Boston, US-headquartered aquaculture tech company Innovasea has begun installing a complete real-time environmental monitoring system at Grieg Seafood’s new remote Red Island salmon farming site in Newfoundland on Canada’s Placentia Bay.
Innovasea advises that the system will provide baseline data on dissolved oxygen, salinity, chlorophyll, blue-green algae and turbidity levels at the site as well as information on currents and weather before the 10 pens are stocked with Atlantic salmon later this year.
“Real-time data is a necessity for today’s aquaculture operators because it helps them protect fish stocks, optimise production and operate in a safe, sustainable manner,” Tim Stone, Innovasea’s vice president of product development, said. “We’re excited to provide Grieg with the best environmental monitoring tools in the industry so it can successfully open up this new area to salmon farming over the next decade.”
The deployment is part of a $27 million initiative with Canada’s Ocean Supercluster that aims to improve data-driven decision making in aquaculture. Grieg is leading the Supercluster’s Integrated Operations and Real-Time Analytics Project in partnership with Innovasea and SubC Imaging.
According to Kendra MacDonald, CEO of Canada’s Ocean Supercluster, the collaborative efforts of the supercluster and the project partners will deliver a transformative global operations capability in aquaculture and provide important environmental, safety and economic benefits.
The environmental monitoring system at the remote site includes wireless aquaMeasure sensors and an aquaHub that uploads data to the cloud via cellular network.
“Our technology delivers real-time data to farm operators 24/7 no matter where they are so they can make objective, analytical decisions well in advance or at a moment’s notice,” said Stone. “A lot of aquaculture sites are in rugged, far-off locations, but Innovasea’s solutions ensure the data is always available when you need it.”
This year, Grieg will transfer 3 million salmon smolts from its hatchery in Marystown, Newfoundland, to the pens in Placentia Bay. The fish will be harvested starting in 2023, with the company planning to harvest 15,000 tonnes of salmon in the region by 2025.
Eventually Grieg will be raising salmon across 11 sites in Placentia Bay, harvesting up to 45,000 tonnes of salmon per year.
