Economic Assessment of Solar-Powered Residential Battery Energy Storage Systems: The Case of Madeira Island, Portugal
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is an excellent work, which in my opinion can be published in its current form. The study analyzed the existing theoretical and methodological background, the research methodology is very clearly defined, the results achieved are novel and have practical value for territories that do not have access to centralized energy supply and / or are actively introducing renewable energy and new forms of relationships with energy consumers.
There are several guidelines for authors that they can use in current or future work.
- It is advisable to more deeply analyze the available types of TOU tariffs, which are applied in different countries - there are really many variations of such tariffs, and they can be combined depending on the goals that you are going to achieve in a particular region.
- When you provide comparative information on different tariff rates (page 5, lines 167-170), it will be clearer if you present this data in the form of a table.
- A question out of pure curiosity: why was the simulation platform written in Python (line 212)? Were there any alternatives, or Python was chosen as the most versatile and widely used programming language today?
- The study would look more complete and holistic if the authors tried to delve deeper into the organizational aspect of the problem. When introducing new technologies and changing some of energy market aspects, a number of questions always arise. What are the barriers to implementation of the proposed model? How will the role of the regulator and the state change? Are there any additional risks for energy consumers, etc. Some of the conceptual solutions for industrial enterprises using its own generation are presented, for example, here: Gitelman, L.; Magaril, E.; Kozhevnikov, M.; Rada, E.C. Rational Behavior of an Enterprise in the Energy Market in a Circular Economy. Resources 2019, 8, 73. Perhaps they will be useful to you. However, the region that you are analyzing, of course, differs in the structure of energy demand, and has its own energy specifics. Please pay attention to the organizational mechanism for the implementation of proposed solutions in your future research.
Good luck! Well done!
Author Response
Thank you for your comments.
Please refer to the attached document for our replies.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper presented an economic assessment of solar-powered residential battery energy storage systems in Madeira Island. It is like a case study. The authors are suggested to explain the suitability of their methods to other areas and what the readers should pay attention to if they want to apply the methods to other areas. Especially as to discussions for future 10 years, there are a lot of uncertainties, please explain the impact of key uncertainties in policy, weather and fuel availability/cost on the analysis results.
Author Response
Thank you for your comments.
Please refer to the attached document for our replies.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
