Meet C-Power, Winner of the Startup of the Year in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA

This interview series celebrates all the phenomenal Startups of the Year Winners. Congratulations! Well-Deserved, Champion. The HackerNoon community is excited to learn more about you!

What does it mean for you to win this title?

We thank everyone who took the time to vote for C-Power, and we’re humbled by the validation they’ve provided that we’re pursuing a dream worth having — the dream of clean, abundant, renewable energy from ocean waves.

We are honored to appear side-by-side with our innovative neighbors in Charlottesville, Virginia. While our community is small, it is an innovation hub with a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem. We’re proud to be recognized both for our efforts to develop a new clean energy resource and as a leader in our innovative community.

What sets you apart from the competition?

C-Power makes the right ocean energy solution. Our autonomous offshore power systems are available anytime with 24/7 reliable power generation, anywhere for service in remote or populous areas and for anything from data gathering to utility-scale power generation.

Our technology is unique and patented. C-Power is the only company in the industry providing ocean energy systems that are 1) simple and reliable, 2) scalable, 3) easy to transport and at low cost, 4) deployable anywhere, and 5) can be delivered to the market rapidly.

What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem?

With headquarters in Charlottesville, Virginia, product development based in Corvallis, Oregon, and a U.K.-based subsidiary, C-Power’s 25-person global team brings more than 150 years of successful management, operating, and engineering experience from the renewable energy sector, early-stage prototyping and testing, and Fortune 500 companies.

We are talented engineers, proven sales, marketing, and business development professionals, and a seasoned management team — backed by highly successful board members and investors.

We’re driven by a passion to harness the ocean’s power to create a viable and powerful technology that will accelerate decarbonization.

At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics?

We are focused on building our sales pipeline, deploying and commercializing our technology, and putting the resources in place to support these efforts. We measure our success based on results across three primary objectives:

1. Build scalable, repeatable, and profitable revenue streams — including via government grant funding, customer contracts, and commercial contract revenue.
2. Expand our market leadership across targeted segments — including completing the design of our next-gen StingRAY utility-scale generator and deploying our third-generation SeaRAY in 2024
3. Grow our technical, commercial, and product delivery resources by raising a new round of investor funding and increasing our team to 40+ in 2024

Tell us how your startup is changing the world.

Decarbonization is a massive global effort, but currently, available means to decarbonize aren’t enough to get the world to its collective net-zero emissions by 2050 target. The ocean is the biggest and best battery on Earth, and it covers 71% of the Earth’s surface. C-Power is adding ocean energy​ to the global renewable energy portfolio with high-value strategic innovation.

First, we are helping unlock the digital, autonomous, decarbonized future of offshore operations with lower cost, lower complexity, and lower carbon solutions. Second, we will develop large-scale solutions to bring renewable ocean energy to electric grids around the world.

How do you or your company intend to embrace the responsibility of this title in 2024?

We will continue to innovate and continue ocean energy to new frontiers that have never before been reached. For example, C-Power will soon be launching an 18-month field test in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to advance the next generation of SeaRAY autonomous offshore power system, expanding its use cases and proving long-duration survivability and reliability in one of the harshest ocean environments. The co-sponsored pilot project scheduled for the new PacWave South wave energy test site off the Oregon coast will showcase the next-generation SeaRAY’s ability to provide power and communications anywhere in the ocean, anytime, and for anything.

What goals are you looking forward to accomplishing in 2024?

With the commercialization of our SeaRAY ocean energy system, we look forward to partnering with key customers in 2024 to deliver custom-built solutions and realize commercial revenue.

Which trend(s) are you most excited about in 2024? Share your reasons.

The main drivers of economic growth in the terrestrial economy in the last decade have been the related trends of digitalization, electrification, and AI-driven autonomy. However, the ocean economy has lagged because all of those trends require power, and the ocean is a power desert. In 2024, we expect digitalization, electrification, and AI-driven autonomy to take hold in the ocean economy, unlocking a future of tremendous growth for key industries operating offshore.

2023 had been another crazy year, especially in tech, with layoffs and the Generative AI takeover! Which trend are you most concerned about? Be as brief or as detailed as you like.

At the global scale, the acceleration of climate change caused by human-generated greenhouse gas emissions remains the world’s most existential threat. That is why we are dedicated to unleashing new renewable energy resources that can match the scale of wind and solar energy.

We are also concerned by the trend of increased physical attacks on critical infrastructure, including infrastructure located in the ocean, such as the Nord Stream Pipeline. With the ability to provide power and real-time data communications to sensors in the ocean, C-Power’s SeaRAY ocean energy system can be a critical part of the solution for intrusion detection and infrastructure security.

We would love your feedback on HackerNoon as a tech publication! How has your experience been with us?

We at C-Power appreciate HackerNoon’s efforts to spotlight innovative and groundbreaking startups from around the world — and from communities large and small. What’s more, we appreciate that you’ve invited the public into the conversations.

Any words of wisdom you’d like to share with us?

Though Startup of the Year is a competition, innovation is not. To overcome the massive challenges facing the world today, such as infrastructure security and climate change, we must continue to collaborate and invest in big ideas.