“Methodology Comparative Analysis” in the Solar Decathlon Competition: A Proposed Housing Model based on a Prefabricated Structural System

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

thank you for the opportunity to review your paper.

Per se it is of interest and can be considered as potential publishable for sustanability.

Some comments:

Figure 9 is useless (all projects have 4 points). It is recommended to generally shrink these results graph a bit better together...as actually the results could be seen in Figure 16 (no need to prolong that paper).  Instead of the above mentioned graphs, rather some tabular data about the assessed projects, especially "Cost" infomation might be useful. In general these solar decathlons do not provide any answer to the "social" question, which here could be discussed as well (units of 80 m² for 400 K Euros...).  Table 2 has a column with a spanish top row. Please translate. Given that the paper is intented for publication in a journal, the sample seems a bit small. Moreover, you mention the venues and years of the past solar declathons, as such it seems a valuable consideration, if other buildings should be included...  A language check is recommende. E.g. a ";" is used in the abstract and then a Sentence-fragment is there instead of a full sentence.

Given the upper aspects, I plead for major revision!

 

Author Response

Dear authors,

thank you for the opportunity to review your paper.

Per se it is of interest and can be considered as potential publishable for sustanability.

The authors wish to thank the reviewer for his interest in this research, as well as the comments and useful suggestions for improving the quality of the manuscript. Please find below a description of the individual changes made.

Some comments:

Figure 9 is useless (all projects have 4 points). It is recommended to generally shrink these results graph a bit better together...as actually the results could be seen in Figure 16 (no need to prolong that paper). 

Thank you for your comment. We have grouped everything into a single graph to avoid this repetition of information (Figure 10).

Instead of the abovementioned graphs, rather some tabular data about the assessed projects, especially "Cost" infomation might be useful. In general these solar decathlons do not provide any answer to the "social" question, which here could be discussed as well (units of 80 m² for 400 K Euros...). 

It is quite interesting and it would be quite enriching to have a study where costs were taken into account. However, the economic aspect is currently not valued in the Solar Decathlon contest, therefore the teams do not publish this data, although it should be taken into account, at least for the sustainability test from our point of view. So we are going to take it into account as a subject of study for an upcoming research to develop.

Mention, in addition, that in the SDLAC it is about social housing, that in response to the housing demand of the overpopulation of Latin cities. In SD Europe and the United States it is more of a chalet, with the greatest technological advances and innovations in terms of sustainability, so there would be no point of comparison in the three cases in terms of costs.

Table 2 has a column with a spanish top row. Please translate.

Thank you for your appreciation. We have resolved this issue.

Given that the paper is intented for publication in a journal, the sample seems a bit small. Moreover, you mention the venues and years of the past solar declathons, as such it seems a valuable consideration, if other buildings should be included... 

Thank you for your comment. We think that, although it would be good to include more prototypes to the study sample, these would only serve as examples, since at the end what is developed in the article is an evaluation methodology for constructive systems focused on industrialization, so include more projects to research, would not bring greater results or change the proposed methodology.

A language check is recommende. E.g. a ";" is used in the abstract and then a Sentence-fragment is there instead of a full sentence.

There has been a general revision of the English language and style, as well as a rewriting of some paragraphs in particular.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Review of Methodology comparative analysis” in the Solar  Decathlon competition: a proposal of housing model  based on a prefabricated structural system

 

This manuscript presents an objective scoring methodology for the construction systems, based on the analysis of the highest scoring prototypes from various editions of the competition.

 

 

The paper provides some interesting information, however now it is look like technical note and not as scientific paper.  That is  why, the revision is recommended before it may be considered future, namely:

 

The paper needs English corrections – there are several very long sentences;

Besides there are still some words in different (not english) language (for example table 2)—please check this and revise in the manuscript;

Please refer in introduction to other lastly published articles in the topic of solar decathlon, for example: Energy performance analysis of STILE house at the Solar Decathlon 2015: Lessons learned. Journal of Building Engineering. Volume 13September 2017Pages 11-27

 

Optimizing the transition between design and operation of ZEBs:lessons learnt from the Solar Decathlon China 2018 . Energy and Buildings Towards an optimized zero energy solar house: A critical analysis of passive and active design strategies used in Solar Decathlon Europe in Madrid

Journal of Cleaner Production Volume 2361 November 2019Article 117646

Energy technology and lifestyle: A case study of the University at Buffalo 2015 Solar Decathlon home. Renewable Energy. Volume 123August 2018Pages 92-103 Comfort analysis applied to the international standard “Active House”: The case of RhOME, the winning prototype of Solar Decathlon 2014 Journal of Building Engineering Volume 12July 2017Pages 210-218 A review of heating, ventilation and air conditioning technologies and innovations used in solar-powered net zero energy Solar Decathlon houses.

Journal of Cleaner Production Volume 24010 December 2019Article 118158

 

Please underline in introduction the novelty of this manuscript, because now it is not clear; Verse 126-127: iteration –please revise; Verse 134-156: it is good to show also the methodology in simple, additional schema—it will be more clearly for the reader; Please provide valid reference source in part where you cite a lot, for example table 10; Fig 16- it iteration of the before figures –the same data presented one more time; It is recommended for example to compare results form this (new) methodology and the method used in practice in this regard. The conclusion should be supported by the data.

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Review of Methodology comparative analysis” in the Solar Decathlon competition: a proposal of housing model based on a prefabricated structural system

This manuscript presents an objective scoring methodology for the construction systems, based on the analysis of the highest scoring prototypes from various editions of the competition.

 

The paper provides some interesting information, however now it is look like technical note and not as scientific paper.  That is why, the revision is recommended before it may be considered future, namely:

The paper needs English corrections – there are several very long sentences;

Besides there are still some words in different (not english) language (for example table 2)—please check this and revise in the manuscript;

The authors wish to thank the reviewer for his interest in this research, as well as the comments and useful suggestions for improving the quality of the manuscript. Please find below a description of the individual changes made.

Please refer in introduction to other lastly published articles in the topic of solar decathlon, for example:

• Energy performance analysis of STILE house at the Solar Decathlon 2015: Lessons learned. Journal of Building Engineering. Volume 13September 2017Pages 11-27
• Optimizing the transition between design and operation of ZEBs: lessons learnt from the Solar Decathlon China 2018 . Energy and Buildings
• Towards an optimized zero energy solar house: A critical analysis of passive and active design strategies used in Solar Decathlon Europe in Madrid. Journal of Cleaner Production Volume 2361 November 2019Article 117646
• Energy technology and lifestyle: A case study of the University at Buffalo 2015 Solar Decathlon home. Renewable Energy. Volume 123August 2018Pages 92-103
• Comfort analysis applied to the international standard “Active House”: The case of RhOME, the winning prototype of Solar Decathlon 2014 Journal of Building Engineering Volume 12July 2017Pages 210-218
• A review of heating, ventilation and air conditioning technologies and innovations used in solar-powered net zero energy Solar Decathlon houses. Journal of Cleaner Production Volume 24010 December 2019Article 118158

The bibliographical references provided seem very accurate. They have already been included since, without a doubt, it completes our bibliography used in this article

Please underline in introduction the novelty of this manuscript, because now it is not clear;

Perhaps it was not sufficiently explained in the first manuscript submitted, which is why we have now tried to go a bit further in the explanation (lines 95-113).

The main objective of this article will be to develop an evaluation methodology for construction systems focused on industrialization, through which we can objectify the overall quality of these systems. Where it can be understood that many construction systems can have the prefabricated label, but not all meet the highest expectations, if we focus on sustainability and efficient resource management.

Based on this, the second objective will be to put into crisis the evaluation methodology used by the prestigious solar contest decathlon, source of our case studies, to score the “engineering and construction” test. Being, this, a subjective methodology, causes that the materiality of the system, its weight or resources to be used in its assembly or its adaptability is not quantitatively differentiated.

Verse 126-127: iteration –please revise;

Thank you for your appreciation, we believe we have resolved this issue.

 

Verse 134-156: it is good to show also the methodology in simple, additional schema—it will be more clearly for the reader;

An explanatory graph of the methodological process is provided (figure 1).

 

Please provide valid reference source in part where you cite a lot, for example table 10; Fig 16- it iteration of the before figures –the same data presented one more time;

Thank you for your comment. We have grouped everything into a single graph to avoid this repetition of information (Figure 10).

 

It is recommended for example to compare results form this (new) methodology and the method used in practice in this regard. The conclusion should be supported by the data.

We agree with this assessment, which is why we have complemented section 3.2., In addition to including a comparative graph (Figure 11). We think that this, now, will help to better understand the conclusions.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I think you did well in implementing the suggested changes.

I pleas for accept

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors revised the paper according to my suggestions.