Nearly two dozen Norwegian companies have received salmon farming licenses to pursue pilots of their innovative aquaculture concepts, but when these futuristic concepts will hit the water at a large scale remains murky in some cases.

Norway's aquaculture development licenses
  • Developed to encourage innovation and increased sustainability in salmonid farming
  • Licenses are granted free of charge, but can potentially be converted to ordinary licenses for NOK 10 million (€1 million/$1.2 million) per license. One license equals 780 metric tons of maximum allowable biomass
  • The Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries received more than 104 applications for 898 licenses

Source: Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries

A total of 20 companies received 102 development permits between 2016–2020, and while many have not even begun construction of the projects, the Norwegian government says the green light to pursue the farming systems won't be turned off.