Aesthetically Appealing Building Integrated Photovoltaic Systems for Net-Zero Energy Buildings. Current Status, Challenges, and Future Developments—A Review
, Mohammad Nur-E-Alam 1,2, Md Momtazur Rahman 1, Kamal Alameh 1,3 and Steven Hinckley 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors talked about where building integrated photovoltaic systems are now, what problems they face, and what their long-term goals are in order to create a global sustainable green energy building environment. The topic is pretty interesting, and the way it's presented is good, but a few minor suggestions need to be taken into account before it can be accepted. The suggestions are as follows:
1. Include some major findings of the present review in the abstract section.
2. There are so many acronyms the authors have used in the manuscript that it is advised to put the nomenclature at the beginning.
3. Describe a few performance parameters of dye-sensitized solar cells under subheading 2.1.
4. Give a table-based comparison of the different types of solar BIPV cells in terms of their technical and economic aspects.
5. In a comprehensive review, there must be headings for major findings. Please include it.
6. Because few figures include the brand name [for example, Fig. 4 (d) and (e)], the authors should ensure that proper copyright permission to reuse these figures has been obtained.
Author Response
done
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors are implored to greatly enhance the quality of the pictures/figures used in the manuscript (especially Figures 2 and 4).
The authors need to check the use of acronyms and abbreviations without providing a prior definition upfront. For example, no prior definition was given for MaO3 and a few others across the manuscript (See Lines 206, 209 and 272 among others).
The conclusion is quite scanty for a study of this magnitude and spread. The authors should conclude the study and explicitly state them in this section
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The author reviewed different types of aesthetically attractive BIPV products in the paper, with their main features discussed. The comments and suggestions are summarised below:
1) The aesthetics of BIPV products are not only determined by the colour or transparency of solar cells but also affected by the shape or the mounting style of PVs. Only the variety of solar cells was discussed in the paper.
2) Comparative analysis of different solar cell technologies is missing in the paper, which can be presented as a table with the main evaluation criteria tabulated.
3) The selection of solar cells for BIPV is determined by a variety of factors including aesthetics, efficiency, long-term stability, cost, market penetration, etc. How to properly consider the aesthetics issue in the BIPV module design process should be discussed in the paper, which is currently missing.
4) Most of the paper figures were taken from the existing literature, resulting in poor figure quality.
5) The conclusion section is too short. The author should provide the recommended solar cell technology with both aesthetics and performance considered.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
1.Complete rephrasing of abstract is required. The abstract must consist of problem statement, research gap, result summary and future direction.
2. I didn't see any novelty of the study, please explain thoroughly why there is a need to perform such studies and also what is the contribution of current study in the body of knowledge.
3. From where Fig 1, came?? There should be proper reference of the study.
4. What are the research questions and on what are the hypothesis on which current study is performed.
In short, the current manuscript is only based upon the rephrased version of previous work. No new innovative or novelty can be seen.
Best regards
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The author has successfully addressed all the issues mentioned in the last version, clearly clarifying all the missing points. Although the paper is focused on the aesthetics of BIPV only, it is suggested to take into other aspects (e.g. costs, efficiency, etc.) in future research.
Reviewer 4 Report
All the comments are well addressed except novelty. I have a concern about the novelty or innovation of respective manuscript. Furthermore, the current manuscript represents only rephrasing work of previous researchers. There is lack of novel contributions in body of knowledge. This was my concern in previous round and still same.
Best regards
