SalMar Senja 1&2:
Using a flexible oxygen system in northern Norway

SalMar and Billund Aquaculture worked together to come up with fresh ideas and technological innovations that helped them build a very compact system that is capable of controlling the oxygenation needed in individual tanks.

Salmon farmer SalMar has strong links to the Troms and Senja region in northern Norway through its subsidiary SalMar Nord. The latter has investments in sea sites, a processing plant and a RAS smolt farm, which was commissioned to Billund Aquaculture.

This land-based facility, which is located about two hours from the city of Tromsø, consists of two projects that were built within five years of each other. The facilities are designed to produce around 29 million Atlantic salmon smolt per year, enough fish to secure self-sufficiency in the north of the country.

The site’s performance has been enhanced by several innovations, including one of the most advanced oxygen-booster systems in the market. According to Billund Aquaculture’s Group CEO & Founder, Christian Sørensen, one of the things the company learned from its experience with its first project, Senja 1, which was built in 2017, was the need to have a scalable oxygen system.

“At times, they wanted to produce more biomass in individual tanks. Therefore, we designed a flexible system that was able to run at a greater fish density in any given tank by keeping oxygen levels very high compared to other tanks,” he said.

This tailor-made feature allows greater adaptability to production requirements from the company’s sea sites, while also being a shining example of the good cooperation between Billund Aquaculture and SalMar.

Other remarkable characteristics of this smolt farm included the high-water quality and the ease with which operational personnel could move within the building, said Frederik Sørensen, COO & Project Director at Billund Aquaculture.

“The operational flow of the personnel within the building is quite good. SalMar feels that this system is well suited to its operations,” Sørensen said, adding that the whole experience of working with SalMar has been a fruitful one, especially on the Senja 2 project.

“The Senja 2 project has been helped by the back-and-forth process of sharing knowledge and ideas. Of course, much of our knowledge was based on the RAS concept. SalMar, on the other hand, contributed its experience in the day-to-day operations of a facility and provided the building concept. SalMar was a great team player,” Sørensen said.