RENEWABLE Energy Systems Ltd (RES) is deeply disappointed that a review by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), as reported in the Courier, October 24, has upheld its initial ruling regarding two statements on the company's Den Brook Wind Farm website.

RES challenged the initial ASA ruling that statements about the generating capabilities of Den Brook Wind Farm were misleading because it believes the ASA's ruling is based on a misunderstanding of the facts and takes an entirely subjective and unsubstantiated view of the general public's understanding of the statements.

As part of its challenge RES submitted the results of independent polling which supported the company's claim.

A RES spokesperson said: "In both its initial ruling and following its own review the ASA has misinterpreted RES' statement that Den Brook Wind Farm would be capable of generating up to 18 megawatts (i.e. the minimum installed capacity of all the turbines) as being the operational output.

"It has compounded this error by continuing to assert - without substantiation - that people would interpret this to mean that the wind farm would generate at 18MW most of the time.

"This is in spite of public polling commissioned by RES that we presented to the ASA and which demonstrated that our original statement would not be interpreted in this way.

"The ASA also believes that our statement implied that a specific number of homes in West Devon could be powered by Den Brook Wind Farm.

"In actual fact our statement gave a figure for the number of homes whose annual electricity consumption was equivalent to the anticipated operational output of Den Brook Wind Farm based on national energy consumption figures - a methodology endorsed by the ASA - and compared this figure to the number of homes in West Devon.

"The statements on our website were therefore technically accurate and were presented in an honest and open manner with no intention to mislead the public or misrepresent the wind farm.

"However, in line with the honesty and transparency which RES applies to all its dealings with local communities, we have already clarified the statements on our website in changes made in August this year."

RES would like to assure the local community that the ASA ruling has no effect on the construction timescale for the nine-turbine Den Brook Wind Farm, which is currently scheduled for completion by early 2016.

It also says that it does not change the wind farm's ability, when operational, to generate sufficient clean, green electricity to meet the equivalent annual consumption of more than 9,500 homes, and thereby make a significant contribution towards the UK's renewable energy targets.

It adds that, as one of the most cost effective forms of low carbon electricity generation, onshore wind generation is already playing a very important role in helping to bring down the cost of UK consumers' electricity bills.

RES says that with onshore wind generation set to be the lowest cost form of any new electricity generation by 2020, the benefits for UK electricity consumers of onshore wind will continue into the foreseeable future.