Power from plants may soon become a reality

Power from plants may soon become a reality

Netherlands researcher to set up first venture in Andhra Pradesh.

After floating a startup in 2007 and scaling up to a commercial venture six years later, Dr. Marjolein Helder, doctorate degree holder from Wageningen University and Research Centre in Netherlands, has now come forward to take up extracting electrons from living plants to generate electricity in Andhra Pradesh.

Dr. Helder, who took part in an interactive session on future technologies at the recent CII Partnership Summit, told The Hindu that she held talks with Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to set up her first venture in A.P. Stating that India was a big market for them, she said they were generating power on a low scale for decorative purpose for illumination in a limited way in hotels, commercial, residential and R&D buildings to showcase the potential to use plants in an innovative way.

Her firm Plant-e at present has seven full-time employees and 13 partners. She said during her maiden visit to Visakhapatnam, she found the city very clean and beautiful.

Initiative

Asked to comment on how she started the initiative, she said with a grant of Euros 250,000, they kick-started the innovative project. Now they wanted to launch licensing model after taking up some ventures in Luxembourg, United Kingdom and France.

“Now we have reached a stage to scale up further to use the plants for other purposes also to reduce the carbon footprint,” she said. The firm today has a turnover of Euros 3 million.

She said carbon reduction was a big challenge and the need of the other was to use sustainable technology. She said she met Mr. Naidu first at Davos during World Economic Forum meeting in 2017. On his invitation, she came to India to explain details about her project.