The water has a setpoint. The fish already knows it.

Heating and cooling for land-based aquaculture

Land-based smolt and post-smolt production runs on one number: the water temperature the production plan was built for. The plant has to hold it against the inlet, summer and winter, and the heat it removes is often heat the facility needs.

Discuss your projectSee relevant systems
Smolt and RAS plant with four units and three top exchangersEach unit and each top exchanger has four separate closed-water connections: warm supply and return, cold supply and return. Each top exchanger has two fish-water connections to a round tank. Inlet water and outlet water exchange heat in a separate recovery exchanger without mixing. The dry cooler serves cooling-only operation; a separate exchanger takes in outside energy for heating-only operation.Smolt / RAS facilitySeparate fish water and closed heating and cooling circuitsInlet and outlet waterHeat recoveryInletOutletTwo separate water paths.Heat crosses. Water does not.Tank 1Heating demandTop exchanger 1Tank 2Cooling demandTop exchanger 2Tank 3Cooling demandTop exchanger 3Warm supplyWarm returnCold supplyCold returnPlant roomFour water connections per unitR744Unit 1R744Unit 2R744Unit 3R744Unit 4Dry coolerHeat to outdoor airIdle in this modeEnergy source exchangerEnergy into the cold circuitIdle in this modeSolid = supply · dashed = return · grey = idleA crossing without a dot is not a connection.
Warm waterCold waterFish waterInlet waterOutlet waterOutside energy

Share energy between different tank demands.

Tank 1 is heated while tanks 2 and 3 are cooled. All four headers stay in use: the heat taken from the cooled tanks goes to the heated one. The dry cooler and the source exchanger stand idle.

Illustrative system principle: four units, three top exchangers and one tank per exchanger as an example. Pumps, valves, filtration and control are omitted. Not a delivered installation.

Challenges we can help with

  1. Hold the water setpoint in RAS, smolt and post-smolt

    Cooling against a warm inlet in summer, heating against a cold inlet in winter, from the same plant.

  2. Heat from where it already is

    Heat taken out of the fish water, or from a well, seawater or a dry cooler, delivered to the department or the building that needs it.

  3. Backup, alarms and documentation

    Control and alarm handling that match the operating regulations, and documentation your permit and the authorities can read.

  4. Wellboats

    Chilling the water around live fish is covered by sea water cooling. See the wellboat chapter below.

What the plants offer

Cooling and heating from one machine
Chiller and heat pump in one unit, so the heat removed from one loop can warm another.
Scalable from low to high capacity
A model series per family, and several units in parallel when the duty grows. Sized to your figures, never read off a shelf.
R744, a natural refrigerant
Not toxic, not flammable, GWP of one, and no phase-out date. It does not require a fire-rated EX machinery room, and it is well suited to heat recovery.
Made for retrofit
Compact units that fit into existing machinery rooms and plant rooms, replacing older plants without rebuilding the room around them.
PLC-controlled HMI with options
Our own control system and screen, with integrated flow measurement, valve control, remote access and a range of options chosen for your plant.

Wellboats: live fish, not dead catch

On a wellboat the job is the water around live fish. On trips longer than two hours, oxygen and pH must be measured and logged, and temperature monitored. The chilling itself is a sea water cooling duty.

Source: Norwegian Food Safety Authority (Mattilsynet), 17 July 2024

Explore sea water cooling

Relevant systems

Process cooling and heating

CO2PRO Chiller/Heat

Cooling and useful heat from one machine, sized to your flow and setpoint. Five sizes, CH_S to CH_XL.

Explore process cooling and heating

Send us biomass, flow, inlet temperature and target.

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Related

Fish receiving plants

A receiving plant takes what the boats land, when they land it. Between the quay and the cold store the fish passes several temperature duties, and the peak week decides whether the plant keeps up.

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Process cooling and heating

A CO₂ chiller and a heat pump in one unit. The heat your process gives off does not leave through the roof — it comes back as hot water you can use.

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Service

Our service department in Tromsø services all types of refrigeration plants, with industrial CO₂ and ammonia as its main fields — onshore, on board, and at aquaculture and RAS sites. One contact point, whether the plant carries a catch, a batch or a biomass.

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