Complaint
A reader complained the article was inaccurate and misleading as a result of using inappropriate units when referring to a peak wind generation of 20GW, equating this to 70% of electricity generated and putting forward the example of heating 1700 homes for a year (a reference later revised to read “On a single day in November, more than 70% of electricity was produced by wind, or around 20GW.  That power is enough so that in one hour it would heat about 1700 homes for a yearâ€).
Outcome
The ECU considered readers would have understood the main point of the article to be that a record amount of electricity was generated by wind turbines in 2022, with the percentage of electricity generated from clean energy exceeding the percentage generated from fossils fuels across the year. Nevertheless, it accepted that the reference complained of was misleading in both its iterations. The 70% figure, although provided by the electricity system operator for Great Britain and reported in good faith, was in fact the figure for all energy generated from clean and renewable sources, not the figure for wind power alone. The significance of the 20GW figure was that it represented the first occasion when wind turbines had generated more than 20GW of power at a point in time, but it did not accurately reflect the electricity generated “on a single dayâ€, which would be measured in Gigawatt-hours (GWh). The reference to the number of homes which could be heated was in principle a reasonable way of giving readers a sense of the amount of electricity generated on a particular occasion, but was misleading in this context because readers would have assumed the calculation referred to the energy produced by wind across the whole day (rather than the energy produced in a single hour, which was in fact the basis for the calculation).
Upheld
Further action
The finding was reported the Board of ±«Óãtv News and the article was appropriately amended.