Mainstream Renewable Power founder Eddie O’Connor aims to raise up to €10m ($11.2m) to kick-start his latest venture SuperNode, which is designed to underpin a heavily interconnected offshore wind-powered Europe.
O’Connor – one of the best-known business leaders in the renewables sector – has assembled a team of 10 and is talking to investors over initial funding for the grid technology start-up, he told Ireland’s Sunday Independent.
“We're looking at raising up to €10m initially. We could do a lot with that to start us off,” he told the newspaper.
O’Connor, who stepped down as Mainstream CEO in 2017 but remains its chairman and main shareholder, has described SuperNode as “the linking piece of technology which makes the Supergrid happen”, referring to plans for a heavily-interconnected future European power system geared around offshore wind and other renewables.
SuperNode is an amalgam of hardware and software innovations that reduces power losses, extends range and allows variable renewable output to be routed over long distances to where it’s needed, say its developers.
O’Connor’s colleagues at Dublin-based SuperNode include its chairman, the former politician and president of the European Parliament Pat Cox, and CEO John Fitzgerald, previously a senior executive with TSO EirGrid and director of the East West Interconnector that links Ireland and the UK.
