Water treatment for Aquaculture
About us
NP Innovation is an innovative supplier of water treatment components for primarily the aquaculture sector.
With focus on land-based fish farming, NP Innovation has refined the design of drum filters, disc filters and degassers to optimize the water quality in aquaculture systems. The products have been developed with a strong focus on functionality, performance, and robustness – but also on minimizing the investment and running costs, to make the products both technically and commercially attractive.
With an expertise in aquaculture as well as water treatment processes, the engineering team supports both system designers as well as end users with selections, designs and know-how, that will fulfill their demands.
Global presence
● Europe
● Americas
● Africa
● Australia
● Asia
It’s interesting to work with something that does good in the world. It’s much more rewarding to talk with people about what we’re doing when there’s a positive effect to show for it.”
Nils-Åke Persson founded NP Innovation in 2012, but the development of the Malmö based company’s products started years earlier.
It was in the end of the 70s that Nils-Åke Persson for the first time met an employee at Sydkraft’s (a Swedish power company) aquaculture, and it was here that his interest in aquaculture started. At the time he was working as a constructional and industrial engineer focusing on energy saving through heat exchangers and heat pumps. Thanks to his interest in development and his technical knowledge he was able, with the help from others within the industry, to develop a heat pump technology that increased the water temperature. “And in doing so we were able to improve the possibility for the fish to grow bigger – faster”, he says.
In 1984 he started his own business, working with water purifying technology in aqua-cultures. The company grew fast, and in 2002 Nils-Åke sold it and decided to retire. After a couple of years of leave the longing to work became too great and he took a job with Nordic Water in Gothenburg, a company in municipal water treatment. “Pretty soon I wanted to get back into the aqua culture business. There is something special about that industry, something personal. It’s a relatively small industry – worldwide – and we had become something of a group of friends. Even though we sometimes competed we had become friends who supported each other when needed.” And in 2012 NP Innovation was founded.
The drum filter that Nils-Åke’s first company had developed during the 80s and 90s was now a world standard within the business. With his son Jonas and an engineer in technology design he now wanted to further develop the purifying technology that had established itself within the aquaculture industry. “Not a lot had happened up until 2012, so the space was there. Already a year later we had employed more people and launched our products in the market.” The company has continued to grow steadily ever since.
Today NP Innovation has a turnover of around SEK 100 million and sells its products to land-based aquacultures all over the world. Nils-Åke has been retired since the turn of the year 2023 but remains on the board and as a partner in the company. He is proud of what he and his colleagues have accomplished and is looking forward to watching the company continue to grow. “It’s interesting to work with something that does good in the world. It’s much more rewarding to talk with people about what we’re doing when there’s a positive effect to show for it. It is greatly appreciated every time we launch new products. It feels good that what we do is important for the environment and our waters.”
NP Innovation’s products, based on the technology that Nils-Åke started to develop during the 80s, are today used in the majority of the world’s land-based aquacultures with circulating water. The vision is to grow with their own products and to double the turnover within the near future.
“It’s kind of funny that a country like Sweden, with hardly any aquacultures at all, delivers the technology that is used all over the world. It shows an evident strength in Swedish water treatment”, he concludes.