Eddie O’Connor’s power transmission technology firm, SuperNode, has raised an additional €16m in funding from the entrepreneur and its Norwegian co-owner.

Mr O’Connor, who founded SuperNode, sold a majority stake in his Mainstream Renewable Power group in 2021 to Norway’s Aker Horizons. That valued Mainstream at €1bn and Mr O’Connor’s then 55pc stake at €550m.

He founded SuperNode in 2018 in conjunction with Mainstream and owns 50pc of the business. Aker also now owns 50pc of SuperNode following its acquisition of Mainstream.

SuperNode designs superconducting transmission systems to integrate renewable energy and connect electricity markets. It bills the superconducting technology as requiring less materials, being more efficient and lower in cost than any other viable alternatives.

“With this funding, we will advance the development of our technology at our specialised European Cryogenic Centre for Superconductors,” according to SuperNode chief executive John Fitzgerald.

He added: “We are confident in our capacity to deliver ground-breaking and transformative superconducting cable systems that can revolutionise the energy and transmission sectors and facilitate the acceleration of electrification powered by renewables, needed to decarbonise the world’s economies.”

Mr O’Connor, a former Bord na Mona chief executive who founded Airtricity in 1997, has previously said that SuperNode is the “key to unlocking the complete decarbonisation of Europe”.

He said in 2021 that he expects SuperNode to be in a position to bring some projects to a financial close around 2025.

The company notes on its website that a European supergrid would allow for the free transfer of power across “huge swathes of land”.

“This would solve the intermittency problem of renewable energy by opening up routes to a much wider range of demand centres, while also ending the wasteful curtailment of energy,” it adds.

Last month, SuperNode said that an interconnected pan-European energy system can reduce costs by up to 39pc when compared with a business-as-usual approach.