Emergency power generation at salmon farm a matter of life or death

So, when Bakkafrost loses mains power, emergency gensets fitted with a control solution from DEIF brings it back. 

“Now, if we lose power, it’s back in the plant within 23 seconds precisely, and everything is up and running,” says Jógvan Hansen. “I’m convinced we have a good and secure system – one that we can trust.”

The consultancy firm SMJ Engineering had contacted DEIF for help in selecting an emergency power solution at Bakkafrost. Because Bakkafrost wished to have dual-supply security (2N), DEIF made a complete switchboard design based on primary control from the AGC-4 Automatic Genset Controller, along with redundant 24V supply that achieves three security levels.

Jógvan Hansen says other fish farms on the Faroes are currently expanding, due to the global demand for high-quality North Atlantic salmon. And he believes that the DEIF system that Bakkafrost uses will be the standard for emergency gensets in the future. “We’ll definitely see more systems like this,” he says. 

“I’m very proud of our generators, for sure,” he adds. “People come from other places to see how our generator system works. That makes me proud. And some of the things are being copied. The exciting thing is that we got what we wished for. That’s what we have today.”

DEIF supplied a full switchboard delivery consisting of four AGC mains, one AGC BTB and four AGC DG, as well as one AGI 400, in addition to commissioning and training.

Read more about DEIF’s Critical Power solutions.

Bakkafrost is a leading producer of top-quality salmon from the Faroe Islands. Its facility on Vidareidi covers the first part of the salmon production chain. It develops eggs into smolts, then transfers them into sea pens for final development.

Demand for Faroe Islands salmon is high, so Bakkafrost has been expanding its production facilities to encompass more fish for a longer period of life. The company has started to increase the size of smolt in the basins from 130 g to 400 g. The weight increase means that once the salmon is living in the sea, it will be there for less than a year, compared to 1.5 years previously. One benefit of this is that larger smolt are more resistant to parasitic salmon lice –the biggest threat to salmon in open waters.