View of the 'Salfjord I – Tjeldbergodden' project, a land-based oceanfront aquaculture facility located in the municipality of Aure, on the northwestern coast of Norway.
Image: Salfjord.
Norwegian land-based aquaculture company Salfjord announced today that its large-scale salmon farm will have electrical power from May 2028. The approval by the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) for the construction of a new transformer station in Tjeldbergodden, the industrial park where Salfjord's facility is located, secures the company's schedule for developing the future of aquaculture with the establishment of this significant industrial project in the municipality of Aure, in the Nordmøre region.
As Salfjord noted in its announcement, power supply is a critical issue for its land-based fish farming facility, and this clarification from the authorities provides the company with the necessary predictability for planning the construction and stocking of the first fish.
"The confirmation of when Salfjord can start production is a crucial milestone for the investment decision. This gives us and our investors the necessary predictability to carry out the capitalization of the project," said Chair of the Board Jan Harald Hauvik.
"This opens for concrete dialogue with long-term industrial and private investors who wish to participate in realizing one of Norway's largest industrial projects at Tjeldbergodden," he added, inviting interested parties to contact them for more information about investment opportunities.
The County Council of Møre og Romsdal, western Norway, granted Salfjord a permit to cultivate salmon on land for a maximum standing biomass of 21,000 tons - equivalent to the capacity of 27 licenses for traditional fish farming in the sea - in July 2023. However, the land-based salmon company had already requested a grid connection for power supply in April 2018.
As the company has now explained, capacity queues and grid development processes mean that the electrification of large industrial projects takes time in Norway. Establishing the power supply for a facility the size of Salfjord in Tjeldbergodden requires coordination with Statnett, the national transmission grid operator, and with the regional grid company Mellom AS.
Statnett formally allocated grid capacity to Salfjord in March 2025, and the full capacity of 55 MW will be available in 2028, when the necessary upgrades to the transmission grid are completed. The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE), for its part, approved Mellom AS's concession application for the establishment of the transformer station at Tjeldbergodden in October 2025.
This construction will make electricity physically available to the large-scale land-based salmon farm in Salfjord, as mentioned, one of Norway's largest industrial projects. As it will be in 2028, that means ten years will have passed between the application and the actual availability of the power.
Aerial view of the plot in Tjeldbergodden industrial park, where Salfjord's land-based facility is under construction, and the transformer station will also be built.
"This is the last tick in a long series of important milestones that have been achieved," said Hans Ramsvik, CEO of Salfjord. As reported by WeAreAquaculture last August, the company met several major milestones during the first half of 2025.
So far this year, the company has received confirmation of aquaculture licenses following the dismissal of appeals filed by the Directorate of Fisheries; approval of a detailed zoning plan allowing for the production of up to 30 million smolt and 43,000 tons of salmon, trout, or rainbow trout per year; the aforementioned allocation of 55 MW of power for the Tjeldbergodden site—which has resulted in the achievement of power for 2028 announced today—and a position in the queue for another 55 MW at Hyttneset; and it has announced the appointment of Robin Fladseth as Chief Operating Officer.
"The clarification of the timing for power access gives us confidence in the schedules for Salfjord I – Tjeldbergodden, where the construction of the Oceanfront fish farming facility with closed operations will ensure good living conditions for the fish and minimize impact on the environment and wild fish. We look forward to contributing to innovation and value creation in Norwegian aquaculture," Salfjord's CEO stated.
Robin Fladseth, as mentioned, recently appointed COO of the company, also commented on what today's announcement means for the Norwegian land-based aquaculture company. "With power in place, Salfjord can realize its vision of the future of food production – with a focus on sustainability, biology, fish welfare, technology, and local value creation," he said.
Henning Torset, Mayor of Aure, the municipality where the Salfjord large-scale land-based salmon farm has been built since October last year, agreed with this statement regarding local value creation.
"The establishment of Salfjord's facility at Tjeldbergodden is very important for Aure municipality and the surrounding region," the Mayor said. "That the facility has now received the power allocation it needs is good news. The founders behind Salfjord have put in a lot of work to bring the project to where it is today."