Qualitative Study on Electricity Consumption of Urban and Rural Households in Chiang Rai, Thailand, with a Focus on Ownership and Use of Air Conditioners
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper uses very basic methodology and provides reasonable, although easily predictable results. As for research paper, more in-depth analysis is expected rather than the description of a small survey results.
The authors claim that this was a qualitative survey. Therefore, my suggestion is to re-focus the article towards qualitative data obtained from the survey and to extend the discussions on energy consumption drivers in different households: this would definitel more interesting to the readers than percentages from non-representative survey. Also, as the survey was done a few years ago, it would be interesting to repeat it to see the dynamics.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article deals with an interesting topic but it needs to be clarified in some aspects.
Literature should be enriched by including high-ranked sources in this field.
Check Journals as Energies, Energy & Buildings, etc. As example of highly-cited studies see https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/14/2788 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378778808001801 etc.
Please clearly state what would be other factors affecting the difference in consumption such as urban heat island.
A note on age of appliances can help understanding performance and rate of buying the new more efficient ones.
Author Response
We thank the reviewers for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. We revised the manuscript according to these comments as described below. We were unable to fully incorporate some of the suggested changes because of limitations of our survey methodology, but we noted these limitations in the Discussion and Conclusion.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
On one hand, the present paper shows a near future problem; the tendency in the increase of energy consumption in air-conditions system in some regions of Thailand due to the lack of control of the use of this so complex equipment in this so hot humid region. It is a so interesting topic. The study is centred into questionaries’ in 32 households, which can be an adequate methodology. Despite this, to really relate variables like use of energy and equipment it must be employed some kind of objective procedures. In this sense, a statistical analysis like a hypothesis test or some kind of correlation between type of electrical equipment and type of building or area may help the authors to get this conclusions in a more scientific way like previous authors showed in the own paper with multiple regressions. Other ideas like to employ Arduino sensors to define the real energy consumption and the number of hours could be employed. Furthermore, a comparison between buildings with low energy consumption (high thermal inertia (big walls)) and modern buildings may show by sampling indoor conditions alternative and sustainable solution to this use of the air conditioning system.
On the other hand, paper format is adequate, despite this some terms must be revised like:
line 12 "Abstract: This study studied the"
line 56 "regression analysis to analyze"
Line 89 "11,678 km2, and" super index must be employed
Despite these comments,the paper is really of interest and full of possibilities but only if the scientific method is employed.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The text still needs more qualitative analysis.
Author Response
Thank you for your helpful reviews. We added passages to the Results and Discussion sections to compare our results with those of previous studies to enrich the qualitative analysis. Thank you for your thoughtful comments throughout the review process.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors addressed my concerns.
The paper is now suitable for publication.
Author Response
Thank you for your thoughtful comments throughout the review process. We revised the text according to Reviewer 1’s comment as noted below.
Reviewer 3 Report
After some modifications, the paper shows interesting new points of view to be analysed in future research works. Despite the fact that the methodology shows some design problems and lacks, it can be considered as interesting due to the real data that is showed. It is an initial work based in real data like that done in the near past in building and environment journals being the base of the modern theoretical designs. This information will be of interest to validate future mathematical models.
Author Response
Thank you for your helpful reviews. We revised the text according to Reviewer 1’s comment as noted below.
