ASA Adjudication on Everest Ltd

Ad

A TV ad, for energy-efficient windows and solar panels, featured the presenter Craig Doyle walking through the interior of a house as he said "Did you know that Everest can help make your home more energy efficient? Take our A-rated windows, they can save you money and reduce your home's carbon footprint by keeping valuable heat in and the freezing cold out". The ad then showed Craig Doyle outside, pointing to three solar panels on the roof of the house. He said "And Everest's solar panels use renewable energy instead of gas or electricity ... to produce loads of hot water ..." as the ad cut to a shot of hot water falling from a shower and back again to the solar panels on the roof. On-screen text stated "Based on three solar panels and eight hours of daylight". The ad then showed a cloud passing in front of the sun as Craig Doyle continued "... even when it's not sunny". The ad revealed that Craig Doyle was standing on the balcony of a lighthouse in a remote location, as he said "Now be honest, you didn't expect Everest to be doing that today, did you?" On-screen text stated "Making more of your environment".

Issue

Ten viewers challenged whether the claim that the solar panels produced "loads of hot water, even when it's not sunny" was misleading, because they believed the water temperature would be significantly affected by the amount of sunshine and the time of year.

BCAP TV Code

Response

Everest Ltd (Everest) said the claim that the solar panels would produce loads of hot water "even when it's not sunny" was very specific. They argued that the TV ad demonstrated the conditions they classified as being "not sunny" by showing a bright day and thin cloud reflected in the solar panels at the point the claim was made. They said they did not claim that solar panels would heat hot water on days with heavy cloud cover, on rainy days or days with severe weather conditions, and they argued that the weather depicted in the ad was neither sunny nor cloudy and was therefore aptly described by the term "not sunny". They pointed out that on-screen text stated that the claim was based on "three solar panels and eight hours of daylight", and they explained that that was because the lowest average number of daylight hours occurred in December and January, when there was on average eight hours of daylight. They said they included that text to make it clear that even in the shortest months the system could still provide "loads of hot water". Everest said they defined the claim "loads of hot water" to mean that their three solar panel system would provide most of the hot water needs within the home.

Everest provided equations relating to the amount of hot water used by the average home and solar panel energy output, which they said showed that, in sunny weather, it would take the Everest solar panel system one hour and fifteen minutes to heat the average amount of hot water used by the average UK home. Everest explained that in cloudy weather it would take longer to heat that water, but it would not affect the temperature the water could reach because that was governed by the thermostat on the system controls. They said on a day with thin cloud cover, as depicted in the TV ad, it would take the Everest solar panel system two hours and thirty minutes to heat the same amount of hot water to the same temperature as on sunny days. Everest also provided information from the Energy Saving Trust, which they said stated that solar panels could provide hot water all the year round, and from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), which they said stated that a 3m2 solar collection area could provide between 50% and 70% of a typical home's annual hot water requirements.

Everest said they had run a test system with three solar panels installed on a south facing roof in Hertfordshire for the 12 months up to November 2008. They said, during that year, there was an average of 4.2 hours of sunshine per day and the system produced an average of 8.07 kilo watt hours (kWh) of energy per day. They explained that the thermostat in the test house was set at 60 degrees Celsius, but that the Chartered Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering recommended a safe hot water temperature of 41 degrees Celsius. Everest provided data from the test house for the period 5 March to 6 April 2009, which they said showed that the system did provide the majority of the hot water needs for the house even when it was not sunny.

Clearcast said they noted from evidence provided by Everest that, even when cloudy, the solar panels still absorbed radiation from the sun and would still heat the water in the cylinder. They said that, based on the number of factors involved, they did not think a specific claim about water heating ability was possible and opted for the more general claim "loads of hot water". Clearcast explained that they added the on-screen text in order to make the basis of the claim transparent.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted Everest's response. We considered that viewers were likely to understand the depiction in the ad of cloud moving over the sun, reflected in the solar panels, to be a general depiction of cloudy weather conditions. We also considered that viewers would interpret the claim "Everest's solar panels ... produce loads of hot water ... even when its not sunny" to mean that the solar panel system would continue to produce most of the hot water for the home during periods of cloudy or dull weather. We understood from the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) that solar panels could provide between 40% and 70% of a typical home's annual hot water requirements. We also understood that that range was based on a number of factors, including the home's use of hot water, the design, installation and performance of the system, and the part of the country in which the home was located. We noted from the Hertfordshire test data provided by Everest that the test system did provide a large volume of hot water for the home during periods of dull or cloudy weather. Because of that, and because we considered that the onscreen text qualified the size of the system and hours of daylight on which the claim was made, we concluded that the ad was not misleading.

We investigated the ad under CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rules 5.1.1 and 5.1.3 (Misleading advertising), 5.2.1 (Evidence) and 5.2.2 (Implications) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)