A Seattle-based energy startup, Endurance Energy, announced the world’s first successful attempt to generate electricity from geothermal heat on the ocean floor. They demonstrated the first end-to-end operation of an underwater geothermal power plant, comprising the entire process from drilling to electricity generation.
The startup also showed that operators in Seattle could control the system from an offshore location, remotely starting and stopping the equipment, monitoring temperatures and pressures, and collecting data without being underwater.
The company said the newly installed underwater test plant, named Adelie, generated a net power of 2 kilowatts for nearly 9 seconds. The electricity produced exceeded than the system needed to operate, the startup claimed, founded just over a year ago in January 2025.
In the latest trial, completed on September 27, the company moved beyond testing single components to make geothermal energy from the seabed a reality.
The process included drilling a well, landing and operating a power plant on the seafloor, converting geothermal heat into electricity, and communicating with the system from shore in real time, all in nearly three weeks.
”On Sept. 27, we put a power plant on an active underwater volcano and made power,” said Andrew Redd, founder and CEO of Endurance Energy. “This historic milestone is also our first end-to-end test. We now know, firsthand, what works at depth, what needs to be improved, and how to build the next system for sustained commercial generation.”
Engineers at the company tapped the heat energy of a nearby active volcano to produce the clean electricity from the ocean floor.
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