Research from Nofima confirms that there are a number of ways to farm salmon.

Ambitions are high, funding is available and the technology is well on the way when it comes to closed aquaculture facilities. This means that the road from research to implementation may be short. This is what tempted two international scientists to move to Sunndalsøra on the west coast of Norway, to be involved in developing the new generation of closed-containment salmon aquaculture facilities.

Nofima has developed in collaboration with European partners a fully automatic sensor to measure levels of nitrogen compounds in recirculated water.

Four Norwegian research institutions, two outside of Norway and several industry partners from technology and the aquaculture industry have now started operations at a centre for innovation in closed-containment systems. The centre, CtrlAQUA, has been given NOK 200 million and eight years to reach its own ambition to make closed-containment systems for salmon up to one kilogram off-the-shelf systems.

Nofima is one of 17 institutions chosen recently to become hosts for Centres for Research-based Innovation (SFI). The centre is to contribute to solving some of the main challenges facing the aquaculture industry, such as lice and mortality.

It may be possible that all farmed salmon can survive in the facilities used for postsmolt production in the future. The key is careful control of the salmon’s environment as it grows.

Full control is a vital concept for the sustainable intensive production of farmed salmon, with good fish welfare and a minimum of risk. We are working at Nofima to achieve full control of the environment in which fish live. This enables the full growth potential of the salmon to be realised, and reduces production costs.

The production biology department works with major challenges in the aquaculture industry, including salmon lice, escapes, animal welfare, sustainability and production optimisation.

AQUAEXCEL will provide the European research community with a platform of top class infrastructures efficiently offering tools to cope with the complex challenges the aquaculture is facing. Nofima's research facilities at Sunndalsøra and Tromsø are part of these top class infrastructures