A Survey on IoT-Enabled Smart Grids: Technologies, Architectures, Applications, and Challenges

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a review work on IoT enabled smart grids, it has significant importance in the energy distribution section. The Paper describes different issues and challenges related to this area. Figure 1´s words are not clear and the arrangement of Figure 9 should be correct. References should be put in the right format.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript covers an interesting R&D topic and fits the scope of the Journal. Nonetheless, the paper requires extra efforts to improve its quality and presentation. A set of comments are expounded hereafter.

- The manuscript is, in general, well organized. However, there are some mistakes or improvements to introduce regarding the format of the document, as commented below.

In the Abstract, the abbreviation IoT directly appears in line 12 whereas Internet of Things is found in line 13. It should be in the opposite order.

Indeed, within the main body of the paper, the abbreviation IoT is defined various times (lines 79, 153, 159, and 520) being only required the first one.

In lines 521 and 534, IoT appears fully capitalized, which is not coherent with the rest of the manuscript.

Smart Grid and SG are used various times along the manuscript; a consistent utilization is expected for a high-quality paper.

In figure 9, the term “Hetrogeniety” should be replaced by “Heterogeneity”.

In a similar sense, in the figure 9 caption, “Challelenges” should be revised.

In the title of subsection 6.4, this reviewer humbly suggests replacing “&” by “and”.

The format of references must be revised according to the template of the Journal.

 

- About the content of the manuscript, as aforementioned, it covers an interesting topic. The comments after a careful revision are the following:

A desirable keyword is “cybersecurity”, “security issues” or some similar term, if the authors agree with the suggestion.

Table 1 should be placed after the text that mentions it (line 150) for a proper reading.

Given the Review type of the paper, section 2 should be improved by including the selection criteria that has been followed for the reviewed papers as well as a graph to show the analyzed publications over years. This would show the interest that IoT and Smart Grids are achieving through years.

Some recent and interesting works have been left unnoticed or discarded in the selection process. For example, related to communications in the Smart Grid context, recent publications study the application of protocols widely used in IoT like MQTT or OPC-UA for Smart Grids, so in the section 5, at least a brief mention should be included. Recently published papers are suggested in this regard:

-        Integration of IoT Technologies into the Smart Grid. Sensors 2022, 22, 2475. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22072475

-        A Literature Survey on Open Platform Communications (OPC) Applied to Advanced Industrial Environments. Electronics 2019, 8, 510. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics8050510

-        A Comprehensive Review on IoT Protocols’ Features in Smart Grid Communication. Energies 2020, 13, 2762. https://doi.org/10.3390/en13112762

In the subsection 4.1, in line 288, it is asserted that “Numerous architectures are available for IoT aided smart grid systems; three-layered architecture, four-layer architecture, smart grid architecture model,…”. However, the so-called Smart Grid Architecture Model (SGAM) is not commented. Given the relevance of such architecture model, at least a brief paragraph should be included about this model for a proper description of existing architectures.

The “Legacy issue” appears in figure 9, but there is no mention in the rest of the paper. At least a brief comment about this important issue could be added.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The authors presented an overview of the possible application of the IoT concept to Smart Grids. The overall quality of the paper is poor, and because of this, the manuscript should not be considered for publication.
In particular:
-  given the title, one would expect a comprehensive review of the literature and the state of the art. Nevertheless, only 8 of the 57 references are maximum 3 years old. It is not clear why the authors decided to completely neglect the more recent, and relevant, papers on the topic. This is enough to consider the "survey" insufficient;
- the overall contribution, and the quality of the reported information, cannot stand the standards of a journal. The text is more in line with a homework/blog where only very generic information is provided, without a proper scientific discussion;
- some figures and tables are added without any actual need. This is the case for example of Fig. 1, and Table 1. In particular, the latter reports exactly the same information that is already included in the text;
- the figures are of very low quality, and most of them are taken from other papers, without explicitly mentioning it in the caption;
- references are reported with different/inconsistent formatting. The authors should have read more carefully the information on the manuscript formatting.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

The paper should include more hints on the future gaps to be filled

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Reviewer 5 Report

The important contributions by the authors of this manuscript are:

“This paper reviews the different security aspects and applications while integrating IoT with smart grids and discusses various frameworks. Apart from this, we also focus on various IoT and non-IoT technologies used in the Smart Grid network, such as sensing, communication, and computing technologies, as well as their standards.”

There is a lack in English writing, and presentation quality of this work. Topic is interesting and shows a good scientific contribution for relevant research fraternity. There are some major issues such as:  

1.     Abstract is fine but conclusion must be revised.

2.     The quality of Figures is not good. All figures must be provided with high resolution.

3.     Presentation of Tables is totally fine.

4.     The authors are suggested to add more references in introduction section.

5.     Authors should carefully proofread entire manuscript to overcome writing and grammatical issues.

6.     The authors should report more relevant studies in Table 1.

7.     Carefully check each abbreviation and it must be defined at the first place of appearance.

8.     There is a complete lack of reference literature in section 3.

9.     Sections 4-6 also require more references highlighting recent contributions.

10.                         It is highly recommended to add few references about future research aspects.

In my opinion, this article requires major revision to improve its quality.

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The new version has properly addressed most of the reviewers concerns. Just a minor aspect must be still taken into account. It was suggested to mention protocols widely used in IoT like MQTT or OPC-UA for Smart Grids. The authors have only included MQTT, so it is strongly suggested to briefly mention OPC-UA for a proper contextualization of protocols, supported by recent literature.

 

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Reviewer 3 Report

This revised version is certainly much improved with respect to the previous one.
Adding more recent references helped in providing a more updated scientific point of view on the overall framework. Nevertheless, only 30% of the considered literature has been published in the last three years. Since the authors claim that this survey is a critical review of the existing literature, it is this reviewer's opinion that further effort should have been taken in this regard.
The quality of the figures has certainly improved. Nevertheless,
Figures 6, 7, 8, and 9 can be further improved, by increasing the font of the small text and avoiding the text being covered by arrows, lines or the like.

Author Response

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Reviewer 5 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for your great efforts. You have properly addressed my all concerns. Thus, I recommend it for publication. 

Author Response

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Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have successfully addressed almost all of my comments. The paper can be accepted after a further improvement of figures 6, 7, and 9. In particular, there is still some text that is too small or overlapping with other parts of the figure, thus not properly readable.

Author Response

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