SuperNode Opens a Cable Technology Centre in Blyth to Build Superconducting Cables
SuperNode, an Irish superconducting transmission developer, has opened a Cable Technology Centre in Blyth, Northumberland, its first facility outside its Dublin laboratory. The centre is where the company will produce its first superconducting cables for bulk power transmission, including prototypes for a project with National Grid. It marks a move from laboratory work toward pilot-scale manufacturing.
The Blyth centre moves SuperNode beyond the laboratory
On 25 November 2024, SuperNode announced the opening of a Cable Technology Centre in Blyth, in the north-east of England. The company described it as the place where it would produce and then deploy its first superconducting cables for bulk electricity transmission outside its Dublin laboratory, the first phase of a multi-year plan to develop next-generation transmission cables.
Setting up a dedicated production facility is a different kind of step from a funding round or a research result. It is the point at which a developer commits to making hardware at a scale that pilot projects can use.
The first prototypes feed a National Grid project
The centre’s early output is tied to a specific project. SuperNode said Blyth would produce prototypes for SHINE, short for Superconductors for High Current Innovation for Network Enhancement, at National Grid’s innovation centre in Deeside, with prototypes to be delivered in 2025.
SuperNode’s aim is transmission cables that carry substantially more power than conventional copper while needing less infrastructure. That is the same density advantage behind most superconducting cable work, explained in our cable anatomy article, applied here to long-distance bulk transmission for renewable power.
A step toward pilot-scale superconducting transmission
SuperNode is backed to develop superconducting links that could move renewable electricity across long distances with low losses. A production facility feeding a National Grid pilot is a concrete move in that direction. The company appears among the transmission developers in our project tracker.