Enhanced Measurement and Verification Practices in Deep-Level Mines: The Current State
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors!
The deep level mining poses challenges by itself and the measurement and verification of the whole mining operation is crucial. Although your theme is interesting there are some areas of the article that should be improved:
You are doing the current state literature review of the measurement and verification practices in deep mining, but you are stating the Africa gold production vs. global production, energy management challenges and the annual Eskom Megaflex tariffs and periods. It is not clear what is the purpose of this data since you are doing the literature review.
The literature review process stated in the chapter 2. M&V in Mining is based on the title and the abstract of different articles and not on the content of the article. To judge article only on the title and abstract is not the correct way of doing the literature review. This chapter has no scientific meaning, and it should be removed or written in the correct meaning.
The reference is missing in the line 190 when the Opperman is mentioned.
Practical knowledge utilization in mining is stating references 52 and 53 that are not relevant to this study since they are referring to the other topic.
You are stating that the guidelines from one reference. There are other authors that worked on that field / topic so other authors should be mentioned. To support you statement that only one author worked on the topic should be mentioned and proved.
Table 1 is statin 17 studies / sources but you stated that you analysed 21 study in total in the line 86 and 258. What is the correct number of the studies that you analysed in you article? This should be clearly stated. The table 1 is stating 6 studies that are addressing the unplanned events but you are stating that only five are addressing the unplanned events.
The discussion chapter is missing or if the chapter 6 is the discussion than it should be rewritten. Discussion is not about paraphrasing the previous sentences but reflect on the work done in the article.
Chapter Recommendations should be merged in to Conclusion.
Best regards.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageDear authors!
Minor editing of English language required.
Best regards.
Author Response
Thank you for the feedback on our manuscript. We have implemented the changes and found the paper to be improved considerably. Please see the attached document for a point-by-point response.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript deals with an interesting and relevant problem. The paper is well structured and clear, and methods are well-explained. This reviewer has a few recommendations in order to improve the clarity of the work and provide more insights into the topics of interest:
1. In section 1.2 authors argument energy challenges in South Africa. For international readers, it may be of interest to compare these costs with those in other mining countries. I suggest to relate the tariffs on Fig. 2 to indicators in other countries or regions, or to include information such as levelized cost of energy in South Africa.
2. Section 2 could benefit from more explicit statement of research questions and inclusion and exclusion criteria. This is important as the authors mention study in ref [28] with is associated to energy prediction in buildings in commercial technology sector. Mining operations do not necessarily share similar patterns with the operation in other sectors, so it is relevant to clarify how unique mining challenges mentioned in the first sections of the paper translate into energy assessment and whether they can be compared to other sectors.
3. Section 4. could benefit from a better integration with the rest of the paper. The authors could explain how some of the referenced work in section 4.1 integrates into the methods used in the mining industry, beyond the experiential component.
4. Connecting the content in Table 1 with more explicit research questions associated to the problem statement aligned with the goals of the study will allow the reader a clearer visualization of the results summarized here.
5. In addition, it would be interesting to mention, for the regression methods what are the variables considered, where these consistent across the models? What are the models assumptions? etc.
6. The components in Figure 6 could be explicitly related to the variables and assumptions considered in the studies.
Many mining industry providers have specialized in the development of tools that contribute to energy efficiency and effective planning. The authors should include at least a paragraph about these tools and their impacts, if any, in the topics of this study.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Please review typos across the paper, for instance in Figure 4. "Title" on the first column in misspelled.
Some of the references seem to be out of format, please check the correctness of references 4, 8, and 29. 29 in particular does not seem very relevant to this study.
Author Response
Thank you for the feedback on our manuscript. We have implemented the changes and found the paper to be improved considerably. Please see the attached document for a point-by-point response.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe article is devoted to an important and topical issue related to improving the efficiency of energy management during gold mining.
Increasing energy efficiency is a complex problem, integral parts of which are issues of energy consumption management, planning, regulation, accounting and control of energy consumption, compilation and rationalization of energy balances. Solving the issues of increasing the energy efficiency of mining enterprises based on the management of energy resources leads not only to a reduction in energy costs, but also allows for increased competitiveness, the level of production control, the involvement of personnel in solving energy saving problems, as well as other advantages In modern conditions, insufficient attention is paid to the issues of increasing energy efficiency based on energy resource management This is due, on the one hand, to a certain novelty of these issues, and on the other hand, to the practical absence of guidelines and recommendations for increasing energy efficiency using modern principles, methods, and methods of energy management. In this regard, increasing the level of management of the energy consumption process with the identification and assessment of factors affecting energy efficiency, with the establishment of dependencies that determine the connection between energy consumption and production and technological factors, with the development of recommendations for increasing the energy efficiency of mining enterprises is an urgent scientific task. Currently used methods for assessing the state and managing the process of electricity consumption, which is characterized by electrical load modes, energy intensity of technological processes, balances and modes of energy consumption and other indicators, do not sufficiently take into account the influence of many mining, climatic-meteorological and other factors. Models included in the basis of assessment and calculation methods does not sufficiently correspond to the phenomena that determine power consumption regimes The management aspect is characterized by the presentation of the energy consumption process as a complex process with the participation of personnel. In this regard, problematic issues that require consideration, analysis and solution are the issues of establishing goals (strategic, operational and current) for increasing the efficiency of energy resource use, determining the direction for achieving established energy saving goals, assessing the state, and the level of energy resource management. Effective use of energy resources is impossible without implementing a systematic approach to their management. Developed and implemented energy resource consumption management systems must take into account not only technical, but also organizational, motivational, informational, marketing, and investment aspects.
Based on the foregoing, the presented work is relevant and will be of interest to the reader in the area under consideration.
However, a number of comments about the article should be clarified:
1. Figure 1 should be supplemented with data for 2019-2023 and present forecast values for forecasting gold production in South Africa and in the world as a whole. Machine learning methods can be used to obtain predictive values, since the gold mining process is influenced by numerous external factors, often of a random nature.
2. In section “1.1. The Gold Mining Industry in South Africa”, it would be possible to list the names of gold mines and present their brief characteristics in a table to identify the most significant mines for further systematic analysis on the management of energy consumption at them.
3. It should be more clearly explained how payment for electricity is made according to the tariff shown in Figure 2, differentiated by time of day. Along with this, measures should be listed to equalize the daily load schedule of gold mining enterprises, in particular, through the use of consumer-regulators of electricity during peak load hours (transferring the work of the most powerful energy consumers from peak periods of time on the load schedule).
4. The analysis of Figure 3 is not sufficiently complete. How is minimization of electricity consumption costs assessed? What performance criterion is used?
5. It is necessary to add a section “Materials and methods” to the work, since it is necessary to provide a description of the main methods that will be used to conduct research. As the main methods of analysis, it is necessary to focus on geophysical methods, the use of geographic information systems, etc., since without a detailed analysis of the gold mining site in question, further analysis is impossible.
6. It was possible to change the name of the section “3. Finance Management in the Gold Mining Industry 88”, which partially describes the methods used in the work.
7. Sections 3.1-3.3 lack information about possible penalties that may be imposed on gold mining enterprises if daily electricity limits are exceeded.
8. It is not entirely clear how the 7 stages of the approach were determined (section “4.2. Guidelines”). When determining the main ones, were methods of expert assessments and cluster analysis used?
9. Are there any plans to obtain a patent for the methodology presented in Figure 5 so that it can be used in similar studies at other mining sites in different regions of the world?
10. It is not entirely clear what forecasting methods are being discussed in section “6. The Need for Advanced M&V in Mining". It would be necessary to present specific predictive mathematical models of power consumption in mines, taking into account the influence of various technological, natural, economic and other factors on them.
11. According to section “7. Recommendations" it is necessary to present a generalized methodology for conducting research based on a roadmap. In particular, to present methodological principles and a method for studying the energy management process, taking into account the complex influence of managerial and technical factors on increasing the energy efficiency of mining enterprises.
12. The conclusions must present specific scientific and practical results achieved in the work, as well as present prospects for further research on the topic under consideration.
Author Response
Thank you for the feedback on our manuscript. We have implemented the changes and found the paper to be improved considerably. Please see the attached document for a point-by-point response.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe article has been well revised by the authors. Writing answers in the form of a table is a fairly good solution. It would also be possible to more fully reflect the results obtained in the abstract.
Author Response
Thank you for the feedback. We have updated the abstract to reflect more on the findings and implications of the study.
Please do let us know if you have any other recommendations.
