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| Clean Energy Council Press Release - Not one single house fire caused by solar panels |
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| 19 February 2010 |
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Good morning,
I have to apologise that the media wrap went missing in action yesterday, but perhaps you caught a story about solar panels like the one here, here or maybe the story that started it all on Lateline here... I took my first media call at 6.30am and didn’t have more than 5 minutes between phone calls until close to 6pm.
The story was that dodgy solar panels could cause house fires and that the CEC was pressuring the Federal Government for an audit and a beefed up inspection regime. For the record, the Clean Energy Council did not say that up to 2000 solar panels are at risk of causing house fires and we did not call for an audit either [our media release from yesterday morning is here].
The Lateline story on Wednesday night featured Geoff Stapleton, who chairs one of the CEC’s committees. He was under the impression that he was appearing as a technical expert and did not realise he would be quoted as speaking on behalf of the Clean Energy Council or, indeed, the entire industry. We were not the source of the story and neither was Ted Spooner who also appeared on Lateline. In fact, we spent all of yesterday fighting fires of our own in the media and trying to pour cold water on a story that quickly became riddled with inaccuracies.
The article that really lit the fuse was dashed off by Australian Associated Press (AAP) on the back of the Lateline piece. It managed to confuse solar panels and solar hot water systems and from there the Chinese whispers began. The Alan Jones program and Nine’s Today show both talked about the problems with solar hot water, but they certainly were not alone. The AAP story spread rapidly and was repeated on news sites and news bulletins throughout the country. It was gradually taken down or corrected by most of the major players as I contacted them to inform them of the errors.
Clean Energy Council chief executive Matthew Warren spent the entire day doing interviews with journalists, as well as talking to the Shadow Environment Minister Greg Hunt and the Environment Minister’s office to try and stop the issue turning into a political bunfight.
I contacted AAP in the morning to push them for a correction, but by the time the clarifying story was issued mid-afternoon [published on the Nine News website here] it was really all done bar the shouting. The one news outlet who got it basically right earlier in the day was Crikey. Read their story here. The Australian also deserves credit for sober reporting today and published this story about the industry’s good safety record. The Age also ran a page 2 story which was balanced
Although the issue was politicised to attack Peter Garrett, there was a lesson to be learned from jumping too quickly, as the Sydney Morning Herald reported today over the federal opposition’s rapid reaction to the early claims. The solar rebate program was ramped up under the Howard Government and the system was inherited by Minister Garrett. The CEC is not aware of a single house fire caused by solar panels in more than 100,000 installations. We will be writing to Media Watch today.
In other news, Yvo de Boer has stepped down as head of the UN’s climate change body.
For more news and events, visit www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au
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