Pittsburgh Coastal Energy is proud to announce our win at the EnergyTech University Prize competition on June 30, 2025. We were among 11 teams chosen for a $20,000 bonus cash prize for our work in Water Power Technologies which is sponsored by eight program offices at the US Dept. of Energy. We're always grateful to the American-Made Challenges for supporting U.S. energy innovation!

Pittsburgh Coastal Energy is featured as one of six start-ups to watch in this article written by Chloe Jad in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Read the article here.

Our time with the Anvil Founders Coaching Program (led by The CEO Strategy and InnovatePGH) is coming to a close and we are so grateful for the opportunity to participate. During the final showcase, we spoked to an audience about our PING technology and our plans to power underwater vehicles and other maritime internet of things (IoT). We are excited to see that the program is continuing for a second cohort, and has our full support! 

We had a great time in Boston wrapping up our participation in the Spring 2025 Blueprint cohort. We enjoyed our time visiting The Engine and networking with other Tough Tech founders at the final showcase event. The knowledge and connections we took away from this experience are a great help for building our startup. Until next time, Boston! 

We have incredible news! Pittsburgh Coastal Energy was named a grand prize winner in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Innovating Distributed Embedded Energy Prize (InDEEP)! 

For nearly 2 years, we've been developing a brand new type of energy converter, one that can generate electricity from the unlimited energy of ocean waves. Throughout the contest, we had the opportunity to learn from marine energy experts, receive technical feedback on our technology, and engage with other inventors who are building solutions to power the blue economy.   The win comes with a generous $200K cash prize that we will use to further develop our technology and grow our startup. A special thanks to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for supporting us through this journey! 

Pittsburgh Coastal Energy took home the $25,000 grand prize at this year’s Big Idea Competition at the University of Pittsburgh! Congrats to our team for their amazing work and thank you to the Big Idea Center for supporting our startup! 

We are honored to be selected for the Defense Innovation Unit’s Defense Tech Accelerator! We are just 1 of 8 startup nationally to participate in this program that will provide us an introduction into defense contracting so we can learn how to position our selves for doing business with the Department of Defense. We are excited to see what the next 4 months brings working with the Pacific Northwest Defense Coalition! 

This week, our team traveled to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to present at the Innovating Distributed Embedded Energy Prize (InDEEP) final forum. In the past 2 years, we have transformed our novel concept for Polar Ionic Nanogenerators (PINGs) into a demonstrated metamaterial prototype capable of generating electricity from movement. During the Phase III final event, we showcased our results, and demonstrated the potential of PINGs to one day power the future of maritime systems. 

We’re honored to be selected as finalist for the Duquesne New Venture Challenge. Out of over 150 entries, we were among the top 5 competitors for our business plan outlining how we plan to power unmanned underwater vehicles and other submersible systems using our novel ocean energy harvesting technology. 

This week, we showcased our subsea energy harvesting technology at the WEST 2025 conference in San Diego, CA. Founded by Navy veterans, our startup has a vested interested in supporting the warfighter and doing what we can to sure security for our nation. Our ocean energy technology has the capability for powering submersible systems like unmanned underwater vehicles, which has significant implications for the U.S. Navy and defense industry. 

Pittsburgh Coastal Energy was selected as one of the top 15% of applicants of the Defense TechConnect Innovation Challenge chosen to participate in Spotlight Showcase.  

Our team showcased our ocean wave energy technology in Austin, TX were we connected with end-users in the defense sector and validated that our tech solves a huge problem for underwater robotic vehicles by extending their duration at sea. It was a great opportunity to share what we're working on, and we were named a Defense Innovation Challenge winner! Looking forward to attending Defense TechConnect again in the future! 

Pittsburgh Coastal Energy was announced as 1 of the 20 Phase 1 winners for the Power at Sea prize. Our concept to charge underwater drones using ocean waves was awarded $10k to begin prototyping. In Phase 2, we will demonstrate our prototype for a chance to win up to $75k towards building our solution. 

We are proud to announce our grand prize win in the Big Idea Competition! What a great night at the Big Idea Center year end celebration! It's always a good time hanging out with our fellow Pitt entrepreneurs. Thanks to the BIC for all the support you've given us throughout our journey, we truly couldn't do it without you all. Great job to the other teams! 

We are thrilled to announce that Pittsburgh Coastal Energy was named one of 15 teams to win Phase 2 of the InDEEP challenge. We demonstrated the prototype of our new invention, the polar ionic nano-generator (PING), by converting mechanical energy into electrical power on a bench top scale. The win comes with a $80k cash prize and advancement to Phase 3 where our team will show a live demo of our PING technology within a meta-material. 

Pittsburgh Coastal Energy was announced as one of 19 Phase 1 winners of the Innovating Distributed Embedded Energy Prize (InDEEP) contest. We were awarded $15k from the Department of Energy for our concept for polar ionic nano-generators (PINGs) - small devices that convert ocean wave energy into electricity to provide clean energy at sea. Phase 1 consisted of a technical narrative and a technology performance level assessment to evaluate our concept’s technical merit and potential for wave energy harvesting applications. In Phase 2 of the contest, we will construct and test a PING prototype to demonstrate its ability to generate power on a bench top scale.