Research on Integrated Customer-Side Energy System Planning Method Considering Carbon Emission Reduction
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Review - sustainability-1786721
Overall, I feel that there is merit in future publication of this paper; but only after significant edits and improvement….at least that is what I think. I have much uncertainty about: 1). What limitations in previous work call for the research? 2). What is new about this paper? and 3)What was really done?
The major weakness in the paper is Section 3. It isn’t clear how the ‘instance library’ was constructed. One would think that the instance library would be constructed from numerous buildings and building loads (along with the numerous constraints). But data from only one building is included, and that data comes with fixed equipment size for three types of equipment. It appears that the paper focuses on developing an optimization hierarchy for deploying the equipment type in order to minimize cost and reduce carbon emissions. But, I don’t get why the equipment would be fixed.
Moreover, hourly loads appear to be annualized and then averaged. If the concern is about how and what energy equipment to deploy, that this aggregation and averaging comes with significant error in defining use of time varying equipment.
In order to understand what the authors have done, the authors MUST expand section 3. They must better define how they were able to construct an instance library. My experience is that it is very difficult to construct a library for different building types for different equipment and different constraints. Defining the constraints itself (for example, maximum investment in energy equipment) is very difficult.
The following represent numerous comments made.
- redundant phrasing on line 29, p.1
- problem of contradiction between energy supply and demand
- What is 'problem of contradiction between supply and demand?' on lin 29 on p.1....More clear language needed.
- What is "Trend of energy tension" on line 35 p.1?
- What is the ‘trend of energy tension’ on p. 1 also?
- Sentence beginning on line 60 p.2 is improperly written.
- What is the ‘load of the park? on p2 line 95
- What is referred to as the ‘garden’ on p2. lin 97
- What is referred to as ‘the load of the park’
- Table 1 not referred to in text. Also the references a priori to this are referred to as Ref. 1 ,,,,,etc.... It is confusing to see them listed differently here. Refer to Table 1 in the text which precedes it.
- What is meant by social electrification? What is this?
- What is meant by park expansion?. Line 110
- This setup for the paper given on p3 is unclear. It isn't clear what exactly is the weakness or limitation of the prior work. Is it that: 1). prior work didn't account for likelihood of increased energy use over time; 2). prior work didn't address the likely evolution of new energy technologies
- what do you mean by increase in system energy resources on p3. line 111
- only carbon minimization not environmental protection on lin 117 p.3
- Figure 1 cannot stand alone. It would be better if you would elminate the flow chart and describe what will be included in the paper.
- Shouldn't section 2 be called "Methodology"
- Should say " The first is to...." on p.4 line 134
- Strange numbering convention for the typical scenario case base construction method on p.4 beginning on line 145
- construction park needs definition on p.5 line 179
- Define survey area on p. 5 line 191
- Inconsistent case use in Figure 2.
- The enumerated flow on p. 6 refer to Figure 2. There should be a lead-in statement describing that the enumerated flow is depicted in Figure 2. Figure 2 should be placed after the enumerated flow description. The enumerated topics should be MUCH more clearly connected to the big picture logic described in Figure 2.
- resource endowment is a fancy name for weather features ...p 6. line 200...Can't your replace with "Weather features".
- "identified" on p. 6 line 200 should be replaced by "grouped"
- What is the difference between thermal load (p. 6 line 200) and cooling load? Couldn't these be referred to as average heating and cooling loads? And why average? Isn't real time data needed?
- planning factors on p6 line 203-204 refer to building characterstics.... Why not refer to building characteristics.
- What does campus greening rate limit mean? on p6 line 206
- A new term "Campus" is introduced on p.6, line 206? Why? What does campus refer to ? A collection of buildings?
- Need to describe why K-means clustering is needed...This should be a different sub-section.... p6 line 210. Describe relation to figure....The transition to this topic is non-existent.
- Replace The with A on p7 line 225.
- replace in with "with" on p6 lin 230.
- The optimization constraints in Section 3.2 are reasonable, but in my experience are very difficult to define practically.A general solution approach is very difficult to achieve.
- Constraint Condition on p7 line 256 should be replaced by Constraint Conditions
- constrains on p8 line 274 should be constraints
- Solving algorithm on p 9 line 295 should be Solution Algorithm
- Section 3.3 needs careful re-writing. There are numerous awkwardly written sentences.
- bi-objective function on p9, line 296 referred to previously as dual objective function. This is a more normal convention.
- Figure 3 should be referred to in the text which precedes it.
- On p. 10 lines 349-351, what does it mean that the annual hourly load of users in the community is counted? Do you mean that the hourly load was summed over an annum to yield an anual consumption.
- p. 10 line 351 - should be hourly load and lighting load? Why present both loads? Does the electric load include lighting? Also, in effect this represents data for one user. Where did this data come from? For what type of building?
- Awkward sentence page 11, lines 364-366.
- The capital and O&M costs must be included for the different energy equipment.
- I don't understand your instance libary (p. 12). It looks like you fix the equipment type. Yet. you refer to a community equipment instance library.
- Average loads of little value to time varying energy sources? (P.12).../Really confused about what you are doing. What is an instance library?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
1- The abstract needs to revised in proper manner including : problem statement, description of research method, and state some findings results of this study in brief. In the current form there no any quantitative results for this investigation.
2- The conclusion is very descriptive, in this section more quantitative results and some critical discussion should be brought in more details.
3- There is no validation for this investigation.
4- Draw a flowchart for this optimization to show clearly objective function, constrains.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Version 2
The reference number associated with the references included in Table 1 should be included after mention of the author name(s).
What is intended by “park” needs explanation in the paper – not just a definition for me as a reviewer. If I – as someone deeply involved in EERE – doesn’t understand what “park” is in reference to energy systems, so too will most – if not all readers.
Figure 1 needs consistent use of case (some words capitalized / some not)
The text preceding figure 1 seem to have no relevance to Figure 1. This flow chart MUST be described in text and MUST be related to text now preceding Figure 1.
The optimization framework described in Section 3 is improved; but at the same time is concerning. The obj. function is to minimize life cycle cost subject to a constraint of maximum capital investment.
But is this really the objective function. I thought the goal was to minimize carbon production – ideally achieved through minimum life cycle cost. A better objective function would be – I think something related to: Life cycle carbon impact / life cycle cost ---- subject to a constraint to reduce carbon by say 50% by 2030.
First sentence of Section 4.1 – describes community in the north. Should not this be specific to China?
There still is no mention for how the “instance base” is constructed. What equipment is included for example? What data features are included with the equipment (size, power, efficiency, cost, op cost etc….).
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
