SSE Renewables and Vestas have shared details of the companies’ plans for moving turbine components from Lerwick Port to the Viking Wind Farm site in central Mainland Shetland.
Convoys will begin on Monday 6 February.
Vestas, which is supplying the 103 wind turbines which make up the wind farm, is responsible for safely managing the process of getting the components from their factories to Lerwick and then delivering them from there to the Viking site.
Robert Yeates, Lead Project Manager with Vestas, said: “To transport equipment of this size and weight requires specialist vehicles and expertise, so we have contracted McFadyen’s Transport Ltd, a specialist haulage company based in Scotland with several years’ experience of safely transporting wind turbine components, to carry out the work.
“Obviously safety is our paramount concern and with that in mind, I am pleased that the convoys will be escorted by specialist Police Scotland officers who are coming from the mainland.
“We’re looking forward to completing the transportation safely and with the minimum of disruption to Shetlanders and visitors alike.”
There will be up to three convoys per day, six days a week, from Monday to Saturday, with up to four wind turbine components per convoy.
Convoy travel time is estimated to be around one hour from leaving the port to entering the site.
The timing of the movements has also been planned to seek to ensure that the early morning convoy will be off the public highway by 8am and the mid-afternoon convoy will be off the public highway by 3pm to avoid the relevant peak travel periods.