Saltire Prize to remain unclaimed

Scottish Government’s GBP 10 mln Saltire Prize, designed to accelerate the development of Scottish marine energy, will most likely remain unclaimed due to the competitors’ inability to meet the qualifying criteria.

The Saltire Prize demands from competitors to operate wave or tidal technology continuously for two years, and to generate at least 100 GW/h of electricity by June 2017.

The individual, team or organization that achieves the greatest volume of electrical output will be deemed a winner.

There are four registered Saltire Prize competitors: MeyGen Ltd, Aquamarine Power, ScottishPower Renewables, and West Islay Tidal.

The Herald, a Scottish news publisher, reports that industry insiders admitted none of the competitors is capable of winning the challenge.

“It’s been well known in the industry for some time that the criteria of the Saltire Prize would be very hard to achieve and the only project that has a prospect of generating that amount of power is MeyGen.

“Even with their device, the timescales would be particularly challenging. The ambition will be achieved, it’s just not going to be achieved in the timescale,” the Herald quotes ‘a source close to Aquamarine’ as saying.

Aquamarine Power secured seabed leases to capture up to 40 MW of wave energy off the north-west coast of Lewis using its Oyster wave energy technology, and this project was officially registered to compete for the Saltire Prize Challenge.

MeyGen Ltd is competing with its project to deploy up to 398 MW of offshore tidal stream turbines at Inner Sound, Pentland Firth to produce electricity for the UK grid by the early 2020s.

ScottishPower Renewables is competing with Ness of Duncansby project with estimated energy capacity of 95 MW, and DP Marine Energy with West Islay tidal project with the estimated capacity of 30 MW.

According to the Herald, the Scottish Government said that the Saltire Prize Challenge Committee is considering options for reshaping the prize to adjust it to the current circumstances of wave and tidal sectors, and that the prize will still be awarded.

The application period for the Saltire Prize ran from March 2010 until January 2015. The output generation competition will close on June 2017, with the announcement of the winner of the challenge scheduled for July 2017.

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Image: Aquamarine Power