Mowi takes delivery of refurbished feed barge

The first of five fully refurbished Sea-Cap barges (pictured) has been delivered to Mowi Scotland at Loch Etive.

The move is part of a project to reduce the number of farms from four to three while ensuring that all operations and the visual appearance of the sites meets the highest standards.

Three barges will be used in Loch Etive and will feed remotely from the shore base, reducing marine traffic on the loch and vessel emissions, while two barges will be available for Mowi’s operations in Ireland.

Mowi said in a statement that the upcycling of redundant concrete barge hulls into low profile energy-efficient hybrid barges will provide sustainability benefits and cost savings of around £4 million relative to purchasing new feed barges.

A consultation exercise was held with residents in the Loch Etive area. The sites have been part of Mowi since it acquired them from Dawnfresh in 2022.

Area manager Clara MacGhee, said: “Upon consultation to gauge the views of the communities surrounding Loch Etive, residents were largely supportive of the changes to lower profile equipment and hybrid battery barges.”

Some, however, said that farming operations could be tidier, so this shift is an important step to reduce the impact on the surrounding area, she added.

Dougie Gibson, who is a specialist in vessel and barge engineering, said: “The refurbishment and re-use of these redundant barges is a great use of resources with a positive outcome for the environment. All five barges have been fitted with sound proofing and designed to lessen the height and visual profile, reducing emissions and noise.”

He added: “Working constructively together with the multi-disciplined Gael Force team at its facility in Inverness has delivered this successful project outcome for Mowi.

“Not only does this project represent an excellent example of the industry benefits from upcycling aquaculture assets, but also demonstrates to the wider aquaculture sector the breadth and depth of technical engineering competence which exists within Scotland.”

Stewart Graham, Gael Force Group Managing Director, said: “We were challenged some years ago with how we may deal with end-of-life small concrete barges; whether to fully dismantle, decommission or re-purpose and we came up with the lowest impact idea to upcycle the Sea-Cap feed barges to unmanned low profile feeding units.

“With the advances in technology and barges now being able to be remotely operated from feed control centres, it became clear that there was a potential large sustainability and economic upside to upcycling the barges.

“We reconfigured the designs, removing the superstructure thereby lowering the profile and the visual impact, fitted new up-to-date Gael Force SeaFeed systems and hybrid power solutions.

“All design and upgrade works were carried out at our quayside location in Inverness. It is a superb example of low environmental impact and low-cost repurposing of an existing asset which, due to the hybrid system fitted, will now also run with very significant energy savings too and we congratulate Mowi for its vision and commitment to this ongoing upcycling project.”