“The argument against land-based aquaculture is that it demands too much energy, and in that way costly production,” said Energy Harvest’s Trond Melhus to newspaper Lofotposten.
“Should we succeed with this system, then costs cut be cut by 80 to 85 percent,” he added.
Melhus owns the company along with his wife, but he’s been a developer of industrial products for years. He explained his pump patent for RAS, or recirculated aquaculture systems, to the newspaper.
“Energy Harvest’s system uses energy that’s used to get water moving and under pressure to push new water into the system before water goes out of the system. The same pressure applied to the water on the way in is reintroduced before the water goes out of the system. This means the system does not use more energy regardless of how high you want your tanks to be, or how high you want to place the tanks.”
The plan is to install a prototype after the summer of 2018 at Moskenesvaagen in the Lofoten Archepelago of northwest Norway. The prototype is currently being built and tested.
