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French shrimp RAS firm launches thermal energy recovery project

(Image: Lisaqua)

Shrimp recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) producer Lisaqua of France has been selected as the launch pad for an ambitious project to use recovered thermal energy to power the company’s land-based aquaculture facility.

Founded in 2018, Lisaqua is on the verge of completing the construction of its 2,000-square-metre shrimp RAS facility, located near Nantes, in the Upper Brittany region of western France.

The company was the winner of “VALO’PULSE”, a Call for Expressions of Interest (CEI) launched in 2021 by SMITOM du Nord Seine-et-Marne,  the local waste treatment and recovery authority in the Greater Paris region and Veolia, a company that designs and provides solutions that are both useful and practical for water, waste and energy management. The call was aimed at agricultural or industrial project holders wishing to operate reliable, local and renewable sources of heat in order to limit the environmental impact of their activities. 

The project that will study the feasibility of setting up the first shrimp farm to convert the heat from an energy recovery unit in France.

The project was inspired by the “permaquaculture” approach Lisaqua has developed a low environmental impact aquaculture production system in land-based farms close to consumption areas.

Lisqua aims to produce the first fresh, local shrimp in France with a “triple zero” guarantee: zero antibiotics, zero kilometres traveled and zero polluting discharge. The company is limiting its environmental impact by saving 99 percent of water and by treating and recovering shrimp effluents by breeding marine invertebrates for animal feed.

“The convictions that we hold at Lisaqua as well as the current context, encourage us to favor reliable and local sources of heat,” said Gabriel Boneu, Lisaqua’s co-founder. ” Moreover, we are delighted to build this first farm project based on an industrial ecology model, in partnership with the very dynamic teams of the SMITOM and Veolia, who will be able to bring us their expertise and experience.”