Petra Power looks to modernize energy for data centers and defense vehicles

The startup says its fuel cells are super efficient and cut fuel costs during a time when the tech industry can’t get enough electricity. As AI gobbles up an ever larger amount of energy, the hunt is on for efficient and cost-effective power sources. One of the companies leading the charge is Petra Power. Petra, which was founded in 2017, sells solid oxide fuel cells — ceramic devices that convert fuel, like natural gas, into electric power without burning it. The company markets them as a more efficient and environmentally friendly way to operate data centers and large vehicles. Petra’s founder, Aaron Goodman, told TechCrunch that his company’s product has significantly lower fuel costs and emissions than traditional power sources, and that they have much less of a physical footprint, too, because they’re more compact and lightweight.

The efficiency, and the cost savings that come with it, is what makes the fuel cells attractive. “Combustion takes fuel and creates explosions,” Goodman said, describing how traditional power generation works. “Those explosions create heat. That heat creates motion. The motion powers an electromotive force, which eventually creates electricity. It’s a lot of steps, and they all have so much loss in them that you end up with a really inefficient system.” Petra’s fuel cells skip most of these steps. “What fuel cells