Waste heat flows to new aqua research centre

On Thursday May 14, Nofima Marin turned on the taps bringing waste heat to its new Research Centre for Recirculating Aquaculture Systems at Sunndalsøra in Norway. The heat comes from Hydro's aluminium plant.

This marked a milestone in Nofima Marin's construction of the research centre, which will contribute to knowledge-based utilisation of recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) in Norwegian land-based aquaculture. Power company Sunndal Energi has laid a 750 m pipeline to connect the waste heat to the centre, and the pressure was turned on this week.

The waste heat will be used to heat the water in the tanks, the air used in the recirculation process and to heat the buildings. The water has a temperature of 90 °C when it reaches the centre, and it goes through two stages of heat exchange so that an optimal temperature of 12 °C is obtained before it reaches the fish.

Bendik Fyhn Terjesen, a Senior Scientist at Nofima Marin and Project Manager for the construction of the centre, says: "When the water for the fish also recirculates, we derive maximum utilisation of the system's heat energy. We hope through this to be able to contribute to the development of sustainable land-based aquaculture systems."

As access to water sources is limited, recirculating of water will become necessary at Norwegian fish hatcheries if the prognoses for production increases are accurate. There are also hypotheses that RAS technology is favourable for the quality of fish produced, given the environment is stable and extremely controlled.

Over the past two years, there has been a high level of building activity at Nofima Marin's research station at Sunndalsøra. The first of four RAS are now filled with water. Further building work at the centre still remains, but the water has been switched on now so the biofilters, which are important elements in water recirculation, are functioning well when Nofima starts experiments with fish in the autumn.