Israel salmon RAS pilot plant is ready for first fish
40-tonnes-per-year facility will pave the way for full-size commercial farm
A land-based salmon farming project in Israel will reach an important milestone next week when it stocks fish in a new 40-tonnes-per-year pilot facility.
Spring Salmon, situated at the inland site of Sde Eliyahu in the north of the country, has already raised approximately 20,000 fish in five overlapping production batches in a proof of concept (PoC) facility, with the first batch having now reached market size of 5 kg.
The young fish that will be transferred to the pilot will come from the PoC.
Investor confidence
“The purpose of the pilot facility is to provide the operational experience, technical knowledge, and investor confidence required for the development of a commercial-scale farm with an annual production capacity of 1,500 tonnes or more,” the company’s chief executive Barak Goldshmit told LandbasedAQ.com in an email.
“We already own the land adjacent to the pilot facility, and the site has the required permits and infrastructure - including water, electricity, and wastewater disposal - to support construction of the commercial farm.
“We are currently evaluating the technological configuration for the commercial facility. The pilot farm, which is now being stocked, will subsequently serve as the hatchery and nursery facility for the future commercial operation.”
Israeli innovations
Spring Salmon’s shareholders are agricultural corporations that have been involved in fish farming and fish marketing since the 1940s. They include InnoValley - the International Innovation Centre for Agriculture, Aquaculture, Climate, and Industry – that aims to build a regional innovation ecosystem that drives growth in agriculture and industry in the Springs Valley and Jezreel Valley region.
United States-based aquaculture industry supplier Innovasea provided the engineering design for the pilot facility, while Benchmark is supplying salmon eggs from Iceland, and feed is coming from Skretting, said Goldshmit, who is also head of InnoValley’s aquaculture division.
“Aside from that, virtually all of the supporting technologies integrated into the project have been developed and supplied by Israeli companies,” he explained.
These include innovative concepts in the field of energy efficiency.
Energy optimisation
“Growing Atlantic salmon in a fully controlled indoor RAS facility in a region where the average annual temperature exceeds 30°C and summer temperatures can reach 50°C presents unique challenges, and energy optimisation has been one of our primary areas of focus throughout the development process,” said the CEO.
“In parallel, we are advancing a new biological water treatment approach based on an innovative Israeli municipal wastewater treatment technology.”
Goldshmit said Spring Salmon’s view is that conventional biofilters used in RAS essentially represent extensive bacterial cultivation alongside intensive fish production.
“We are evaluating a new biofilter concept that enables intensive bacterial cultivation instead. This approach has the potential to significantly reduce biofilter volume, integrate nitrification and denitrification within the same treatment concept, and reduce the energy required for biofilter aeration.”
Reducing cooling costs
Another key area where Spring Salmon hopes to save costs is in cooling the water.
“We are evaluating a solution that has the potential to reduce the energy required to maintain water temperature by a factor of two to three (cost of production aspect),” explained the CEO.
“This concept combines ideas from civil engineering (separation design), building materials (isolation), the utilisation of local environmental conditions (geothermic), and the optimisation of heat exchange points throughout the system.”
The HOD (Hydro-Optic Disinfection) Ultaviolet system from Atlantium Technologies is also one of the systems being used in the pilot facility.
“We’ve spent years keeping water clean on more than 1,000 aquaculture sites - including salmon farms in Norway, Chile, and Canada. Now that same HOD UV is part of this pilot,” said Israel-based Atlantium in a LinkedIn post.
“The single HOD UV unit on the recirculation loop clears residual ozone and holds the water clean before it cycles back to the fish. Salmon don’t forgive water-quality mistakes,” added Atlantium, which exhibited its products with partner GroAqua at Aquaculture UK in Glasgow last month.