Analysis of the Energy Consumption of Old Public Buildings in South Korea after Green Remodeling

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I would like to thank the author for submitting his research results to this journal.

I believe that this paper presents results that allow us to understand the current status of public building remodeling and energy performance reduction in Korea.

I have no disagreement with the research methods and results, and I think it is especially important that actual energy usage was presented.

The following minor corrections are suggested as review comments.

If multiple pictures are posted under one figure number, a subtitle is required.

It is necessary to check whether the unit on the left side of Figure 8 is kwh/month.

It is necessary to compare the input values of Energy# before and after green remodeling and display them in a table. (U-value, ACH, WWR, HVAC, new and renewable energy, etc.)

Author Response

We wish to re-submit the manuscript titled “Analysis of the Energy Consumption of Old Public Buildings in South Korea after Green-Remodeling.” The manuscript ID is buildings-2709652.

We thank you and the reviewers for your thoughtful suggestions and insights. The manuscript has benefited from these insightful suggestions. I look forward to working with you and the reviewers to move this manuscript closer to publication in Buildings.

The manuscript has been rechecked and the necessary changes have been made in accordance with the reviewers’ suggestions. The responses to all comments have been prepared and attached herewith.

• Subtitles were added to the photographs in Figures 4 and 6.
• The left unit of Figure 8 is kWh/(m²·a).
• The simulation input values are listed in Table 4.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article presents the green remodeling demonstrations for buildings located in Korea which can improve the energy efficiency of existing public buildings. It is the modern trend for the reconstruction activity due to the life cycle cost and CO2 reducing. This article describes the example of the green remodeling technologies application in building remodeling.

Green remodeling technologies are now very popular in the reconstruction of buildings, but the authors do not invent anything, they just represent a typical example of remodeling. Currently, there are many invented green technologies and each of the technologies either by itself or in combination with the use of other technologies should give an economic effect from its or their use. In this case, we see an example of the reconstruction of a building where windows were replaced, insulation and waterproofing works were performed, etc., which generally increased the energy efficiency of the building, reducing operating costs. The reduction of CO2 emissions was achieved by reducing the energy consumption, because the building began to consume less resources for heating and air conditioning. It can be concluded that the authors presented a typical example of the reconstruction of facilities, according to the state program and in practice, using existing German software technologies, showed that the use of a number of existing green technologies reduces both energy consumption and economic costs. This research is of practical importance and the level of scientific knowledge is absent here.

If the authors do not invent a new green technology or improve an existing one, they should propose a methodology for selecting and justifying the use of specific technologies for certain buildings in the building remodeling. Why it is necessary to apply certain technologies in each specific remodeling of a building. In this case, this study with the description of this example of remodeling of the building will have a scientific meaning.

References in the article are appropriate, the authors refer to examples of the use of green technologies in the remodeling of buildings.

In the table, it is necessary to specify the parameters that were measured to determine the effectiveness of the use of green technologies.

The paper can in principle be accepted after revision.

Author Response

We wish to re-submit the manuscript titled “Analysis of the Energy Consumption of Old Public Buildings in South Korea after Green-Remodeling.” The manuscript ID is buildings-2709652.

We thank you and the reviewers for your thoughtful suggestions and insights. The manuscript has benefited from these insightful suggestions. I look forward to working with you and the reviewers to move this manuscript closer to publication in Buildings.

The manuscript has been rechecked and the necessary changes have been made in accordance with the reviewers’ suggestions. The responses to all comments have been prepared and attached herewith.

• In this study, the remodeling method of the existing building was newly developed, and the reason and explanation for applying the development method have been presented in section 2.2.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. I am sorry to late, I give several comments to improve the research quality.

2. 1. In the 'Abstract' section, please rewrite the abstract following this pattern: [background] -> [objective] -> [process] -> [results] -> [contribution].

3. 2. In the 'Introduction', the author has provided explanations regarding the research background, objectives, and a literature review.

4. 3. Why the authors selected this target building? is it representative target among others?
5. 4. Before conducting energy simulation, how model calibration is measured?

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

NA

 

Author Response

We wish to re-submit the manuscript titled “Analysis of the Energy Consumption of Old Public Buildings in South Korea after Green-Remodeling.” The manuscript ID is buildings-2709652.

We thank you and the reviewers for your thoughtful suggestions and insights. The manuscript has benefited from these insightful suggestions. I look forward to working with you and the reviewers to move this manuscript closer to publication in Buildings.

The manuscript has been rechecked and the necessary changes have been made in accordance with the reviewers’ suggestions. The responses to all comments have been prepared and attached herewith.

• I have revised the abstract.
• The reason for selecting the target building has been added to subsection 2.1.1.
• The selected energy simulation does not perform model calibration separately.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

My overall recommendation is based on the following topics:

1) Abstract must be improved using quantitative results and conclusions. Authors should try to write it in a way that can catch the readers' attention to use the information presented in the manuscript.

2) In my point of view, the introduction is well written. However, I would like to express my opinion that the last paragraph should be improved to better present the novelty of your research. In the submitted version, the reader can get the idea that your study is just one more equal to the ones mentioned even by you. Then, you should focus in write and clarify the differences from your results and the ones presented by other authors and also cited by you. Try not to use the justification that it is the analysed building...

3) In my opinion the article should be divided in different section: Methodology and Results. In this version both are in the same and for that reason it is not easy to analyse.

4) I think this article has lack of indicators. I suggest the read of this article (https://doi.org/10.3390/en14082214) where financial and enviromental indicators are presented and applied to a public building. 

5) The most important comment I can write is that I strongly suggest to the authors to improve the way they present their methodology and the questions they would like to clarify/answer. Sometimes it is not possible to analyse which results are from your research work and the results already known by you.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

We wish to re-submit the manuscript titled “Analysis of the Energy Consumption of Old Public Buildings in South Korea after Green-Remodeling.” The manuscript ID is buildings-2709652.

We thank you and the reviewers for your thoughtful suggestions and insights. The manuscript has benefited from these insightful suggestions. I look forward to working with you and the reviewers to move this manuscript closer to publication in Buildings.

The manuscript has been rechecked and the necessary changes have been made in accordance with the reviewers’ suggestions. The responses to all comments have been prepared and attached herewith.

• I have revised the abstract.
• I have revised the last paragraph of the introduction.
• I will conduct further research on the economic analysis of green remodeling demonstration in the future.
• The content of the Materials and Methods section has been modified.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors presented their work on the experimental study of the green remodeling. The interesting topic and the unique experimental setup provide a great opportunity for an evidence-based study. In general, the manuscript is well organized. The results and discussion are reasonable.

The authors have corrected the comments, clarified and structured the results and conclusions of the study. In general, the language of the presentation is accessible, interesting and understandable. The article can be accepted for publication.

Author Response

We wish to re-submit the manuscript titled “Analysis of the Energy Consumption of Old Public Buildings in South Korea after Green-Remodeling.” The manuscript ID is buildings-2709652.

We thank you and the reviewers for your thoughtful suggestions and insights. The manuscript has benefited from these insightful suggestions. I look forward to working with you and the reviewers to move this manuscript closer to publication in Buildings.

• We are grateful to you for reviewing the manuscript and providing your valuable comments and suggestions for improvement.

Thank you for your consideration.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

After analysing the new manuscript version, I think authors made an effort to converge to my comments.

However, although energy demand decreases, it is not proved that finantially this implementation is a good investiment. Of course, not every thing is money and finantial indicators, but then, how authors present this propose to the government body of this building? Even that the indicators present a bad view, they should be presented and then other indicators should be highlight (for instance, the public interest, the global strategy, climate issue,...). My point is, someone do some calculus and some simulations, someone is in charge to implement. As reviewer, I would like to be convinced that the project is able to be implemented. Sell me the idea that the governance may accept to implement it...

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

We wish to re-submit the manuscript titled “Analysis of the Energy Consumption of Old Public Buildings in South Korea after Green-Remodeling.” The manuscript ID is buildings-2709652.

We thank you and the reviewers for your thoughtful suggestions and insights. The manuscript has benefited from these insightful suggestions. I look forward to working with you and the reviewers to move this manuscript closer to publication in Buildings.

• We have added the phrase “additional CO₂ emission reduction” in section 3.2 of the paper. These results were calculated through simulations. CO₂ emissions after the remodeling were 63.83% lower than that observed before the remodeling.
• This remodeling demonstration is an achievement of the Korean government's R&D task and will be used as a standard model for green remodeling of existing buildings in the building sector of the 2050 Carbon Neutral Country Roadmap.

The manuscript has been rechecked and the necessary changes have been made in accordance with the reviewers’ suggestions. The responses to all comments have been prepared and attached herewith.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 Accept in present form

Comments on the Quality of English Language

 Accept in present form