SCOTTISH MARINE AND FRESHWATER SCIENCE VOLUME 1 NO 18

The Saltire prize of £10 million, announced on the 23 March 2010, will be awarded by
Scottish Government to the team that can demonstrate a commercially viable wave or tidal
stream energy technology that achieves the greatest volume of electrical output of at least
100 GWh over a continuous 2 year period before 2017. All wave and tidal stream energy
developments, including those in The Crown Estate's (TCE) first leasing round in the
Pentland Firth and Orkney waters, will be eligible to compete for the prize, under the
condition that they are in a site in Scottish waters leased by TCE.
In the spirit of encouraging rapid development of wave and tidal energy, and to give
opportunities for other projects to compete for the Saltire Prize, TCE and the Scottish
Government are working in partnership to prepare plans for a further Scottish leasing round
for wave and tidal projects. This leasing round is entirely separate and in addition to the
leasing in the Pentland Firth and Orkney waters. A scoping paper on the proposed
geographic areas to be leased for the Further Scottish Leasing Round was published and
interested parties were invited to comment.
Subsequently and partly in response to comments received on the Scoping Study, Marine
Scotland has undertaken further analysis of the proposed areas. The results of this work are
described in this report and collectively known as Regional Locational Guidance (RLG). The
RLG is provided primarily to assist developers interested in competing for the Saltire Prize to
identify and develop projects rapidly, but may also be of interest to planners and regulators.
The RLG collates and presents a range of information relevant to the development process
and based on this, Marine Scotland’s appreciation of the physical characteristics and
the relative degree of constraints in these areas. Developers are strongly encouraged to
take the information in the RLG into account when selecting and pursuing site
developments, since it may be material to the consents process. However, it is recognised
that developers will also undertake their own site suitability and environmental impact
assessment work.