Rebound Effect of China’s Electric Power Demand in the Context of Technological Innovation
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Paper: Rebound Effect of China’s Electric Power Demand in the Context of Technological Innovation
This paper analyses a period of time from 1999 to 2016 regarding the technological effect on the electrical demand in China. The numerical analysis is correct and also it can become a future reference regarding demand analysis in different technological contexts.
The paper is suitable for publication with some minor corrections as follows:
1. The referencing style does not meet the journal requirements.
2. Nomenclature must be listed at the end of the document following the journal rules.
3. The quality of some equations is really poor, these look pixeled.
4. Please do not use * for products. Replace it in equation (10) with parenthesis.
5. To increase the readability of the figures please use the whole margin of the text.
6. The main question with this manuscript is the selection of the period of time. Why the authors do not include the years 2017-2020 previous to the pandemic, to have an updated period of analysis.
Author Response
Please see attached PDF file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
The reviewed article is dedicated to the analysis of a so-called rebound effect in China's electrical power demand. The term “rebound effect” in conservation and energy economics found the application from the end of the first decade of the 21st century. The use of this indicator is related to the relation between the efficiency improvements of technology (cost) and the consumption growth of the analyzed technology. Regarding the aim of the article, the analysis would have been done for the entire energy sector with an emphasis on renewable electricity. Of cause, taking into account the impact of the cost of electricity on technical progress and the redistribution of energy consumption between different types of energy, including renewable sources. Considering mentioned above, the overall expression of the manuscript is low. The article analyzes the situation without the use of a cost function as it is applicable for the rebound effect studies. This circumstance rejects significantly the academic and scientific level of the represented work transforming it into some kind of declaration without the required scientific foundation.
Considering mentioned above, I cannot recommend this manuscript for publication.
A more detailed analysis is represented in the attached file.
Best regards,
The reviewer
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see attached PDF file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This study is about the “rebound effect,” the well-known phenomenon that improving energy efficiency may save less energy than expected due to a rebound of energy use. The study considered the comparison of rebound effects between overall energy demand and electricity demand as well as the evaluation of the impact of electricity demand growth on other energy demand however there are some remarks about the manuscript:
- What did ‘social electricity consumption’ mean? There are industrial, commercial, residential consumption, however the concept of social electricity consumption is vague. Could the authors please elaborate that?
- Why did the authors use Log Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) for decomposition? What are the superiorities of LMDI over other methods? Why not another method?
- in order to claim a causal relationship between energy efficiency and energy use, it must be shown that energy consumption has not increased due to some other factor. Ideally, the experiment needed to identify a zero-cost breakthrough would consist of two worlds—one with the zero-cost breakthrough and one without. Unfortunately, as for many issues in macroeconomics, such an experiment is impossible. In fact, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to separate the effect of energy efficiency improvements from exogenous economic growth and the simultaneous dramatic improvements in energy services.
- Why did the authors use VAR to investigate the impact of electric power demand changes on other energy demand? VAR only identifies linear relationship, what about non-linear relationship between changes in power demand and energy demand.
- Some typos or grammatical errors:
For example, electric power efficiency does not only ==> does is redundant
Line 66: many researchers usually applied different methods ==> usually is redundant
Line 84: … energy use efficiency brought about by the advancement of energy technology has instead increased the overall demand for energy , which will reduce the positive output of industrial energy efficiency … ==> rewrite this part
and etc…
Author Response
Please see attached PDF file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The following concerns should be addressed:
1) Abstract should be revised. The summary of methodology and findings should clearly be mentioned in the abstract.
2) The quality of figures 2-9 should be improved. Some figures can be merged.
3) The section of Conclusions needs to be expanded providing more information.
4) In general, the whole manuscript needs professional proofreading.
Author Response
Please see attached PDF file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
You provided sufficient work for the improving text of the articles.
However, I recommend defining more precisely what does it mean "New Normal Period"? There was not any intention to diminish the importance of Chinese economic growth. However, for clarification and despite this conception being used in the literature, it should be described in terms of a specific time period or by another means characterizing this notion.
Best regards,
The reviewer
Author Response
Please see the attached PDF file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
I have no more comments. My concerns have been addressed.
Author Response
Thanks for your kind help to improve the quality of our paper.
