Work is due to start on a new £20 million hatchery in Glenmoriston which will help to put 14 million in demand Scottish Salmon into the food chain per year.

Multi-professional construction design consultancy Pick Everard is to work with salmon producer Marine Harvest on a new Recirculating Aquaculture System (RAS) at Inchmore which aims to help to tackle the challenge of providing food for the world’s ever growing population.

The firm will also be delivering mechanical engineering design on the new recirculation hatchery on the site of Inchmore’s existing facility – the demolition of the former facility has now taken place prior to the start of work.

Doug Soutar, Pick Everard’s building services director for Scotland, said: “We have designed an innovative solution within a RAS facility by approaching the problem from first principles.

“We were effectively designing a life-support system for 14 million fish consisting of 18,000m3 of water at 15 oC located in an external environment with an extreme winter temperature of minus 20oC.

“We are working with the client to provide their state of the art facility with passive design solutions backed-up with energy efficiency systems and energy provision from renewable technology as this is the most cost effective way to save carbon and running costs.

“The solutions we are proposing have no precedent in the UK and so we really are on the leading edge of design in the marine aquaculture industry.”

The new hatchery will consist of a steel frame building housing the fish farm, water processing equipment, offices, labs and welfare facilities for staff, along with a viewing gallery for visitors.

Doug added: “To achieve a successful design solution we have carried out extensive research, liaising closely with marine biologists and process engineers, and have pushed our thermal modelling and mechanical engineering expertise in a new direction.”

The new hatchery will have a bigger green footprint as Pick Everard has worked to achieve lower day to day energy costs for Marine Harvest with associated energy requirements reduced by 50 per cent and cost by 65 per cent.

John Richmond, freshwater manager for Marine Harvest Scotland, said: “Our industry is expanding rapidly and farmed salmon is now the largest food export from Scotland. To keep ahead we need state of the art technology, which is what will be built at Inchmore.

“In this process we are very keen to minimise our environmental footprint so with this new hatchery design it’s definitely going to be a key achievement for us.”