Saltire Prize

The Saltire Prize, a £10 million challenge to encourage the international commercial development of marine energy, was formally opened today by the Scottish Government.

The prize will go to a commercially viable wave or tidal energy technology that generates at least 100GW of electricity over two years using only the power of the sea. The Crown Estate will also run leasing round over the summer aimed at prize competitors to test their devices in Scottish waters.

The prize’s challenge period will now be between 2012 and 2017 to allow enough time for competitors to secure leases and meet licensing and consent requirements.

Since the prize was announced in December 2008, there have been 140 registrations of interest from 27 countries.