E-learning platform: Energy and Water Efficiency in the Aquaculture Sector
- Adela Vitkovska
- Nov 6, 2025
- 5 min read
Start date 01-12-2018–End date 31-05-2021
EU Grant–193.727,00 €
Programme–Erasmus+
Key Action:
Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices
Action Type:
Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training
Countries covered–5
Coordinator
SGS TECNOS
CL Trespaderne 29
28042 Madrid
Comunidad de Madrid
🇪🇸 Spain
Coordinator Type: Large enterprise
Phone: +34961868900
Summary
CONTEXT AND NEEDS:
The aquaculture sector has experienced an important development over the last half-century, which has led it nowadays to account for nearly half of the fish supply in the world. It is expected that the increase in future fish demand will be satisfied through aquaculture production. Aquaculture accounts for about 20% of seafood production in Europe and directly employs about 85 000 people, mostly in rural and coastal areas.
The sector has started to incorporate the principles of sustainability from early stages. However, in the fields of energy and water efficiency, the different proposals focus on acting on the main existing horizontal technologies, such as pumps or filtering systems, or on the optimization of energy contracts to reduce costs. These proposals mean an improvement that soon is diminished by the appearance of new inefficiencies in other points of the facilities or by productive changes that demand new revisions on the conditions of acquisition of energy. The high energy consumption of this sector is due to the need to use high consumption technologies, such as pumps, aerators, or tempering systems, as well as the fact that many of these facilities are located far from cores urban areas, making an additional difficulty in terms of availability of energy resources. For these reasons, there is a growing demand for a minimum level of training in the energy field that allows, both those responsible for the production and the technical teams in charge of the control and maintenance of the farms, to detect and act appropriately on the inefficiencies that may occur in different energy and water systems.
OBJECTIVES:
The consortium proposed the development of the training program Energy and Water Efficiency in Aquaculture (EWEAS) whose objective was to offer these professionals the necessary skills to:
- Detect significant plant consumption and establish its optimum working range.
- Perform and interpret the measurements of energy consumption in the main equipment.
- Get to know and understand the different concepts of billing and hiring of energy supplies, in order to facilitate decision-making
- Determine which are the most relevant energy consumption indicators and their current values, as well as being able to recognize the variations that they may encounter, as an indication of improvements or problems in production.-
- To be able to assess the foreseeable impact on these indicators of the proposals for energy or water improvement that may arise in the future,
The tools provided address the computerized treatment of the information collected and the analysis of energy indicators and improvement proposals. It provides the operational managers of the centers, the capacity, and necessary tools for continuous plant control. Planning, detection of needs and evaluation of alternatives and decision-making is essential to guarantee an adequate future operation of the farms, from the point of view of energy and water efficiency.
The training program has been transformed into an e-learning program to make all these resources available to the sector through an interactive platform. This Open Educational Ressource is accesible online to everyone
The EWEAS program proposes best practices, innovative tools, and practical solutions in order to increase growth and productivity by reducing their carbon footprint and wastewaters.
CONSORTIUM:
-SGS Tecnos (Spain) is a multinational company leader in certification, inspection, and testing, with strong expertise in energy efficiency and environment, as well as being ERASMUS + project leader and coordinator, with great results success.
- API (Italy) The Italian Fish Farm association, the main representative of the aquaculture sector in Italy.
- AquaTT (Ireland) is an SME with a not-for-profit mandate which works to empower research in aquaculture and marine sectors.
- KGZS - Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry of Slovenia is the representative organization for the agriculture, forestry, and fishery
- Biedrība Eurofortis (Latvia) is an expert in European educational projects, developing learning tools and methods, as well as e-learning materials.
BENEFICIARIES AND IMPACT:
The main beneficiaries of this new training program are the aquaculture workers, professional associations of the sector, fish farm managers, energy agencies, as well as public and private training centers.
The EWEAS program facilitates self-management and control of water and energy consumption, giving them simple tools for their control and management, it reduces their energy bill as well as the carbon emissions and wastewaters. These companies increase their energy efficiency and are able to accede to better certification, and their workers can gain professional skills, computer literacy, increase their mobility, and the procedures in the aquaculture facilities are more homogeneous at the European level.
Partners
AquaTT UETP Ltd 🇮🇪 Ireland
PLEASANTS STREET OLYMPIC HOUSE UNIT 8 SECOND FLOOR
8 DUBLIN
Dublin
🇮🇪 Ireland
Partner Type: Small and medium sized enterprise
Phone: +35316449008
ASSOCIAZIONE PISCICOLTORI ITALIANI 🇮🇹 Italy
VIA DEL PERLAR 37 A
37135 VERONA
🇮🇹 Italy
Partner Type: Social partner or other representative of working life (chambers of commerce, trade union, trade association)
Phone: 39045580978
BIEDRIBA EUROFORTIS 🇱🇻 Latvia
ANNINMUIZAS BULVARIS 38-37
1067 RIGA
🇱🇻 Latvia
Partner Type: Non-governmental organisation/association/social enterprise
Phone: +37127763451
Kmetijsko gozdarska zbornica Slovenije Kmetijsko gozdarski zavod Kranj 🇸🇮 Slovenia
Cesta Iva Slavca 1
4000 Kranj
🇸🇮 Slovenia
Partner Type: Social partner or other representative of working life (chambers of commerce, trade union, trade association)
Phone: +38642804600
Results
Practical & reusable resources for the practitioners:
IO2_Development of training program: Energy and Water Efficiency in the Aquaculture sector (EWEAS) _ENGLISH
Description
TRAINING PROGRAM IN ENGLISH
Type
Training programme
Contents
IO2_Development of training program: Energy and Water Efficiency in the Aquaculture sector (EWEAS) _SPANISH
Description
TRAINING PROGRAM IN SPANISH
Type
Training programme
Contents
IO2_Development of training program: Energy and Water Efficiency in the Aquaculture sector (EWEAS) _ITALIAN
Description
TRAINING PROGRAM IN - ITALIAN
Type
Training programme
Contents
IO2_Development of training program: Energy and Water Efficiency in the Aquaculture sector (EWEAS) _SLOVENIAN
Description
TRAINING PROGRAM IN SLOVENIAN
Type
Training programme
Contents
IO2_Development of training program: Energy and Water Efficiency in the Aquaculture sector (EWEAS) LATVIAN
Description
TRAINING PROGRAM IN LATVIAN
Type
Training programme
Contents
IO3_E-LEARNING PLATAFORM
Description
IO3_ELEARNING PLATAFORM
The EWEAS e-learning training tool is free-to-use and promotes interdisciplinary cooperation and facilitates exchange of good practices among the aquaculture professionals, who often work in remote areas, making face-to-face training more difficult.
The training is split into 10 modules followed by test questions to verify the acquired knowledge. The modules are foreseen for approximately 15hours in total (without tests), approximately 1-2h each module.
At the end of the e-learning platform, there is a self-test with questions and answers to evaluate the training process. The course is available in the four different languages of the consortia: Latvian, Spanish, Italian, and English. The target group for the course is aquaculture workers, professional associations of the sector, fish farm managers, energy agencies and public and private centers of training.
Type
E-learning module, online-training, MOOC
Contents
Organizational and working documents:
IO1_Technical assessment and roadmap for the development of the EWEAS training program
Description
IO1_Country National Reports (Ireland, Italy; Spain and Slovenia); "Training
needs in aquaculture staff" which compiles the following information:
- Training given currently in aquaculture farms in each country (modules and contents,
technologies and production management)
- Typology of these trainings (classroom, theoretical, practical, online, etc), length, authoirsed
entities, profile of teachers. Non-regulated trainings
-Training needs in the energy management of aquaculture farms
- Authorizations needed currently to operate aquaculture facilities
Type
Needs analyses
Contents
IO1:Technical assessment and roadmap for the development of the EWEAS training program
Description
Roadmap for the development of the EWEAS training program.
Type
Reports
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