Canadian firm buys bigger share of Norway market

For the past decade, Nortek Akvakultur has been providing high quality environmental data to Norwegian salmon farmers, with equipment installed in more than 300 sites in every major production region in Norway. 

Realtime Aquaculture, which was acquired by InnovaSea in 2017, has developed underwater wireless technology that provides a scalable solution for monitoring aquaculture sites. 

‘Closer to the industry’

In a press release, InnovaSea chief executive David Kelly said: “Nortek Akvakultur brings us closer to the industry in Norway and adds a team of skilled developers with unique expertise developing solutions for the industry. Combining Realtime Aquaculture and Nortek Akvakultur is a logical step in growing the business and expanding opportunities both in Norway and globally.”

Tor Skoglund, managing director of Nortek Akvakultur, said: “We've recently moved our operations from Oslo to Bergen, bringing us closer to the industry and our major clients. This acquisition further strengthens our position by providing access to new technology that we believe can be a game changer as we work to help our customers monitor conditions in every cage.”

Continued innovation

Atle Lohrmann, chief executive of Nortek, said: “Nortek’s early transition to cloud-based systems has allowed us to successfully deploy hundreds of monitoring stations with a minimum of local effort. We are pleased to see how InnovaSea brings continued technological innovation to the community by using underwater communication as part of the solution.” 

Realtime’s “aquaMeasure” wireless sensors measure a variety of factors including salinity, dissolved oxygen, temperature and tilt.

They send information to an “aquaHub” which is deployed in the field and supports many telemetry protocols for cloud communications.

Realtime’s salmon farming customers include Cooke Aquaculture, Mowi (Marine Harvest), Cermaq, Grieg Seafood, Tassal, Huon and Petuna.