Analysis of Restructuring the Mexican Electricity Sector to Operate in a Wholesale Energy Market

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Grammar and spelling check throughout the text. E.g.:

• line 15: "It proceeds..." instead of "Proceeds...";
• line 16-17: "...negative..." and not "...negatives...";
• line 22: "...so that this is acting...", the sentence is not clear: does "this" refer to the "Federal Government" (so in this case you should use "it" instead of this), or does it refer to "the recent political "decisions" (so in this case you should use "they" instead of "this")?;
• line 36: "...achieve that....", what does "that" refer to?;
• line 39: "...being..." instead of "...these are...".
• ...and so on, throughout the text.

Introduction: Perhaps provide a more comprehensive description of the Mexican energy sector.

Introduction: What is the innovativeness of the specific work, compared to the previously performed studies?  

Lines 131-134: "Also, the advancement..."; is this seen as a problem? Why is it presented in this paragraph?

Lines 143-146: The same comment as above.

Line 147: What do you mean "Under this scenario..."? In the previous paragraph you started presenting information about Mexico, but continued by referring to Norway and some general information. So, which is the scenario you are referring to? 

Line 159: The reference for the textbook model is dated from 2006 (ref. [10]); since then (i.e. a 15-year period) haven't there been any modifications or arguments against this model, especially when referring to the energy sector?

Lines 198-200: "Joskow warns..."; "warns" has a negative tone; why would he warn about "...costless and operating perfectly"?

Section 2.3: From all the points presented in the textbook model, why do you specifically focus on the Regulation? i.e., why isn't there a corresponding analysis of every point presented in the textbook model?  

I believe that a abbreviations table would be helpful to be presented in the beginning of the text, as several non-common abbreviations are used throughout the text.

I believe that  Section 5 should be named 'Discussion" , and a new section (Section 6. Conclusions) should be created; the new section should include the text from lines 632-653.

I would propose a further elaboration of the results; discussion. 

The limitations of the study should be presented in the Discussion section. 

Lines 596-598, these are 4 aspects, not 3 aspects. 

Line 635: "...but one.." What does "one" refer to? Not clear.  

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Please find attached the file with the answers to the comments and suggestions. Thank you for your feedback, we believe that the quality of the manuscript was enhanced after corrections.

Sincerely yours

M.Sc. Juan Carlos Percino

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper looks more like a report. As a regular research paper, the main research question is important to discuss and should be clear. Please justify.

More comments:

- What is the average price/cost ratio in figure 1?

- It is not true apparently that it observes about 88% of the total for 2014 for residential tariff subsidies in figure 2. Investigate.

- Why assets increased in CFE after 2016.

- Discussion is poor and should be extended, e.g. the COVID reason is not clear and contextualized.

- The conclusions should be separated.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We are very thankful for your feedback that certainly will improve the quality of the manuscript. All the comments and suggestions were addressed and integrated into the manuscript accordingly. Please find attached the cover letter with the answers to the suggestions and comments.

Sincerely yours

M.Sc. Juan Carlos Percino

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Overall, the paper is well written and can be considered for publication abfter a few amendments.

1) To better understand the current situation of the Mexican electricity generation, an overview about the different types of power plants and their capacity would be helpful.

2) To better understand the problem of congestion in the transmission system, a map of the system and indications, where the congestions occur should be included. Together with an indication where the electricity generation and demand centres are this would give insight to understand the problem.

3)  The information in table 5 is not of much use, if the capacity numbers of the connections are not given.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We are very thankful for your feedback that certainly will improve the quality of the manuscript. All the comments and suggestions were addressed and integrated into the manuscript accordingly. Please find attached the cover letter with the answers to the suggestions and comments.

Sincerely yours

M.Sc. Juan Carlos Percino

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

This study describes the restructuring in Mexican Electricity Market from the traditional monopoly structure to the competitive one. This kind of study is of interest to show the pros and cons, challenges, and opportunities of restructuring in power systems worldwide. Please address the following issues to enhance the quality of the paper:

1. In the introduction, it is expected to review the same restructuring experiences in other countries. Also, it is expected to review some recent (2018-2021) manuscripts in this section as academic research.
2. The reference of presented data, e.g. Figures 1, 2,..., is vague. Are they publicly available? it is good to cite a valid reference close to the presented data. 
3. In section 4, it is expected to discuss the methods of wheeling tariff in transmission lines. As you know, in the restructured system, the share of market beneficiaries in transmission system usage, congestion, loss, etc. can be determined by different methods. It is recommended to allocate a paragraph to this issue. A useful reference: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40313-014-0106-x
4. In many countries, during the restructuring, the operation of the GenCos are delegated to private companies. In the case of the transmission network, the operation of TransCo is normally under the government administration. What about the Mexican market? could you please explain the pros and cons of both concepts? 
5. Please provide a table of acronyms for better visibility. Moreover, the acronyms should be defined at the first point in the body text. Don't leave any abbreviation without description. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We are very thankful for your feedback that certainly will improve the quality of the manuscript. All the comments and suggestions were addressed and integrated into the manuscript accordingly. Please find attached the cover letter with the answers to the suggestions and comments.

Sincerely yours

M.Sc. Juan Carlos Percino

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The issues that I have raised have been addressed. 

However, please make a final check of spelling and grammar; e.g. lines 42-43: 

"... there is always participations of the government" should be changed to "participation".

Such minor mistakes can be found across the manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors addressed the main questions raised by this reviewer.

Could authors include the generated datasets of the research available for the community in Zenodo.org ?

Reviewer 3 Report

The review comments were addressed in an adequate manner and the paper can now be published.

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors have made many efforts to address the comments. I have no further concerns.