Norway approves offshore aquaculture development project

The Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Fisheries has given approval for the country’s first development concession allowing Ocean Farming to establish the first automated, exposed aquaculture facility in the world.

Ocean Farming will be supported by Norwegian technology firm Kongsberg Maritime.

The new facility, which is located outside the city of Trondheim, helps the European country in its efforts to provide significant technical solutions to meet the impending global food gap challenge.

Kongsberg Maritime president Egil Haugsdal said: "The Ocean Farming facility introduces a paradigm shift in salmon farming now, and other fish types in the future.

"With greater focus on biology and nurturing healthier fish, the concept delivers significantly improved yields that will prove important in the decades to come as part of Norway’s strategy to leverage its aquaculture and offshore expertise to meet the challenges of accelerating population growth and the pressures these places on the world’s food supply chain."

The new Ocean Farming facility has been set up to overcome the challenges of traditional inshore fish farming facilities and thus has been positioned in deeper waters.

The facility is a submerged, anchored fixed structure which better suits water depths of 100m to 300m, as the aqua biological conditions in that region are ideal for aquaculture.

It is fully automatic with normal operation that needs a minimum crew of three to four people, and can also be remotely operated.

Kongsberg provides technology and engineering services to the project that combines the best of traditional technology and solutions from the Norwegian fish farming industry and the offshore oil and gas sector.

The company also delivers EIT engineering services, including delivery and deployment of the gensets and aqualight systems.

Kongsberg Maritime Business Development Aquaculture Operations principal engineer Thor Hukkelas said: "To succeed in placing fish farming in exposed areas as a viable solution to address the food gap challenge, we need to integrate and harmonise a wide range of maritime and offshore technologies, for the fish farm itself and the new vessels that will serve it."

For the new fish farm, Kongsberg will supply the K-Chief 600 automation system, which controls a large number of different systems.

It delivers an extensive telecoms and positioning package to include products such as Maritime Broadband Radio (MBR) for communication between offshore sites and to shore and Motion Reference Units (MRU).

The company also supplies the AIS requirements of the project, through delivery of the AISBS610 system and related AIS infrastructure.

Kongsberg will also deliver the high-tech Simrad EK80 scientific echo sounder, a range of underwater cameras and an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP), velocimetre and O2 sensors.

These products can precisely detect fish in deep waters and their movement to ensure effective feeding.

They will also be able to show advanced 3D display of the fish and relevant environmental parametres.

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Image: First automated aquaculture facility of the world in Norway. Photo: courtesy of Kongsberg.