Rolls-Royce salmon farm rejected by regulators
The fish farmer behind a huge, futuristic salmon farming barge partly designed by Rolls-Royce is to appeal a decision by Norwegian regulators to refuse development permits for the concept.
The “Eidsfjord Giant”, proposed by Eidsfjord Seafarms, is an integrated salmon farm barge 270 metres long and 45 metres wide.
Eidsfjord proposes producing fish in six tanks of around 11,500m³ - a total volume of 69,000m³.
The barge would also be packed with new technology. It has been developed in close collaboration with, amongst others, Rolls-Royce, who designed the actual construction.
17 licences
The company applied for 17 development licences for the concept, and last week learned the Directorate of Fisheries had rejected the application. Development licences allow farmers extra biomass, allowing them to grow and sell more fish to fund new ways of growing salmon.
The Directorate stated in the rejection that the concept pursued does not fulfil the condition of “significant innovation”.
“In this regard, the Directorate of Fisheries has found that the documentation in the application does not support the concept being realised as described, and in particular there is uncertainty as to whether acceptable care is taken of the environment. The Directorate of Fisheries has therefore concluded that the application from Eidsfjord does not meet the requirement of ‘significant innovation’, cf. section 23b of the Salmon Allocation Regulations,” wrote the authority.
Dependent on concessions
Eidsfjord chief executive Roger Simonsen told Fish Farming Expert’s Norwegian sister site, Kyst.no, the company was disappointed with the decision.
“We are now starting the task of appealing the rejection,” he said. “We believe this is a project that has great innovation in itself and which may involve taking the Norwegian aquaculture industry further towards the growth goals that the government has said we are going to have. But in order for this to be realised, we are dependent on having development concessions.”
The Eidsfjord Giant is intended for the growing of salmon up to 2.5 kilos. They would then spend three to six months in the sea before harvesting.
Electrical filter
Water brought aboard the vessel would be run through an electrical filter, which kills salmon lice in all stages.
“When it comes to board the barge there will be no lice on the fish as it will come straight from the smolt plant,” explained Eidsfjord Seafarms production manager Rolf-Arne Reinholdtsen.
“There will also be no lice on it on board, and then we plan to put it in the sea during a period of the year with few lice. I am quite confident that we will not be de-lousing.”
See a large photo gallery of the concept below.
