Evaluation Study on a Novel Structure CCHP System with a New Comprehensive Index Using Improved ALO Algorithm

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

The authors have answered all the queries satisfactorily. 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1

Thank you very much for your valuable comments, after careful thinking, very recognized your proposal. I have improved the overall narrative of the paper, the revised paragraphs have been highlighted, the narrative expression in English has also been revised, the revised section has been highlighted.

Some specific changes are as follows:

1. Zhang et al. [7], through the principle of energy balance, the author established a mixed integer nonlinear programming model of integrated energy systems, including production, recovery, conversion, and storage, and explored the applicability of system capacity allocation in different regions and environments, and obtained the satisfactory results. Li et al. [8] took a regional energy supply project in Shanghai as an example and analyzed the relationship between generator capacity and different sizes and grid connection modes. It was considered that generators' ability in the triple power supply system depends on comprehensive factors such as system load, energy price, energy policy, and initial investment. It cannot be directly applied to the traditional cogeneration by heat to determine electricity or heat. Xu et al. [9], By analyzing the system's environmental, energy, and exergy benefits, the author found the optimal size of the prime mover, verified the system's reliability, and obtained satisfactory results.
2. In terms of the evaluation of the energy system, Mianaei et al. [12] established an overall operating cost of the evaluation system to obtain the minimum cost. Cao et al. [13] established an evaluation system of coupling annual cost savings, immediate energy savings, and rate of carbon dioxide emission reductions. The coupling mode is to add equal weight. Wang et al. [14] established the evaluation system of the coupling of annual system cost, pollution gas emissions, and primary energy consumption, and the coupling mode is to add equal weight. The existing evaluation system is divided into single-objective and multi-objective evaluation by weight coupling. The former is not comprehensive enough for the selection of evaluation objectives, and it is easy to sacrifice other indicators to improve the selected indicators. Although the latter comprehensively considers three seed indicators, the coupling method is not appropriate, and it cannot be considered by equal weight, which requires more good proper selection.
3. A comprehensive evaluation system is established and used as the objective function. The intelligent optimization algorithm is used to optimize the equipment capacity configuration to flexibly adjust the optimal equipment capacity in the system's operation.
4. In this paper, the system capacity is configured through a local chemical enterprise's typical daily load demand in winter and summer. The system equipment capacity is optimized through the established comprehensive evaluation system. Under the premise of meeting the load demand of the enterprise, the optimal equipment capacity in the system's operation is flexibly adjusted.
5. According to the load demand of chemical enterprises, allocating equipment capacity with capacity is carried out. Considering various factors of chemical enterprises and combining them with the expected target of the system, an inductive analysis is carried out. The system equipment capacity is preliminarily configured, and the equipment capacity is flexibly adjusted according to the optimization algorithm. System capacity configuration achieves refrigeration, heating, and the supply of various energy sources for power generation conforms to the actual demand.
6. Multi-objective optimization is not a single optimization goal, and finding the optimal solution for all objectives is not straightforward. To evaluate the energy system from many aspects and solve the problem that multi-objective optimization is challenging to optimize simultaneously, the weighted method is used to transform multi-objectives into a single objective, and a comprehensive evaluation system is established. To balance the contribution of every single indicator in the comprehensive evaluation system, low weight is adopted to reduce the sensitivity of a single indicator, to achieve the effect of a balanced consideration of the impact of economy, energy efficiency, and environment on the system. The specific comprehensive evaluation system is as follows:
7. The results show that the system output simulation under various working conditions has high accuracy, so the scheduling and optimization research based on this model has practical significance, which can guide the system's comprehensive evaluation and subsequent design improvement.
8. Mirjalili first proposed Ant lion intelligent optimization algorithm^[16] in 2015, which mainly simulates the hunting mechanism of ant lion hunting ants to obtain the optimal value. The insects are called ant lions because of their unique hunting behavior and predators. Since the ALO algorithm has many advantages, such as fewer adjustment parameters and solid global searchability, it has been applied to various engineering fields^[17].
9. Through the above elaboration of the original ant-lion intelligent optimization algorithm and the various standards of the actual load demand of chemical enterprises, it is necessary to improve the original ant-lion intelligent optimization algorithm. The primary purpose is to improve the algorithm's search traversal range and the algorithm's accuracy, to achieve the purpose of flexibly adjusting the system capacity configuration.
10. The modelling and simulation results show that the ant lion optimization algorithm can improve the rationality of the capacity allocation of the system equipment. Compared with the typical CCHP system, the performance of the CCHP system with structural optimization is better. The summer performance is the best for the system's annual operation. Specifically, in terms of annual cost, the annual cost savings of the new structural system are up to 13 %. The unique structural system has a maximum reduction of 36.39 % in carbon dioxide emissions. In terms of primary energy utilization, the primary energy utilization rate of the new structural system increases by up to 18 %. The overall comprehensive evaluation system is up to 0.814.

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

I have no further questions for this study.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2

Thank you very much for your valuable comments, after careful thinking, very recognized your proposal. First of all, thank you very much for your affirmation of the content of the paper. The English narration you suggested has been modified, and the paragraphs of the full text have been highlighted.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please see the attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper propose an improved ant-lion optimization algorithm is
proposed to optimize the capacity configuration of the new CCHP system
and their method can improve the rationality of the capacity allocation
of the system equipment. However，the authors should claim what they improve for ant alogirthm in the abstraction and introduction section which can make more consistent with their work.  Besides, the listed figures can not be consistent with the number clained in the manuscript, such as figure15,  figures 12 – 14,  figure 9, figure 11, figure 8 are not be posted in the paper. Therefore, I think this paper need to be major overhaul.