Taking a salmon farm off diesel: Huar Norte, Chile

Salmon pens out at sea run feeders, lights, cameras, oxygen sensors and pumps around the clock, and with no cable to shore that power usually comes from a diesel generator, with fuel brought out by boat.⁵ In mid-2025 Mowi switched on Chile's first floating solar system at a salmon farm, at its Huar Norte site.^2,3 AKVA group built the pens and fitted the solar panels to them.^1,4 Alotta Energy supplies the power as a service.⁵ The Norwegian company had already run the same system on the Norwegian coast.³ Fjord Maritime provided the batteries and the energy management system.⁴ The companies expect the sun to cover about 57% of the site's power, saving about 139,200 litres of diesel and 350 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.^1,2,4 These are projections; none of the reports found gives measured results. The site is in the Los Lagos region, on one report.⁵

Who needs an answer

• Salmon farm operators, deciding whether to put solar and batteries on other sites, and how big.
• The companies that sell power as a service, sizing systems for sites with different light, weather and loads.
• The crews at the pens, since the system is expected to cut boat runs for fuel and generator noise.

The domains it chains

Sunlight and weather over a southern Chilean site through the year. The electricity the farm draws hour by hour for feeders, lights, cameras, sensors and pumps. Batteries, with a generator kept as backup. Boats carrying fuel out to the pens.

What a twin should let people try

• Sizing: how much more panel and battery would take the share from 57% towards all of it, and where the cost stops being worth it?
• Seasons: how far does the share fall in the short days of a southern winter, and what has to run on diesel then?
• Other sites: which farms, given their light, weather and loads, would gain most from the same system?
• After a year: how do the projected savings compare with the diesel the generator burned?

Where to start

The figures above come from the companies' announcements, through AKVA group's own page.¹ An energy system model such as PyPSA can size generation and storage against an hourly load; the use case on electrification lists what else such a model needs.