The centre will contribute to the green shift, several of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the fulfilment of the Paris Agreement.
Aquaculture is key to meet the needs for food, feed, materials, energy and climate solutions for a growing global population. Norway, which has one of the world’s longest coastlines, can take a leading role in this development, and the Norwegian Seaweed Centre will contribute with its unique infrastructure for research and innovation along the entire value chain for macroalgae cultivation.
The Norwegian Seaweed Centre provides modern equipment for research and innovation in an integrated full-scale technology platform run by interdisciplinary research environments at SINTEF and NTNU in close cooperation with the industrial sector. Its infrastructure consists of onshore and offshore facilities for macroalgae cultivation at coastal and exposed sites and integrated production with salmon in integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA).
The offshore facilities and surrounding areas are visualised using mathematical ocean models connected to sensor networks for monitoring environmental conditions, the uptake of nutrients and CO2 and production of macroalgae in the facilities. The centre will establish an automation and robotics laboratory for onshore and offshore facilities, a mobile system for pre-processing, stabilization and storage solutions for harvested raw materials, as well as laboratories for processing, product development and quality assessments.