Could Your Electric Vehicle Be Powered By Plants In The Future?

Peugeot used Nova Innova's plant-based power to light this night photoshoot.
One of the more unusual news announcements in the last week was that the first photoshoot has taken place powered by plants, and it was of a Peugeot electric vehicle. In collaboration with innovative Dutch product design studio Nova Innova, Peugeot used a technology called a microbial fuel cell to power the lights for a photography session. The results are destined for an art exhibition in the Saatchi Gallery, London. I talked to founder Ermi van Oers how this technology works, and whether one day it could be charging the EVs themselves, not just a photoshoot’s lights.
How Do You Get Power From Plants?
“I started Nova Innova seven years ago with the mission to combine nature, science and design,” says van Oers. “We can collaborate with the intelligence of nature and instead of the industrial metal metabolism we design now, create a natural metabolism fulfilling our daily needs. I came across microbial fuel cell technology. This has existed for some time, but it always remained in small experiments and laboratories. I wondered how we could integrate that into our daily lives, because these microbes are not just living in water, but also in our organic waste in the soil of our plants. They live everywhere there is organic matter. I imagined a future where all these sources are connected to our homes. You don’t check your fuse box anymore; you check how your plants are doing in your garden or if the lake is still healthy.”
Everyday earth has the bacteria required for a microbial fuel cell.
Nova Innova
Microbial fuel cells harness a biproduct of a certain type of bacteria. “As they break down organic matter these microbes produce electrons as a waste product,” says van Oers. “When we eat food, we also produce energy, but we keep it ourselves to move and to have energy. But these electrogenic bacteria want to give their electrons away so they search for things to give them to. The microbial fuel cell provides that. It looks like a battery. It has an anode and a cathode. In between the anode and cathode is a membrane. The electrons go through the wires through our electronics, through our lights.”
However, the power output from this system isn’t huge. “It produces just a little bit of electricity,” says van Oers. Each cell produces 100-300mW only. “This needs to be matched to small power applications. We are harvesting milliwatts but if we develop the technology it can become more. You can compare it with a solar panel of 30 years ago which was very new, unknown and pricey. People asked why they should invest in solar because it’s only a little energy, and you see where it is now. A microbial fuel cell doesn't work like a coal power station that can deliver the highest energy possible. It must always work in balance with nature. If not, the whole process stops. The first applications we make are with lights or other low power applications. What is impressive with this technology is that it is a CO2 negative energy source and very scalable because these microbes are everywhere around us. You can almost imagine that we will plant more forests or keep our lakes clean and healthy because it can become like a power plant.”