On the Energy Performance and Energy Saving Potential of the Pharmaceutical Industry: A Study Based on the Italian Energy Audits

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In the abstract, the authors stated that “In the typical pharmaceutical plant, around 70% of energy is used in the auxiliary services, and its use is not related to production.” And also, “Table-1” is very well justified with the reference. The work is really good but, I have some questions:

Under section 1.1, the authors have given the reference of ISO 14644, ISO 5/EU Grade A, ISO 7/EU Grade B, and ISO 8/EU Grade C. I agree as an EU member state Italy must have to follow the EU standard but there must be some Italian national standards to be used in this paper as a reference for Industrial Energy Efficiency or Energy Audit to perform the EnPIs.

In the manuscript, the author is repeatedly giving references to the US data and the paper is on Italian Energy, under section 1.3 it is stated that “ the only available data in terms of plant energy consumption are related to the US industry and are not updated.” As Italy is a member of the EU then why they took the US as a reference, not any EU member country? If they are taking the US as a reference is there any similarity in the energy used in the auxiliary services in Pharmaceutical Industry?  

The abstract lacks specificity as it does not provide any detailed information about the findings or outcomes of the study.

To enhance the readability of your conclusion, my suggestion would be to use bullet points to present the specific outcomes of your paper. This will help readers quickly and easily understand the key takeaways from your work.

Author Response

In the abstract, the authors stated that “In the typical pharmaceutical plant, around 70% of energy is used in the auxiliary services, and its use is not related to production.” And also, “Table-1” is very well justified with the reference. The work is really good but, I have some questions:

Under section 1.1, the authors have given the reference of ISO 14644, ISO 5/EU Grade A, ISO 7/EU Grade B, and ISO 8/EU Grade C. I agree as an EU member state Italy must have to follow the EU standard but there must be some Italian national standards to be used in this paper as a reference for Industrial Energy Efficiency or Energy Audit to perform the EnPIs.

We thank the reviewer for their feedback. Regarding the laws for the energy audits, they are reported in the Introduction, in paragraph 1.3 Scope and structure of this work: “Data shown in this paper are based on the Italian Energy Audit database, Audit 102. [17], managed by ENEA under the framework of the compulsory energy auditing scheme required in Europe by the Energy Efficiency Directive [18]. In Italy, according to Art. 8 of D. Lgs. 102/14, … “.

Regarding the energy efficiency in industry, the standard is the UNI CEN ISO 50001, which also provides guidelines to determine EnPIs, while the standard for the energy audits is the UNI CEI EN 16247. The whole passage has been rephrased in order to report what here said.

In the manuscript, the author is repeatedly giving references to the US data and the paper is on Italian Energy, under section 1.3 it is stated that “ the only available data in terms of plant energy consumption are related to the US industry and are not updated.” As Italy is a member of the EU then why they took the US as a reference, not any EU member country? If they are taking the US as a reference is there any similarity in the energy used in the auxiliary services in Pharmaceutical Industry?

We thank the reviewer for the question.

The US data we used is the only available reference about Energy Performance Indexes in the pharmaceutical sector. No data referring to plants from EU countries are available, at least to our knowledge. The reviewer should also consider that the pharmaceutical sector is often treated together with the chemical industry, as we say in the paper: this leads the operators to refer to plants from different sectors as if they were similar, which thing is not often true.

Finally, similarities between Italian and US plans are many. First of all, considering data reported in table 1 and data coming from the Italian audits, the reader can easily see that plants in both geographical areas have similar energy consumption patterns. Secondly, pharmaceutical processes are often the same, especially for the sector we dealt with (NACE 21.20.09). However, most of all, the reviewer should consider that many Italian plants belong to international corporations, located in both countries (and everywhere in the rest of the world): we have few doubts that the comparison between the two data sets is not only legitimate, but also due.

 

The abstract lacks specificity as it does not provide any detailed information about the findings or outcomes of the study.

We thank the reviewer for helping us clarify the abstract. The second half of the abstract provides content which only comes from the findings of this work. It is referred to the reliability of the EnPIs, the mean value of primary energy consumption of the typical pharmaceutical plant, the distribution of the most important EPIAs and their payback time. With the aim of providing better clarity about the results, the abstract section has been amended.  

 

To enhance the readability of your conclusion, my suggestion would be to use bullet points to present the specific outcomes of your paper. This will help readers quickly and easily understand the key takeaways from your work. 

Bullet points have been introduced.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Q1: English must be improve.

Q2: Litrature review isn't enough to justfied the results.

Q3: Figures must be present in a better way to help readers

 

Author Response

Q1: English must be improve. 

We thank the reviewer for their suggestions. English has been revised. 

Q2: Litrature review isn't enough to justfied the results.   

According to the reviewer’s suggestion, we have enlarged our literature survey: despite the limited number of studies about the pharmaceutical sector, especially regarding the EnPIs, we were able to add some references which stress the importance of certain EPIAs, in accordance to our results. 

 

Q3: Figures must be present in a better way to help readers   

Fig.10 has been improved, including the unit of measure for x- and y-axis.   

The description of Fig. 13 has been improved. 

The unit of measure of Cost effectiveness has been corrected in all Figures changing from € to Euro/toe. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper investigates the energy performance and energy saving potential of the pharmaceutical industry. The topic is interesting. I have the following comments.

What are the specific Energy Performance Improvements Actions. Or what are the improvement directions? The authors should give more policy implications.

Explain the meanings of some acronyms CHP， HVAC，NACE.

Author Response

This paper investigates the energy performance and energy saving potential of the pharmaceutical industry. The topic is interesting. I have the following comments. 

What are the specific Energy Performance Improvements Actions. Or what are the improvement directions? The authors should give more policy implications.   

Thanking the reviewer for their suggestions, we have included a new table to provide more information on the specific EPIAs. Policy implications are also discussed in section 5. 

Explain the meanings of some acronyms CHP， HVAC，NACE.  

We thank the reviewer for the remarks: the acronyms have been explained in the text. 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

 

 ·       The article " On the energy performance and energy saving potential of the pharmaceutical industry: a study based on the Italian Energy audits. The article topic is interesting, but serious concerns must be considered before submitting the revised version.

·       The introduction should begin with explaining the issue or problem's scope and relevance. Next, the manuscript requires a literature review to offer the reader a synthesis of prior work. In addition, the authors must indicate where this proposed model might be evaluated to provide practical guidance.

·       The main research questions are not well thought out.

·       The section on the method is well-written, but if you can, please reference a recent article supporting your method.

·       Discuss some policy directions based on results in the conclusion section.          Finally, please consider the significance of the findings and policy recommendations. In the conclusion's final paragraph, discuss your study's limitations and future research directions.                 

 

 

Author Response

•        The article " On the energy performance and energy saving potential of the pharmaceutical industry: a study based on the Italian Energy audits. The article topic is interesting, but serious concerns must be considered before submitting the revised version.
•        The introduction should begin with explaining the issue or problem's scope and relevance. Next, the manuscript requires a literature review to offer the reader a synthesis of prior work. In addition, the authors must indicate where this proposed model might be evaluated to provide practical guidance.

We thank the reviewer for their suggestions. The introduction section states that the main issue with the pharmaceutical sector is the lack of data about energy consumption and, this, the lack of specific EnPIs. Such data is fundamental to improve the effort of the sector towards the reduction of its environmental impact. We have introduced new references and rephrased the introduction in order to more clearly describe the issue. 

Regarding the use for this data/model, both information about EnPIs and EPIAs are useful to the corporations and the policy-makers, as stated in section 5 and 6. 

 

•        The main research questions are not well thought out.

Again, thanking the reviewer for this remark, and according to their previous request, we have more clearly stated the research question in the introduction. 

 

•        The section on the method is well-written, but if you can, please reference a recent article supporting your method.

The method is a resume of the methodology we used to calculate EnPIs and resume EPIAs from several economic sectors. It is thoroughly described in  
    Bruni, G., de Santis, A., Herce, C., Leto, L., Martini, C., Martini, F., Salvio, M., Tocchetti, F. A., & Toro, C. (2021). From energy audit to energy performance indicators (Enpi): A methodology to characterize productive sectors. the italian cement industry case study. Energies, 14(24). https://doi.org/10.3390/en14248436 

The paper is already referenced in this work: Further methodological details can be found in Bruni et al. [21]. 

 

•        Discuss some policy directions based on results in the conclusion section.          Finally, please consider the significance of the findings and policy recommendations. 

Thanking you for the remark: we have revised section 5 and introduced additional elements coming from the energy audits that show the implicit limitations of the study but, at the same time, allow to identify policy implications and our policy suggestions. Both limitations and suggestions are added in the conclusion section. 

In the conclusion's final paragraph, discuss your study's limitations and future research directions.      

Thank you for this remark: limitations of this study have been commented in the discussion section and introduced here. Future research directions were already present. 

 

Submission Date   10 February 2023  

Date of this review    25 Feb 2023 11:44:10  

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf