Wrong paper by Ugur Atikol, Comments on " A simple peak shifting DSM (demand-side management) strategy for residential water heaters " [Energy 62 (2013) 435-440]

Letter to the Editor Comments on “A simple peak shifting DSM (demand-side management) strategy for residential water heaters” [Energy 62 (2013) 435-440] Arian Bahrami Department of Mechanical Engineering, Eastern Mediterranean University, G. Magosa, TRNC, Mersin 10, Turkey

First of all Atikol has to be congratulated for his 2013 attempt to investigate the practicability of utilizing timers for electric water heaters (EWHs) in order to shift the load of EWHs into off-peak hours for developing countries such as North Cyprus as previously discussed in another Energy publication of the author in 1999 [9]. It was anticipated in the above paper that there would be a high motivation in opting for this demand-side management (DSM) strategy as the estimated cost of the program is extremely low compared to the cost of the deferred power unit. In the previous paper of the author [9] in 1999, it was estimated that the construction of a new 60 MW steam power plant in North Cyprus will cost around $100 million (1.66 $ million/MW), and the authors considered 30,000 houses with EWHs for the DSM program. They claimed that offering $ 5.7 million as the rebate is the best solution for a random peak load reduction of 13.35 MW. Note that in this paper, the construction cost of a new reciprocating engine power unit of 17 MW capacity in North Cyprus mentioned to be around $12 million without giving any references (0.70 $ million/MW) and the author considered about 5,667 houses with EWHs to claim that offering $ 1.3 million as the rebate is the best solution again after 15 years !!!

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The evaluation of the feasibility of projects should be based on the actual performance of systems and any wrong assumption, estimation and information can easily lead to a conclusion that any project is feasible. Unfortunately, the author discarded many facts and information regarding North Cyprus as an example to conclude that this DSM strategy is a better option for implementation instead of a new power plant for the country. For instance, the author considered many assumptions without any references and reasons such as the number of 5667 houses with 3kW EWHs in the calculation for this program. The used number of houses with EWHs for the feasibility calculation contradicts with the information presented in Fig.1. The real number of houses with EWHs can be approximately between 15,000 and 20,000. This number can be calculated by dividing the peak load of 50 MW by the mentioned rating power of 3-kW EWHs as shown in Fig.1. Surprisingly, it is seen that the author considered up to 30,000 houses with EWHs in Table 1 of his previous paper [9] but not in this paper which is questionable. As a result, there is an obvious contradiction in this regard. Offering rebate for such a low number (5667 houses) in comparison with the actual one (15,000-20,000 or even more) is in favor of showing the feasibility of the strategy. It is known from the thesis [1] supervised by the author at the time of this publication that the local state utility company KIBTEK is responsible for generating distributing and selling the produced power to all consumers in North Cyprus. KIB-TEK has 2x60 MW fuel oil fired steam power plants and 6x17.5 MW fuel oil fired reciprocating diesel engine power plants. A private company AKSA, which has 8x17.5 MW fuel oil fired diesel power plants, meets the additional requirement of the country’s energy need and sells the electrical energy to the utility company KIB-TEK. Total power capacity of KIB-TEK is about 350 MW. If the number of houses with 3kW EWHs is about 6000 as the author claimed, and the number of houses without 3-kW EWHs is

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about 54,000 as extracted from the caption of Fig. 1, then all 6000 households can use up to 8.5 kW while the remaining 54,000 households can still use up to 5.5 kW simultaneously without having any problem since the main equipment with the highest power in houses is the air conditioner for space cooling and heating which normally has the rating power equal or less than 2-kW. If the number of houses with 3-kW EWHs is about 16,000 as extracted from Fig. 1 and the number of houses without 3-kW EWHs is about 44,000, then all 16,000 households can use up to 8.1 kW while the remaining 44,000 households can still use up to 5.1 kW simultaneously without having any problem again. As a result, there is no need for such a DSM program with such cost in North Cyprus. Note that the government can easily use peak-load pricing instead without any substantial cost or alternatively control the demand by load-shedding techniques. The paper is a duplication of the information and results of the author’s previous publications [9,10,12,15] since almost all the Figures and Tables are adopted and referred to previous publications [9,10,12,15]. The author published these experimental papers [10,12,15] in 2005 and the presented temperature curves consist of 35 data points in that time. In 2013 paper, the author presented solid curves instead of the same data points !!!, why ?? In Fig. 4 (a), it can be observed that the three experimental temperature curves have intersection in only one point which is almost impossible to occur in any conducted experiment. One can check and compare Fig.4 (a) with combination of Fig. 4 in [10], Fig. 7 in [15], and [12] to conclude that there are three intersections. As a result, the 2013 paper contains data fabrication without using the real 2005 data which questions the validity of the presented Table 2. Moreover, in Fig. 3, there is a curve adopted from Fig. 6 of Ref [13] which is not possible to draw that curve for comparison since the Fig. 6 in [13] has different axes and was presented for 2.2-kW and 4-kW EWHs while the other curves of the author used in Fig. 3 are for the 3-kW EWH [12]. Each figure should consist of curves for a specific

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power to be meaningful!!. Another question is that the author used which curves of [13] exactly?? Fig. 6 (a) or (b)?? Bringing the same 2005 data and results [10,12,15] + proposing the same DSM strategy for peak shifting suggested by the author multiple times since 1999 [9] based on wrong assumption, estimation + data fabrication in Figures and not revealing information about the current situation of the country in 2013 as stated in the thesis [1] supervised by the author at the time of this publication is not only a contribution to science but it definitely contains almost all types of ethical issues about an article. This paper should be retracted based on the above evidences.

References [1] O. Erciyas, Sustainability assessment of photovoltaic power plants in North Cyprus, Thesis, Eastern Mediterranean University, 2014. [9] Atikol U, Dagbasi M, Güven H. Identification of residential end-use loads for demand-side planning in northern Cyprus. Energy 1999;24(3):231-8. [10] Atikol U, Aldabbagh LBY, Sezai I. Effect of standing time after usage on the performance of storage-type domestic electrical water-heaters. J Energy Inst 2006;79(1):53-8. [12] Atikol U, Aldabbagh LBY, Sezai I. The hot water availability and the discharging efficiency of a storage-type domestic water-heater. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Exergy, Energy and Environment Symposium (IEEES2), Kos-Greece 3-7 July 2005. [15] Sezai I, Aldabbagh LBY, Atikol U, Hacisevki H. Performance improvement by using dual heaters in a storage-type domestic water heater. Appl Energy 2005;81:291-305.

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