Energytech Nexus Announces Inaugural COPILOT Cohort to Accelerate Energy Access and Resilience Pilot Demostrations Across the Gulf Coast

Houston, TX – [August 20, 2025] – Energytech Nexus (ETN) in partnership with Browning the Green Space announced today the 2025 cohort of its COPILOT program, supported by the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN²) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). COPILOT Accelerator helps energy tech startups deploy real-world pilot projects to advance energy access, resilience, and impact across the Gulf Coast.

The eight-month program provides participating startups mentorship from industry leaders, introductions to potential pilot partners, and training on business model validation, capital readiness, and how to run an effective pilot demonstration. Selected startups will gain exposure and showcase proposed pilots at the upcoming Pilotathon (during Houston’s Energy Climate Startup week) and at the Energy Tech Market during CERAWeek in March 2026. This year’s COPILOT participants represent breakthrough technologies across energy, infrastructure, and climate solutions:

· Accelerate Wind (Birmingham, Alabama): Developed a wind turbine for commercial buildings which uses a patent-pending technology to take advantage of the fact that wind speeds naturally increase as the wind travels over the edge of the roof.

· Aquora Biosystems Inc. (Ann Arbor, Michigan): Offers next generation organic waste biorefineries that overcome feedstock constraints and cost barriers that limit today’s approaches, unlocking the full potential of renewable natural gas (RNG) and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production.

· EarthEn Energy (Phoenix, Arizona): Developed a thermo-mechanical energy storage technology that uses CO2 in a closed loop to store 4-100+ hours of energy in a uniquely flexible & future-proof manner at a low cost, highly scalable & safe fashion.

· Electromaim (New York, New York): Installs micro hydro-generators in buildings' water systems to save building owners money while drastically mitigating their carbon footprint.

· EnKoat: (Chandler, Arizona): An advanced materials company whose flagship product, the IntelliKoat™ System, is a patented two-layer thermal and weather barrier roof coating designed for flat and low-slope commercial buildings.

· GeoFuels (Houston, Texas): Pioneering a carbon-neutral pathway to clean fuels by co-locating sedimentary-basin geothermal power with methane pyrolysis along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

· Harber Coatings Inc. (Calgary, Canada): Manufactures electroless nickel coating and electroless nickel plating in 20,000 square foot production facility and helps clients with corrosion and abrasion issues on industrial parts and tools.

· Janta Power (Dallas, Texas): Designs and manufactures innovative 3D solar towers to deliver high-efficiency, space-saving, and cost-effective solar power solutions.

· NanoSieve (Miami, Florida): Has a first-in-market gas remediation technology that removes flammable and toxic gases (natural gas, CO, H₂, ammonia) from indoor air in C&I, energy and transportation sectors.

· PolyQor (Houston, Texas): Converts plastic waste into eco-friendly construction materials. Its flagship product, EcoGrete™, is an additive for concrete that enhances its properties while reducing carbon emissions.

· Popper Power (Palo Alto, California): A hardware-integrated business platform for Public Lighting Operators (PLOs), transforming streetlight networks into ultra resilient, maintenance-free distributed charging infrastructure with 5,000 GWh of usable capacity.

· Siva Powers America (Buffalo, New York): A distributed wind turbine manufacturer operating in the sub 1 MW size range - deployed behind the meter at customer sites (large farms, industrial users, utility companies) with energy needs in the range of 300K – 2 M kWh per year.

· Thermoshade (Los Angeles, California): Specializes in passive cooling technology for outdoor environments. Their flagship product is a high-tech shade panel designed to reduce temperatures in outdoor spaces by up to 20°F compared to traditional awnings.

· V-Glass, Inc. (Waukesha, Wisconsin): Developed a next-gen vacuum insulated glass (“VIG”) technology for affordable, ultra-high efficiency windows having more than 3x the thermal performance of conventional windows, 2x longer life, and costing no more to produce.

“These startups reflect the future of energy access and resilience innovation,” said Juliana Garaizar, Founding Partner ETN. “By connecting them directly with partners through

COPILOT, we’re helping them overcome the ‘pilot gap’ to build solutions that scale. We are excited to work with these fourteen startups as they find win-win opportunities to deploy pilot demonstrations along the Gulf Coast. Nine of these companies are based outside of the Gulf Coast and are looking forward to deploying their technologies in the region. ”Energytech Nexus has partnered with corporations, universities, and government organizations for COPILOT to accelerate pilot installations along the Gulf Coast.

For more information about COPILOT and to follow this year’s cohort, visit www.pilotathon.com/copilot.

About Energytech Nexus: The EnergyTech Nexus is a global energytech hub on a mission to solve the energy trilemma of energy security, sustainability and affordability by connecting founders, investors and civic and industrial stakeholders. We are a community of founders, professionals, corporates and investors that helps each other form authentic connections, grow on our leadership journey, and gain access to critical resources.