is the link.

(Other definitions for heard that I've seen before include "Was told of" , "Tried" , "Gave ear to" , "Attended to" , "Received aurally" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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