Technology leader
How Israeli RAS expert AquaMaof is hastening the pace of development
AquaMaof is the technology partner of Pure Salmon, which has announced plans to roll out RAS systems globally with an annual production target of 260,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon. Here, Shai Silbermann, vice-president marketing and sales at AquaMaof, answers questions about future growth.
AquaMaof has had 30 years’ experience in indoor aquaculture systems – how recent was the move into salmon?
AquaMaof has been involved in growing salmon and salmonids for more than 15 years, starting by running salmon installations in North America.We also planned and built a facility in Russia that has been successfully growing salmon trout for the past five years.
Then, three years ago we adapted the Global Fish facility, which was previously growing tilapia, to salmon production.Today, we co-own the facility in Poland with 8F private equity fund (which is behind Pure Salmon), which uses it to grow salmon that has reached a market size of 4-6 kilos. And we are using this facility as a test bed for further developing our technology, as well as a training centre for training our clients’ staff on the technology and operation.
What other species has the company developed technology for?
We have also been involved with the growth of grouper, trout, tilapia, barramundi, seriola, catfish, and other species.We are currently researching several popular seafood species in order to develop tailored solutions for their production. Our flexible technology allows for easy adaption to additional species, as needed.
Is the company involved in all Pure Salmon’s ventures globally?
8F’s Pure Salmon project is an extraordinary initiative that is looking to produce a total capacity of 260,000 tonnes of salmon worldwide, and we are very excited to be a part of it.We are proud to have been selected as the project’s technology providers, following a rigorous due diligence process, that compared our technology to competing ones in areas such as consumption of resources, operational costs, reliability and more, and found ours to be advantageous.
Their goal is to produce 260,000 tonnes annually in five to six years – is that realistic?
As technology providers we confirm that in terms of the technology – yes, the goal is achievable. Our technology is completely scalable and this is one of the reasons that we were selected for this project.We also have complete faith in 8F, with their profound background and experience with large-scale business management, financing, and recruitment of operations personnel, and are confident that they will be successful in meeting the financial requirements.
And what other projects does AquaMaof have on the horizon?
We currently have dozens of projects in the pipeline over the next two to three years, with more than 10 physically in the works, either in construction stage or advanced design stage. The locations of these projects include Canada, Russia and Japan.
As for additional projects – not all of them will be announced as we wish to respect our customers’ requests for confidentiality, although we do look forward to announcing a few more locations throughout the coming months.
It’s an exciting time for land based aquaculture, seeing technology take a much more important role in the industry, and AquaMaof aims to pioneer the next generation of RAS based facilities with technologies that already have a proven success in many facilities worldwide.
Is the AquaMaof facility in Poland operated on a commercial or trial basis?
The facility in Poland is operating commercially, growing harvest sized salmon of 5-6 kilos, and also serving as an R&D and training centre. The facility has allowed us to conduct trials with the different technologies we are developing, with the goal to create a streamlined process with low operating costs and minimal carbon footprint of all future facilities.
What is its current production?
We expect to get to the full capacity of 580 tonnes within the next four months.
How much salmon has AquaMaof produced so far (in total) from land based plants?
So far we have produced hundreds of tonnes of salmon.
How does the cost of setting up a RAS salmon farm now compare to the cost of a conventional farm?
The gap is narrowing as restrictions on fish farmers by authorities are becoming more severe.They face much stricter quotas limitations and the price for fish farming licences is rising all the time.When you add to that the cost of mortalities and disease treatment, and the fact that RAS technologies keep advancing and becoming more and more efficient, we believe that the small gap in cost comparison will be eliminated soon.
“It’s an exciting time for land based aquaculture, seeing technology take a much more important role”
What are the main problems of scaling up?
As mentioned previously, our technology is more than ready for scale-up. Any challenges in scaling-up could be exterior and not related to technology, such as market demand, eggs and feed supply.
Is the AquaMaof technology suitable for any location/size?
In theory yes; however, there is a minimum of site size that will allow profitability and economics of scale. Typography is another challenge.While we can work with any given typography, if there is a need to flatten the area, it is a costly task that will affect the profitability of the project.The same goes for infrastructure – if there is no infrastructure in the area, and we need to include that in the planning and construction, it will increase the project value.
How much is site location influenced by local water/energy resources?
Our technology is extremely economic in terms of electricity and water consumption. AquaMaof facilities re-use about 99 per cent of the water, and one third of the electricity when compared to other available technologies. Still, water and electricity are factors we need to keep in mind as they do need to be part of the available infrastructure on the site.
What about waste disposal?
Absolutely. Although our technology allows for minimal discharge of water, there is still a need for an authority permit for waste disposal.
Is there enough expertise in this sector globally to manage all the new RAS farms?
We cannot speak for the entire industry, but we have anticipated this challenge, thus establishing a training centre, where our experts train our customers’ employees on our technology. In this way, they do not need to depend on an experienced workforce and they can bring new people to the industry to properly train. Our technology is also simple to operate and relies heavily on automatic procedures, so that the required experienced workforce in the operation is minimal.
In what ways is AquaMaof’s RAS technology more advanced than that of its competitors?
Generally speaking, our technology has a completely different approach: the fact that it is scalable allows improved capex and opex. Low power consumption enables lower energy costs.With no drum filters in the process, our facilities are extremely robust, requiring minimal mechanical maintenance.
Since approximately 99 per cent of the water is recycled, the technology has low water consumption and water discharge. Self-developed techniques ensure low risk for hydrogen sulfide toxicity (H2S), high efficiency on carbon dioxide stripping (CO2), reduced cost for oxygen supply and oxygenation technology, and reduced consumption of alkalinity adjustment chemicals.
Comprehensive and effective biosecurity protocols eliminate the need for system disinfection between batches, allowing continuous operations.
Our technology includes extensive redundancy in piping, oxygen, air and pumps, with manual override as an option.
We are currently conducting R&D on zero liquid discharge technology and on innovative off-flavour control technology. More projects under development include various advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence, big data, IoT, machine learning and more.
They will all be integrated into our technology to allow higher efficiency and streamlined operations, as well as lower footprint on the environment.