随着人工智能消耗的能源量日益增加，寻找高效且具成本效益的电力来源的竞赛也在加速进行。其中一家领先的公司是Petra Power。
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成立于2017年，专注于销售固体氧化物燃料电池——一种陶瓷装置，能够将天然气等燃料转化为电能，而无需燃烧。该公司将其产品宣传为运行数据中心和大型车辆更高效、更环保的方式。
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的创始人Aaron Goodman在接受TechCrunch采访时表示，其公司的产品相比传统电力来源具有显著更低的燃料成本和排放，而且由于体积更小、重量更轻，其物理占用面积也大幅减少。
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.
正是这种效率以及随之而来的成本节约，使得燃料电池具有吸引力。“燃烧会消耗燃料并产生爆炸，”Goodman说道，描述传统发电方式的工作原理。“这些爆炸产生热量。热量又产生运动。运动带动电动势，最终产生电能。这个过程包含许多步骤，每一步都伴随着巨大的能量损耗，因此最终得到的是一个极其低效的系统。”
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的燃料电池跳过了其中的大部分步骤。“燃料电池的工作原理是直接从燃料中获取电子，也就是说，它们从燃料中剥离电子，从而产生电能，”他解释道。“这一过程只需一步，几乎没有损耗，因此理论上至少，它们的效率要高得多。”因此，使用燃料电池运营的公司有望在燃料成本上实现显著节省，Goodman说道。
Petra’s fuel cells skip most of these steps. “What fuel cells do is they take the electrons directly off of the fuel, so they strip the fuel of its electrons, which creates electricity,” he explained. “It’s one step, no loss, and subsequently, in theory, at least, they’re much, much more efficient.”As a result, companies that run off fuel cells stand to save a significant amount on fuel costs, Goodman said.
尽管Petra可能提供了一种创新产品，但其客户群仍处于初期发展阶段。Goodman表示，公司目前正瞄准两类不同的客户：数据中心和国防部。
Although it may offer an innovative product, the customer base is still emerging for Petra. Goodman said that his company is targeting two different types of customers: data centers and the Defense Department.
古德曼目前不想透露具体的协议，但表示Petra目前正在与neoclouds以及其他比超大规模云服务商低几个层级的基础设施提供商合作。古德曼说，与这些客户的首次部署目标是2028年，公司希望在2029年实现全规模生产。
Goodman doesn’t want to reveal specific agreements just yet, but said Petra is currently working with neoclouds and other infrastructure providers that were a few steps down from the hyperscaler crowd. The target for first deployment with these customers is 2028, with full-scale production for the company hopefully set for 2029, Goodman said.
“超大规模云服务商是我们的理想客户画像（ICP），我们也经常与他们交流，但目前尚未达成任何确定性协议，”古德曼说。“我们仍在朝这个方向努力。显然，他们是最大的电力消费者。我们能够在这些客户身上产生最大的影响，因此这是我们想要迈向的方向。”另一类客户——政府——目前也仍在形成中。其理念是，Petra的燃料电池能够为陆地车辆提供辅助电力，即在主发动机关闭时为车载设备供电。
“Hyperscalers are an ICP [ideal customer profile] for us, and we talk a lot to them, but we don’t have anything firm with them yet,” said Goodman. “We’re still kind of working in that direction. Obviously, they’re the largest consumers of power. They’re the ones that we can make the biggest impact with, so that’s where we’d like to go.”The other customer — the government — is also still taking shape. The idea is that Petra’s fuel cells will be able to provide auxiliary power for land vehicles, meaning electricity for onboard equipment when the main engine is off.
但古德曼澄清说，Petra的产品尚未在实际车辆上部署。相反，燃料电池目前处于测试阶段，在此期间政府正在决定是否推进该项目，他说。
But Petra’s product has not actually deployed on a live vehicle yet, Goodman clarified. Instead, the fuel cells are in the testing phase, during which the government is deciding whether to move forward, he said.
Petra是一个小团队——大约15人——但公司正在增长，古德曼说。Petra目前已从国防部获得近900万美元的合同，他表示希望在未来几年将这项工作规模显著扩大。
Petra is a small team — some 15 people — but the company is growing, Goodman said. Petra has so far received nearly $9 million in contracts from the Defense Department, and the hope is to scale that work significantly in the coming years, he said.
Petra Power被选入今年的TechCrunch创业大赛200强，这是一个由200家初创企业组成的项目群体。您可以在本周于旧金山市中心的莫斯康尼西馆观看所有精彩内容。
Petra Power was selected for this year’s TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200, a group of 200 startups chosen for the program. You can catch all the action this coming week in downtown San Francisco at Moscone West.