Sumitomo Electric has formally opened the UK's first factory for high-voltage direct current subsea cables at the Port of Nigg in the Scottish Highlands, a £350 million investment that will directly create more than 200 skilled local jobs. The company says the total employment impact will exceed 400 jobs once the wider UK supply chain is counted.

The opening ceremony was held on 19 October 2026. The new plant covers 58,000 square metres of floor space on a 15-hectare site inside the Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport, and it will manufacture 525kV XLPE HVDC subsea transmission cables and subsea inter-array cables, the lines that carry power from offshore wind farms to where it is needed. The cables work as electricity superhighways beneath the sea, and the company says they will play a key role in connecting offshore wind resources with areas of high demand.

New staff will be trained through a Train the Trainer model and operator training programmes run in Japan. The Scottish Government invested £24.5 million in the factory's construction, and the Green Freeport itself received £25 million of UK Government seed funding. First Minister John Swinney and Secretary of State for Scotland Douglas Alexander attended the opening, which blended Japanese tradition with local Scottish custom, pairing the Kagami Biraki sake-barrel ceremony with performances by a father-and-son bagpipe duo from the area.

Sumitomo's president, Osamu Inoue, said the factory would serve as a vital production base for strengthening the UK's transmission infrastructure and expanding renewable energy. The Energy Secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, said making subsea cables in Scotland would help tackle the bottlenecks that block electricity from being moved around the country. Full details are in Sumitomo Electric's announcement.