Petra Power

Market position

Petra Power describes an initial beachhead market in auxiliary power for freight and logistics, which it sizes at a $23 billion total addressable market, with a stated long-term objective of serving utility markets through behind-the-meter power systems, baseload generation, co-generation with existing turbine systems and integration into renewable fields. It frames its longer-term opportunity as first integrating with and later replacing existing turbines and generators, and its marketing references the next 100 GW of on-site power generation.

Petra Power positions its non-combustion, fuel-flexible fuel cell systems against conventional generators and turbines on efficiency, claiming up to 3x fuel savings and up to 90% better efficiency than combustion, alongside deployment timelines measured in months, designs targeting five nines of uptime, reduced maintenance intervals, and silent, odorless operation that eases siting in populated regions. The company also cites lower weight and size than other fuel-cell technologies and the ability to use existing fossil fuel infrastructure without requiring new fuel adoption.

Technology

The company's systems use solid oxide fuel cells derived from NASA-developed technology licensed to Petra Power, which electrochemically convert fuels including diesel, natural gas and hydrogen into electricity without combustion. The company states its patented approach delivers up to 90% better efficiency than combustion when using fossil fuels and better hydrogen-to-electricity efficiency than leading technologies, with decreased weight and size relative to other fuel-cell technologies, and supports high-performance electrolysis and reversible operation generating either electricity or hydrogen in the same unit.

Go-to-market

The company sells power systems directly to industrial, data center and utility customers, beginning with freight and logistics auxiliary power as a lower-barrier entry point before expanding into utility, commercial and residential power. It participated in the 2025 Techstars Alabama EnergyTech Accelerator, citing the opportunity to work with Alabama Power on utility use cases, to expand its customer pipeline, advance an existing fundraising round, and build its utility go-to-market plan.

Data center operators, customers requiring critical backup power, heavy industrial facilities, utility-scale power buyers, and, as an initial market, freight and logistics operators needing auxiliary power.

Geography

Headquartered in Solon, Ohio, with earlier operations at the BRITE Energy Innovators incubator in Warren, Ohio; the company has participated in the Techstars Alabama EnergyTech Accelerator in Birmingham, Alabama.

History

Petra Power was based for five years at BRITE Energy Innovators, a nonprofit place-based energy incubator in Warren, Ohio supported by the city of Warren, where it worked in a research phase after obtaining its NASA license. In May 2023 the company announced it had outgrown the incubator and would relocate to a build-out at 6565 Davis Industrial Parkway in Solon, Ohio, owned by Davis Development Group, with the facility scheduled to open in the fall of 2023; the city reported the company did not request incentives. At that time Petra Power was half-way through a 24-month U.S. Department of Defense contract of undisclosed size to further develop its technology and expand manufacturing capacity for DOD needs. In 2025 the company joined the Techstars Alabama EnergyTech Accelerator cohort, by which point its leadership included Aaron Goodman as co-founder and CEO, Phillip Clift as co-founder and CTO, Mark Kontos as CFO and Punkaj Ahuja as fractional CCO.