Petra Power holds nearly $9M in Defense Department contracts for fuel cells still in testing

Goodman's case for the cells is an argument about how many times energy changes form. In conventional generation, he told TechCrunch, burning fuel causes explosions, explosions make heat, heat makes motion, and motion drives the electromotive force that finally produces electricity, with losses at every step ^[12]. It is a fair description of a generator, if a loud one. Petra's cells, he said, take electrons directly from the fuel in a single step ^[13]. On that basis he called them much more efficient, at least in theory, and said the efficiency could cut customers' fuel bills ^[13][14].

The qualifier is Goodman's own. He also said the cells emit less than conventional sources and are smaller and lighter ^[15]. Neither report includes an efficiency figure, a price, the fuel the vehicle units would run on, or how the $9 million divides across contracts and years. Before a fuel-savings claim like his can carry over to another operator's site, we'd want a measured efficiency at the load that operator actually runs, published next to the fuel price it assumes.

On the evidence, the only contract value Petra has disclosed is military ^[1]. The government is still deciding whether to take the cells past testing ^[4]. Goodman said Petra hopes to expand that partnership significantly in the coming years ^[9]. A vehicle trial can check the size and weight claim directly. In our view that makes the defense program the better near-term test of what Petra says its cells do.

Nearly $9 million across a company of about 15 people ^[8] works out to just under $600,000 a head ^[11]. We think the sum pays for development at that headcount. Petra was founded in 2017 ^[2], so its first planned customer deployment comes 11 years in ^[10].