Algae Power Wall: going back to a Macao student team after two first prizes
Updated: Sep 29
When we set up "Chief Circular Officer", one question kept coming up: what happens to a good student project once the prizes have been handed out? Usually, not much. There is a presentation, a ceremony and a group photo, and then everyone goes back to class. We wanted the programme to keep working with teams that show potential, and help them take a project from the idea and the design all the way to a realistic way of building it.
This is one of those teams.
In March, three students from Colégio Diocesano de São José in Macao, 劉孝賢, 袁曉恩 and 林宇瀅, brought their project Algae Power Wall (綠動牆) to the 1st Greater Bay Area "Chief Circular Officer" Youth Sustainable Innovation Competition. The competition took place on 28 March 2026 in the Green Exchange Zone at Cotai Expo, The Venetian Macao, during MIECF. EcoBay Alliance co-organised it with the China Macao Federation of Youth Culture, the Macao Institute of Environmentalists and ENEEF. Their supervising teacher, Ho Yim San, guided the team through the project.
The team won first prize in the Secondary School Group. Lawrence Cheung, Co-founder and COO of EcoBay Alliance, presented the award.
After the competition, EcoBay Alliance recommended the team and arranged for them to take part in Invention Convention China (ICC). Algae Power Wall won a national first prize there too.
On the afternoon of Friday 25 September, EcoBay Alliance General Manager Zhang Hai Yan led our team on a visit to the school to interview the students about how the project came together.
What Algae Power Wall does
The students' idea is to fix microalgae culture tanks to the outside wall of a building. The algae take in carbon dioxide as they photosynthesise. Electrodes in the tanks, a carbon-cloth anode and a zinc cathode, collect the electrons the algae release during metabolism, and that produces a small current.
They designed the wall in five layers:
Outer layer: transparent perovskite solar glass. It turns ultraviolet and some infrared light into electricity and lets through the blue and red light the algae need. Its design specification is about 15–25 W/m². That is a design figure, not a measurement.
Biological core: microalgae on top and a layer of Vibrio fischeri, a bacterium that glows, underneath. A semi-permeable membrane keeps the two apart.
Electrode layer: the carbon-cloth anode sits against the algae, with a zinc cathode.
Control layer: sensors track temperature, pH, light, current and voltage. AI control adjusts the system to the load and the weather, and helps stop the algae overheating.
Storage layer: lithium batteries hold surplus power from the day for landscape or emergency lighting at night.
The algae liquid also insulates and cools the wall, and spent algae can be used as fertiliser.
What the students measured
The team tested a single module with Chlorella at 5 g/L. Voltage peaked at just over 700 mV. Output was steadier with light, and in the dark the algae still produced some voltage through respiration.
What the numbers mean
Some figures in the project are estimates from published work, not measurements. The BIQ House in Hamburg, Germany, has an algae façade of about 200 m² that fixes around 2.5 tonnes of CO₂ a year. Based on that case, the students' report estimates that a 10 m² wall could absorb about 125 kg of CO₂ a year.
The electricity from the algae is small. Published studies put it in the range of microwatts to milliwatts per square metre, and the students' report notes that this is well below ordinary solar panels. It cannot power a whole building. The case for the wall is that one façade handles several jobs at once: taking in carbon, cooling, producing some power, and showing passers-by how it all works.
What we heard at the school
What our team noticed most was how happy the students are doing this. It is something they really love.
They also want to take the research further. Apart from the single-module test, most of the project is still at the theory stage, mainly because they have not had the support to go further.
What we will do next
We plan to arrange for professionals and people from relevant industries to meet the students in person. They can answer the team's questions about the project, help find where the difficulties are and how to solve them, and study with the students whether the wall can work in practice and whether it makes commercial sense. If we can find a suitable pilot site, we would like the students to try it out for real.
Lawrence Cheung said: "I don't want students to feel they're making a science toy that adults don't pay attention to. We want to respect their work, stand beside them and use our own resources to support it together. Even if it fails in the end, the process is enough for them to see that the difficulties in the real world, and in the society they will go into later, are much greater than thinking up a technical project."
About "Chief Circular Officer"
"Chief Circular Officer" is the name of EcoBay Alliance's ESG education programme. It is not a job title. Students start from a problem they can see in daily life, build something to deal with it, and then put it in front of judges and people from industry. The competition is one part of the programme. Recommending teams to national platforms, going back to see how they are getting on, and connecting them with people in industry are the other parts.
We will keep in touch with the school and share updates as the team moves forward. Congratulations to 劉孝賢, 袁曉恩 and 林宇瀅, and thanks to Ho Yim San and the school for their support.
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