Identifying Key Components in Implementation of Internet of Energy (IoE) in Iran with a Combined Approach of Meta-Synthesis and Structural Analysis: A Systematic Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The present study has been carried out with the purpose of identifying key components in implementation of IoE in Iran.  The present study has been carried out with the purpose of identifying key components in implementation of IoE in Iran.   Moreover, the literature overview appears incomplete, with different recent works omitted. Therefore, the paper cannot be accepted at this phase, but the authors are encouraged to resubmit after answering all following questions.

1. The main contribution and challenge encountered in this paper are not clear. Compared with the existing works, what are the main difficulties for the investigation? And what is your main contribution? Please clarify.

2. As mentioned in the abstract proposed "using the Shannon entropy", what is the meaning of  "using the Shannon entropy", please explain.

3. The sharpness of figures 2 and 5 should be enhanced

4. Some guidelines for selecting appropriate design parameters should be provided.

5. There are some non-standard dictions and grammar errors in the paper. Should polish the language to improve the readability.

6. There is little introduction to the power grid, discussion of related research on Microgrid is advised for better understanding of the work.

7. Please carefully check the reference format as required to ensure consistency.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for reviewing our manuscript in detail and providing valuable comments to improve our research. In addition to uploading the edited manuscript, any revisions made to our manuscript have been marked up using the “Track Changes” function such that changes can be easily viewed by you.

Explanations about your comments are provided as follows:

1. The clear and precise statement of the problem was one of the important things you mentioned. We have stated this important point in the lines 101 to 109.
2. We have explained what is the meaning of "using the Shannon entropy" in the abstract (Lines 27 and 28).
3. The sharpness of figs 2 and 5 has been enhanced.
4. According to the fourth comment, it was necessary to provide explanation on how to select research parameters, which has been added in lines 115 to 126.
5. We rechecked the text for grammatical errors and polished it as much as possible.
6. According to the sixth comment, we expanded the introduction about DG and Micro-Grids (MG) and also added a new paper to the reference section (Lines 76-89 and reference 65).
   
7. The reference format was carefully checked to ensure consistency between them.

Thanks ever so much for your helpful comments, we really appreciate it.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper carries out a review and analysis of the literature on IoE in order to identify its key components and the interrelations among them.

The paper is interesting and, by the way, provides a good review and classification of the literature.

The concern about the adopted methodology is related to the qualitative approach. In particular, the review approach described in Fig. 1 is based on a subjective classification of the paper, that can not be supported by an objective quantitative analysis but consider several papers "irrilevant" just according to the reviewers' opinion. Therefore the concern is that different reviewers would classify and select different papers that could lead to different conclusions. The robustness of the adopted methodology should be better discussed. 

Figs. 2 and 5 are of poor quality with respect to the others and should be improved.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for reviewing our manuscript and providing valuable comments to improve our research. In addition to uploading the edited manuscript, any revisions made to our manuscript have been marked up using the “Track Changes” function such that changes can be easily viewed by you.

Explanations about your comments are provided as follows:

At first, we are extremely grateful for finding our paper interesting.

1. The first comment is one of the most important points in qualitative research. In our research, after screening process of papers based on Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP), relevant papers were identified and carefully reviewed. Then, the research parameters were coded using MAXQDA software to determine their frequency and classification. The kappa coefficient is a statistic in qualitative research that shows the robustness of the methodology by measuring the agreement of experts on the extracted codes. In this research, the Kappa coefficient value is 0.87, which is in the excellent range and indicates the reliability of the method. Fortunately, in our study, there is a complete consensus among experts in the field of IoE about the research parameters.

One of the important points in qualitative research is that the basis of such research is the opinions of experts. Undoubtedly, the emergence of new studies in the area of IoE introduce new parameters that keep the way open for future research.

We have provided these explanations in lines 341 to 350 and 378 to 380.

2. According to the second comment, the sharpness of figs 2 and 5 has been enhanced.

Thanks ever so much for your helpful comments, we really appreciate it.