Abstract
Crown Estate Scotland commissioned ORE Catapult in July 2023 to conduct a formal survey and follow up one-to-one interviews with wave and tidal developers to gain an in-depth understanding of their deployment ambitions, project pipeline and market conditions. The aim was to gather feedback on the current leasing approach and understand where changes in the process may be beneficial to the wave and tidal sectors. The information gathered will be used by Crown Estate Scotland to inform a review of the leasing approach and future leasing activity. A survey was issued in August 2023 to 29 organisations of which 26 replied, 10 wave and 16 tidal of which 3 were project developers. It asked recipients to declare their existing deployed capacity, their intentions to deploy in Scotland out to 2035, identify anticipated markets, describe projected minimum and maximum build out rate and timescale for projects, identify risks and limiting factors, describe ambitions for projects beyond 2035, identify supply chain challenges, innovation gaps and describe issues with the existing lease application process and how those would impact deployment plans. One-to-one interviews were conducted with a total of 21 respondents, 7 wave and 11 tidal and 3 project developers over a two-week period of 4 to 15 September 2023. ORE Catapult issued its full report of findings and recommendations to Crown Estate Scotland on 30 November 2023.