Building on the circularity discussions and work being undertaken by FRDC and the industry, this project seeks to undertake the legwork required to establish a nationwide on-demand End of life (EOL) fishing gear recovery system for Australia and pilot it in key locations. The materials that many nets and ropes are made of are highly valuable and recyclable and in fact in many other countries, is already being recycled or remanufactured. Until now, having a national system has been cost prohibitive due to the large distances and need for economies of scale and limited local buyer interest. As a part of the national targets set by the Australian Government relating to plastics use and recycling, commercial fishing and aquaculture sectors have been exploring how to move to a circular economy model and reduce plastic inputs through a variety of projects run by FRDC and others. However, with fishing gear the biggest plastic polymer input, and contamination challenges, there has yet to be a suitable system established.

This project seeks to enable the opportunities that addressing EOL gear provides in Australia to the commercial fishing and aquaculture sector through the establishment of an effective EOL fishing gear recovery system for the country to reduce the landfill costs to industry. It seeks to build on the learnings from previous projects as well as the ten years of experience of our partner Bureo has in in operating an EOL fishing gear recovery program. Bureo currently have an EOL gear recovery system active in 9 countries.

The key objectives are:
● By the end of 2026 there is an effective end-of-life fishing/aquaculture gear recovery system implemented across key fishing ports, and key aquaculture centres benefiting regional communities and fisheries conservation and assisting the Australian Government to address plastic recovery/recycling targets.
● By the end of 2024, the enabling environment for an effective and fit for purpose EOL fishing/aquaculture gear recovery system is in place within Australia, with commencement of recycling underway in key pilot locations.

Our project is an “early mover micro project” within SIA’s overarching industry decarbonisation program, where the deliverable is the needs analysis and design for a wave energy microgrid system for Southern Ocean Mariculture, an abalone aquaculture company located in Port Fairy, Victoria.

Throughout this past year, Southern Ocean Mariculture (SOM), AZURA Ocean Technologies (AZURA) and Deloitte Emissions Solutions (DES) have been in early discussion about development of an ocean energy solution to help SOM achieve their decarbonisation goals, reduce their cost of energy and reduce dependency on grid-supplied electricity. These parties have identified the need to analyse SOM’s future energy requirements and develop a novel approach to help them decarbonise through a multi-modal renewable ocean energy microgrid.

Upon learning about AOEG’s proposal to develop an ocean energy/aquaculture program, the leaders of SOM, AZURA and DES enthusiastically offered their participation to co-design a suitable ocean energy microgrid system to meet their needs, under an FRDC funded project. This group of visionary leaders is excited to join the AOEG team in showcasing the work of this proof-of-concept project within the context of the larger SIA Decarbonisation Program, with learnings and application to the broader aquaculture sector.

This project will result in the design for an ocean energy microgrid system that will produce electricity to supplement SOM’s existing grid and/or fossil fuel based energy supply. SOM will help to assess which element of their operation will be used as the basis for initial microgrid design. As a pilot project, this approach enables SOM to evaluate a wide range of issues without high risks and will be considered an incremental step toward building a full-scale off-grid clean energy system for the future.

As an early-mover project within SIA’s decarbonisation program, the following knowledge will be generated for learning and dissemination to the industry.
- Showcase what an ocean energy microgrid system is and its required elements.
- Document the items and factors required to design a suitable microgrid energy system.
- Document the process by which the design is developed.
- Showcase how other offshore or near shore industries could leverage ocean energy microgrids to provide clean electricity for their operations and to help meet decarbonisation targets
- Demonstrate the potential for ocean energy playing a significant role in Australia’s future renewable energy mix

AOEG will collaborate with SIA and the Blue Economy CRC to co-implement industry outreach, communications and other complementary activities within the limits of this first mover energy transition ‘micro-project’.

The development of digital and data systems (DSS) across fisheries & aquaculture, as well as the agriculture sector more broadly is disparate. How data is collected, how it is stored, and how it can subsequently be used is greatly influenced by factors such as sector digital maturity, or available funding to develop (or upgrade) DSS.

This project seeks to develop a national fisheries and aquaculture data ingestion and storage system (Activity 1), ensuring that information derived from fisheries and aquaculture activities is findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR).
The ingestion and storage system will be bolstered by a complementary data catalogue (detailing the data sets available on the platform) (Activity 2) and analytical tools (able to gain insights without moving data outside the storage platform) (Activity 6).
The platform will be underpinned by metadata (Activity 3) and a robust governance framework (Activity 4). Use of the system will be tested through 3 case studies, supporting capacity and capability improvement of the sector (Activity 5).

The production of and use of data cuts across industry and government, and covers activities throughout the fisheries supply chain (from pre-fishing quota management, to post-fishing processing and subsequent traceability). Consequently there is no one organisation across fishing and aquaculture that is best placed to co-ordinate and trial this technology. FRDC is capable to the leadership required to ensure a fit for purpose product for end users, additionally the leverage of Australia Research Data Commons investment will contribute to the development of a nationally coherent eResearch infrastructure

This project received investment from the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC). The ARDC is funded by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).