Contract award
Orkney awards Quanterness balance of plant to Kirkwall contractor
By Staff Writer | 25 August 2026
Orkney Islands Council has awarded the balance of plant contract for its Quanterness wind farm to Heddle Construction Ltd of Kirkwall. The award notice was published on 25 August 2026 at 10:18am under the identifier 080702-2026 and records a contract value of 14,053,315.27 pounds and a signature date of 24 August 2026.
The award covers Lot 1 of the procurement, which the notice titles Quanterness Wind Farm ECC, under the council reference OIC/PROC/2143. It was let by restricted procedure with the award criteria weighted 60 to price and 40 to technical quality. The notice records two bids at final stage, one of them from a small or medium sized enterprise, and both submitted electronically. The review body named on the notice is Kirkwall Sheriff Court.
Balance of plant is everything on the site except the turbines themselves. The scope on the notice runs to project and technical management, health, safety and environmental coordination, site facilities for staff, permit control, site design, site clearance and excavation preparation, access roads and crane pads, turbine foundations, the substation building and its installation, cable ducting, installation and commissioning, protection of installed items through the construction phase, final site clearance and the snagging and defects lists.
Two wind farms, one of them on an uninhabited island
The notice sets out the wider development. Orkney Community Wind Farms comprises two schemes. Quanterness sits on Mainland Orkney to the north west of Kirkwall and will carry six turbines of about 4.8 megawatts each. Faray, on the uninhabited island of that name in the North Isles, will carry another six of the same rating. Both have planning consent and grid connection agreements. Quanterness is due to begin operating in June 2028 and Faray in May 2030.
The council's own project announcement, published on the same day, places the Quanterness site at St Ola between Kirkwall and Finstown, gives the turbine height as 149.1 metres and the wind farm capacity as 28.8 megawatts, and records that the electricity will be exported through the new interconnector. It states that the award followed a competitive tendering process and that the project has been in development since 2019.
As a long-standing local business with a proven track record in renewable energy, we are delighted to be awarded the Balance of Plant contract for this landmark project. Given its scale, we are immensely proud to keep delivery in local hands, setting a clear benchmark for future developments.
Derek Heddle, managing director, Heddle Construction
The council announcement records that Heddle Construction was founded in 1972 by Ian Heddle, is now led by his son Derek, and employs more than twenty staff from its Kirkwall base. It began by building farm buildings and has since moved into infrastructure, crane hire and work for the wind and marine power sectors.
Securing a local contractor for such an important stage of the development means the economic benefits of the project will be felt here in our communities, supporting local jobs, businesses and supply chains throughout the construction phase.
Heather Woodbridge, leader, Orkney Islands Council
Why the sequencing carries the risk
Balance of plant decides whether a turbine installer can start on the date it has been given. Access roads and crane pads have to carry the loads before a crawler crane is mobilised, foundations have to have gained strength, and ducting and the substation have to be ready for commissioning. On an island site that sequence tightens, because plant, materials and specialist labour arrive by sea and a missed weather window cannot be recovered by working a weekend.
The award is for Lot 1 alone. Faray, whose operating date sits nearly two years behind Quanterness, is not covered by this contract, and the notice publishes no value or supplier for it.