Researchers have figured out a way to plug into the power generated by trees . Scientists have known for some time that plants can conduct electricity . In fact , researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that plants can pack up to 200 millivolts of electrical power . A millivolt is one - thousandth of a volt . And although the popular potato or lemon battery experiments have shown that an electrical current can be generated by creating a reaction between the food and two different metals , power is harvested from trees through a different mechanism . " We specifically didn ' t want to confuse this effect with the potato effect , so we used the same metal for both electrodes , " said Babak Parviz , a professor of electrical engineering at Washington University and co - author of the study . After spending the summer surveying trees , the researchers discovered that big leaf maple trees generated a steady voltage of up to a few hundred millivolts . Powering a circuit , however , required a much higher voltage . To extract electricity from trees and convert it into useful energy , researchers built a boost converter capable of picking up as little as a 20 millivolt output and storing it to produce a greater output . By hooking it up to a tree using electrodes , the custom - built device was able to generate an output voltage of 1 . 1 volts , enough to run low - power sensors . The study will be published in an upcoming issue of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ' Transactions on Nanotechnology . While Parviz admits that “ tree power ” isn ’ t as practical as , say , solar energy , he thinks the system could be scaled - up as a low - cost option for powering tree sensors that help detect environmental conditions or forest fires . Using the electronic output to keep track of a tree ' s health is another possibility . " Normal electronics are not going to run on the types of voltages and currents that we get out of a tree . " Parviz said . " As new generations of technology come online , I think it ' s warranted to look back at what ' s doable or what ' s not doable in terms of a power source . " < From - www . livescience . com > Is this the Electicity harvested from tree ? If it ' s true , I could have been a rich .