Intuitive way of "visualizing" how the energy is stored in an inductor?
It seems to me that if you can &quot;visualize&quot; electric charges being separated in a capacitor as energy storage you should be able to do a similar thing with an inductor.
The energy in an inductor is stored in the MAGNETIC field that is created by the electric current in the coil windings.  The inductor opposes current flow when there is no magnetic field and that energy goes into building that field.  Then when the current is stopped, the field begins to collapse which creates a current that wants to continue what was going on before the interruption.
The capacitor and inductor are two sides of the same coin.  One is based on electric field storage and the other on magnetic field storage.