Big heat output with low power input for Salmon Evolution

PTG Frionordica in Malme­fjorden has won a contract from Ålesund-based Artec Aqua to supply an energy plant able to deliver 30 kW of heat for each kW of power used. Low energy consumption will help to cut operating costs and the carbon footprint for end customer Salmon Evolution. 

The plant, which comprises six large heat pumps, forms part of the first devel­opment stage for Salmon Evolution’s land-based fish farm at Indre Harøy in Hustadvika local authority on the west Norwegian coast.

Ultra-efficient
The biggest heat pumps to be delivered will have a nominal output of 6 000 kW and weigh 20 tonnes apiece.

“These units are ultra-efficient compared with other heat-pump techno­logies,” says Per Johansen, vice president sales at PTG Frionordica. “You get 30 kW of heat from each kW of power delivered to compressor and pumps.”

The heat pumps being delivered to Salmon Evolution have a basic coeffi­cient of perfor­mance (COP) of 13, but their output will be reinforced by an effluent heat exchanger to yield an input-to-output ratio of no less than 30.

Spin-offs
A number of companies in the Møre og Romsdal region are involved as suppliers to the Salmon Evolution devel­opment, with Artec Aqua as the turnkey contractor.

“We’re an expertise-based company which handles all the inter­faces between the various suppliers for a construction project,” explains project manager Ole Gunnar at Artec Aqua.

He estimates that the first Salmon Evolution construction stage corre­sponds to about 325 work-years. Put another way, that means 163 people will be at work on site or at a supplier for every day this stage lasts.

“We expect to have about 200 people on the construction site at peak,” says Ole Gunnar Lyngstad, project manager for the Indre Harøy farm where work is now in full swing.

All deliveries from PTG will be manufactured at the Malme­fjorden factory, which lies only about 20 kilometres from the Salmon Evolution devel­opment. When completed, the latter will rank as one of Europe’s largest fish farms on land.

Premier opening
PTG decided in the autumn of 2019 to spend more than NOK 20 million on expanding its Malme­fjorden factory. This project is now completed, and the enlarged plant will soon be filled with big heat pumps destined for Salmon Evolution.

Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg will perform the official opening of the new premises via the internet, and will also be virtually present at the signing of the contract between PTG Frionordica and Artec Aqua.

Began in 1979
The arm of PTG currently based in Malme­fjorden north of Molde has been refining fish processing technology since 1979. It all began with a contract to build a heat pump for a smolt facility at Sæter Fiske­opp­drett in Sunndalen. The leap is wide from this initial unit, with a nominal output of 60–70 kW, to today’s Salmon Evolution pumps of 5 000 and 6 000 kW.