Energy Efficiency Improvement in Reconfigurable Photovoltaic Systems: An Evaluation of Team Systems

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The subject of this paper is the possibility of increasing the efficiency of PV installations by using more inverters in different combinations. The aim of the article was to investigate and prove the applicability of such solutions in PV installations. The topics of the article are interesting, but the article is very superficial. Significant improvements are needed.

The comments are set out below:

1) The literature review is very superficial and does not meet the requirements of a scientific paper. .... The paper includes only 19 references, of which only 9 are scientific articles. In addition, the articles cited are relatively old. A more detailed literature analysis should be carried out and the papers and results from these papers related to the topic of the paper should be presented.

2) Figure 1 - in the figure description, the abbreviations from the figure should be expanded.

3) Line 89 - "in specialised literature" - which literature? No citation of such literature and what exactly is in it.

4) Line 321 - "de value", should be "the value".

5) Table 2 - "54,06" should be "54.06".

6) Figures 10 and 11 - no legend on graphs.

7) Figures 13 - 15 - no description of the graphs, what they show, what conclusions can be drawn from them. They need to be analysed, these are the results obtained and should be studied in more detail.

8) Tables 3 - 6 - Is it possible to determine values as precise as those given in the tables under the heading "Increment of energy"? Values given in this way show that the authors have not necessarily adhered to the results obtained, they should be given up to a maximum of 3 digits after the decimal point.

9) Section 7 - no discussion of the results obtained, just a few sentences of remarks. No comparisons with the literature, how the results fit in with other studies. This chapter should be much more developed and elaborated.

10) Section 8 - No conclusions from the research, you can only read about what was done in the work, not what results were obtained and why.

It is necessary to review the text and correct typos in the text.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments, we appreciate the valuable time you have spent reviewing our paper and providing us with valuable remarks.

We have carefully reviewed the comments and thoroughly revised the manuscript accordingly. Our responses are given in a point-by-point manner in the attached file. We have submitted a revised version of our manuscript, and all the changes are marked in red color.

We are looking forward to your reply on the revision. We are more than happy to make any further changes that will improve the paper. Thank you again for your attention and consideration.

Sincerely,

Guillermo Velasco

Roohollah Afzali

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This article presents a study on the impact of utilising an adaptive sizing ratio in a grid-connected photovoltaic system to improve the energy efficiency of the system, and how they need to be modified over time to ensure maximum energy efficiencies are sustained. Although the article has some merit, it is lacking in a clear structure, with elements of the methodology missing, poor use of referencing and regular grammatical errors, typos, and omissions throughout the article. As well as this, it is unclear as to what software is used for the numerical model, and only one of the two configurations are experimentally validated due to complications in purchasing the hardware. Most importantly, assumptions are made about the changes in irradiance for different weather conditions which do not align with studies conducted in external weathering conditions, which therefore needs to be addressed.

Overall, it has potential, following the suggested amendments:

1.       As the impact of irradiance is quite key to the study being conducted, have the authors considered how this would vary when using other commercial photovoltaic architectures with different band gaps?

2.       P4 lines 157-159 the thermal effects on PV systems vary according to their architecture (what materials they are made of). Are the solar architectures in the referenced article the same as those being used in this model? The thermal coefficient values here are also only considering those of PV installed on a roof and not a solar farm.

3.       P5 lines 187-188 “These results are obtained using the simulation procedure presented in [11]”. The authors should clearly clarify what this procedure is in sufficient detail.

4.       What software was used for the numerical models?

5.       P 10 lines 376-385, what are the time intervals between recording the IV curves set as for the SASs? More detail is needed here for clarity.

6.       Figure 10: although the key for the line colours is described in the main text, these should be shown on the figure. The figure itself is also of poor quality and the lines are hard to distinguish.

7.       Figure 11: The line colours also need a key here and the different colours are not that clear due to the poor-quality image.

8.       Figure 12 – The use of one set of irradiance data with a change in scale to try and mimic different weather conditions is unreliable. This is not appropriate for representing different weather patterns as the severity in the change in peaks and troughs of irradiance variations throughout the day do not remain consistent, meaning that the same curve cannot represent them all. Repeated studies should be conducted using more than just this one scaled irradiance plot, with real variations in irradiance for different weather conditions provided.

9.       There are unsupported statements given throughout the article which lack references to back them up, these need to be addressed. E.g. P1 lines 41-42: “industry is currently focused on increasing the efficiency of solar panels, which is around 15%-22%.”. This statement needs to be supported with references, especially as there are solar architectures commercially available which are capable of higher efficiencies than these. Is this value considering only monocrystalline silicon photovoltaics or all commercially available architectures of PV?

10.   Where references are used, they do not clearly state the key findings being referred to. This also needs to be corrected to avoid pointless and vague statements.

Overall, not bad, but there are many typos and grammatical errors littered throughout the article which need addressing

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments, we appreciate the valuable time you have spent reviewing our paper and providing us with valuable remarks.

We have carefully reviewed the comments and thoroughly revised the manuscript accordingly. Our responses are given in a point-by-point manner in the attached file. We have submitted a revised version of our manuscript, and all the changes are marked in red color.

We are looking forward to your reply on the revision. We are more than happy to make any further changes that will improve the paper. Thank you again for your attention and consideration.

Sincerely,

Guillermo Velasco

Roohollah Afzali

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for examining the text and making the appropriate amendments.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors appear to have made many of the requested minor changes to a suitable degree. The gaps in references have been addressed and missing aspects of the methodologies have been added in. Although the article would benefit from more realistic weather condition’s irradiance plots, the justifications given are reasonable and it has been made clearer in the article that these are simply representations of different light intensities over different days. Therefore, with a minor spell check, this article appears suitable for publication.

A proofread to remove the remaining typos and grammatical errors is needed.