Peel Energy did Mislead the Public

The Advertising Standards Authority has declared that Peel Energy has misled the public in its adverts about the Barton Renewable Energy Plant.

Computer drawn images of the Davyhulme based incinerator, showed the 40 metre high building as the same height as a car. This “did not give a fair representation of the plant’s visual impact and was likely to mislead”. It breached the ASA code and rules on Misleading Advertising, Substantiation and Exaggeration.

The ASA was also concerned that Peel Energy had advertised that their generated electricity and heat would be taken up by local consumers. Peel Energy inferred that negotiations with consumers were on going. Readers of the advertising would be likely to understand that the proposals were not simply theoretical, but had been agreed by all relevant parties. However, this was not the case and the ASA said this too, breached the rules on Misleading Advertising, Substantiation and Exaggeration.

The Breathe Clean Air Group also complained that the Peel Energy statement, “All emissions from power plants are continuously monitored by the Environment Agency”, was not true and should be removed. After consideration, the ASA asked Peel Energy to remove the word “continuously”. However, the statement is still incorrect and BCAG has submitted another complaint to the ASA, to remove it from Peel Energy’s advertising.

Chairman of the Breathe Clean Air Group Pete Kilvert said, “We have received a statement from the Environment Agency which says that they “do not do the monitoring (although we can if we have a reason to doubt submitted results). We set monitoring conditions which the Operator has to carry out. We specify emission limit values, monitoring frequencies and methods. We require the Operator to carry out monitoring to MCERTS standards”.  Therefore BCAG believes that the advertising is still misleading the public. People need to be aware that it will be Peel Energy that will be monitoring its own emissions,” added Mr Kilvert.