Blog : Modular aquafeed installations

Organisation of the United Nations reports that the majority of aquaculture production small comes from developing regions in the world. Building an aquafeed mill in these regions could be challenging as mechanical and electrical installaton services are  not always easily available. Containerized or partially containerized feed mills could offer a perfect solution for this challenge.

Modernday feed mills could be designed and built as either a conventional or containerized feed mill. A conventional feed mill design requires the main building or superstructure to accommodate and support all the equipment required by the process.This design approach suits very large feed mills well. Containerized feed plants on the other hand are designed in a modular way, and normally contain all the plant equipment, electrical installation and process control equipment, assembled and installed into support structures the size of one or multiple standard 20‐foot shipping containers.

These modules or containers are laid out in a main building or superstructure that becomes a “shell” protecting the plant from the elements without direct support of the equipment.

Containerized and partially containerized feed plants as shown in Fig. 1, suits the  requirements and scale of Fish Feed manufacturing in especially developing and remote areas very well.

Process and engineering design and functionality

Whether building a conventional or containerized aquatic feed plant, it is and should be designed to fulfil a specific feed manufacturing function successfully.
This applies for extruded and pelleted Fish feed plants. At the same time, care should be taken to ensure the engineering design of the entire plant is done the right way. A containerized plant ensures this responsibility is left to the supplier, and leaves the processor with more me for marketing and operational business development. A containerized plant also takes away the burden of ensuring that all equipment in theplant is a good functional match and that everything goes together well at the me of Installation.

Mechanical and electrical installation

Sourcing good quality equipment from one or more suppliers is one thing. Making sure that all these items are installed and assembled in a way that optimizes plant performance while minimizing capital investment and ongoing operational cost, is quite another. Mechanical and electrical installation expertise are in many cases difficult to obtain in some  regions where aquaculture is practised. This may leave the customer with a massive challenge installing all equipment in a professional and
timely manner. In a well-designed containerized plant, all equipment, conveyors, electrical installation and process control devices are installed and assembled at the point of manufacture before shipping takes place.

Tested at point of manufacture

Days and even weeks could go to waste as customers are trying to get conventional plants and equipment tested and finetuned before start up can take place. Substandard electrical installation and process control systems normally contribute most to this situation. All of these are avoided with containerized plants as all mechanical, electrical and process control installations are tested at the point of manufacture.