Assessment of Energy Efficiency Measures in Food Cold Supply Chains: A Dairy Industry Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It is good to print.

Author Response

Thank you for the positive comment.

Reviewer 2 Report

Good work. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for the positive comment.

Reviewer 3 Report

The aim of this paper is to provide a methodology for the prioritization and assessment of the energy efficiency measures for cold chains in terms of quality losses and specific energy consumption, distinguishing between technological, maintenance and managerial opportunities. 

The study is very interesting in the energy sector but some changes should be taken into account before publication:

- It would be interesting to include a table with the acronyms used in such a way as to facilitate reading.

- It would be important to include two sections in the article, results and discussion, so that the text is organised in sections following the guidelines of a scientific article.

- The economic analysis in table 4 needs to be broken down and explained in more detail. Where did the prices come from? It's curious to see such fair numbers in the budget.

- Analyse and draw conclusions from Figure 5. The commentary presented is very poor.

- Review the format of the article, typeface in text and tables, and bibliography according to the journal's author guidelines.

Author Response

First, we would like to thank the Reviewer for the effort and the time devoted to the review of our manuscript. Comments (reported hereafter in italic), corrections and insights have been constructive and helpful in improving our work. We respond to these comments below. We explain how and where in the paper we make these changes to address the comments. We have highlighted the changes and modifications in YELLOW.

The aim of this paper is to provide a methodology for the prioritization and assessment of the energy efficiency measures for cold chains in terms of quality losses and specific energy consumption, distinguishing between technological, maintenance and managerial opportunities.

The study is very interesting in the energy sector but some changes should be taken into account before publication:

- It would be interesting to include a table with the acronyms used in such a way as to facilitate reading.

Authors answer: A table with all the acronyms has been added.

 

- It would be important to include two sections in the article, results and discussion, so that the text is organised in sections following the guidelines of a scientific article.

Authors answer: We have changed the title of section 4 into “Results and discussions”. However, since we have analyzed two different scenarios (i.e., AS-IS and TO-BE) it is difficult to consider the analysis of the results and the discussion in two separate sections. In fact, if we firstly define the results of both the scenarios in section 4 and then the discussion of both in section 5 the readability worsens.

 

- The economic analysis in table 4 needs to be broken down and explained in more detail. Where did the prices come from? It's curious to see such fair numbers in the budget.

Authors answer: More details have been added to the economic analysis. The annual savings are evaluated through the valorization the annual energy saving at the energy price assumed (i.e., 0.12 €/kWh) while the information on the costs for the implementation of the EEMs have been obtained directly from suppliers of the measures.

 

- Analyse and draw conclusions from Figure 5. The commentary presented is very poor.

Authors answer: We have extended the analyses on figure 5, as follow: “Investments have been prioritized for descending net present value since it considers the time value of money, i.e., the discount rate. Figure 5 shows the cumulated savings (annual and total over 20 years) and investment costs associated with the prioritized EEMs. As can be observed from the figure, the cumulated savings generated during the lifetime (i.e., 20 years) are higher than the overall investment need. Hence, the defined prioritization assures that the savings introduced with the implemented EEMs can be considered in the next energy efficiency budget and reinvested in view of the continuous improvement approach.”

 

- Review the format of the article, typeface in text and tables, and bibliography according to the journal's author guidelines.

Authors answer: The format has been checked with the journal guidelines.