National Algae Association announced a new commercial production growing system has been developed at its test center. The new system will eliminate contamination and low production issues found with raceway ponds, while reducing the high cost of commercial closed-loop photobioreactors and increasing volumes tenfold. 

This new commercial growing system could be a breakthough for the algae production industry. Instead of commercial photobioreactors being used on 100 acres, PBR's would be used to commercially inoculate this type of new growing system. The proof that it is  possible using off-the-shelf proven technologies is of great interest to NAA members. "There is a high level of interest in taking the next step towards building commercial algae farms using this type of new growing system. 

The NAA works closely with algae researchers, engineers and investors interested in building commercial algae production facilities that need commercial testing, benchmarking and data. The NAA Test Center evaluates and collects data on various commercial growing, harvesting and extraction systems. According to NAA Executive Director Barry Cohen, "collecting data on a commercial basis is key to the algae industry.  Most important to all NAA members is scalability. If an algae technology cannot scale and be cost-efficient, it will not be used in a commercial scale-up environment. The algae industry is estimated to be a $1.4 billion dollar industry, so there's plenty of room for everyone. We just need to verify data, scalability and get it done!"