A truly green solar panel

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have generated enough electricity from moss to run a radio, raising the possibility that solar panels made from the humble plant could one day be a large-scale source of energy. Though less efficient than regular man-made solar panels, such a technology would have the benefit of being able to assemble and repair itself, while eating CO₂ – and be completely biodegradable.

Of course it’s early days yet. The research team has only been able to power their ‘Moss FM’ project for a few minutes at a time by connecting 10 ice cream container-sized ‘living batteries’ to the radio.

However team members say they are so far only capturing about 0.1 per cent of the power released by the plants and that “we could soon-ish convert people’s normal houseplants into little power-generators for charging phones”.

The technology works by capturing some of the energy released by photosynthesis, and in theory can be applied to any green plant. The researchers say it might even be possible to generate power in rural areas from crops such as rice by harvesting the plants’ power as they grow. In the meantime, the scientists say they are focussing on mosses “because they are beautiful and undervalued”.