The Analysis of Residential Rooftop PV in Indonesia’s Electricity Market

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In general, the authors can be appreciated for the amount of feedback received from existing and potential solar owners. One can also agree with the approach including the regression model and the following FGD. Unfortunately, the level of the actual text (very hard to follow in some parts) and the analyses carried out (mainly only visualization of collected data) deserves to be significantly improved and in its current form the submitted paper cannot be recommended for publication.

 

• the text does not give a consistent impression, some parts seem to be forcibly inserted and one can only assume what is the motivation of the authors
• similar studies analysing the parameters influencing the final decision have already been done for other disciplines and states, so I recommend to analyse these works in the introduction
• line 40 – what is the % for Janury 2020 – 185,09 %?
• in the text, data are given without explanation, e.g.: line 44- prices 1000 USD and 1750 USD are for what? Price of installation per kWp? Please check the whole text and explain all the values used (or at least give the whole units, e.g. USD/kWp)
• The text contains ideas and conclusions without sufficient explanation, e.g: line 53 – “If PLN can only become the ad- 53 ministrator, it could endanger the existence of PLN in the future.” Why?
• Line 54 – The motivation for installing PV may be much broader than stated by the authors, e.g. By installing PV, a given investor fixes the electricity price for the lifetime of the panel (the production price of electricity from PV is defined mainly by investment expenses, operating expenses are then minimal).
• lines 65 to 69 - very illogically linked text
• lines 77 to 87 – very hard to follow the text
• How were the participants in the study selected? Do these participants cover all the relevant categories and are these categories represented by an appropriate number of respondents? There are fixed statistical rules for the questionnaire survey - these are not discussed in the paper.
• If you cite other work in the text, it should be clear how it relates to your work, e.g. starting with rad 146 you describe the analysis of guilt using the multinominal logit method. How do you use the conclusions reached in this paper for your research?
• Lines 160 to 165 have no information and can be deleted.
• On Figure 3 you state that the owner of PV can be a person under 15 years of age - how do you interpret this?
• Figure 3 – the income is monthly and gross?
• Figure 3 – What is the difference between Diploma 1, Diploma 3, Master and Bachelor?
• Line 185 - What is the area involved? Floor area, built-up area, roof area, land area...
• Line 189 – what is the difference between homes and family homes?
• Lines 230 to 238 – it should be presented in graph. Also what is the motivation to state the power in VA instead of kW?
• Figure 5 and corresponding text - wouldn't it be better to give the performance intervals instead of just the threshold values (if intervals are really meant and not just individual values).
• Line 275 – the sentence does not make a sence – especially if your are speaking about power, but you state an energy value (kW and kWh).
• Line 350: “If the 349 respondents’ income increases by one percent, the opportunity to install a rooftop PV in- 350 creases 15 times.” Does it mean that if I have a double salary (100% increase) I will have a 1500 times increased probability?
• Line 363 – “At the same time, the economic factor rarely encountered is why people use rooftop PV considering the expensive installation costs and the return on investment for long installations where the average can be above ten years can feel the cost savings.” If the payback time (here the question is whether discounted or simple) is half the lifetime, the project can be described as economically interesting. For this reason, your statement does not make complete sense to me.
• FGD - The FGD is intended to understand the decision-making process of the analysed group. I therefore miss a more detailed explanation of the dynamics of decision making in your conclusions, especially an explanation of why decisions are made the way they are.

Author Response

Reviewer Comments

In general, the authors can be appreciated for the amount of feedback received from existing and potential solar owners. One can also agree with the approach including the regression model and the following FGD. Unfortunately, the level of the actual text (very hard to follow in some parts) and the analyses carried out (mainly only visualization of collected data) deserves to be significantly improved and in its current form the submitted paper cannot be recommended for publication.

the text does not give a consistent impression, some parts seem to be forcibly inserted and one can only assume what is the motivation of the authors

similar studies analysing the parameters influencing the final decision have already been done for other disciplines and states, so I recommend to analyse these works in the introduction

line 40 – what is the % for Janury 2020 – 185,09 %?

in the text, data are given without explanation, e.g.: line 44- prices 1000 USD and 1750 USD are for what? Price of installation per kWp? Please check the whole text and explain all the values used (or at least give the whole units, e.g. USD/kWp)

The text contains ideas and conclusions without sufficient explanation, e.g: line 53 – “If PLN can only become the ad- 53 ministrator, it could endanger the existence of PLN in the future.” Why?

Line 54 – The motivation for installing PV may be much broader than stated by the authors, e.g. By installing PV, a given investor fixes the electricity price for the lifetime of the panel (the production price of electricity from PV is defined mainly by investment expenses, operating expenses are then minimal).

lines 65 to 69 - very illogically linked text

lines 77 to 87 – very hard to follow the text

Author Responses

Thanks for the suggestion, we did a lot of revision in introduction and follow your suggestion above.

 

Reviewer comments

How were the participants in the study selected? Do these participants cover all the relevant categories and are these categories represented by an appropriate number of respondents? There are fixed statistical rules for the questionnaire survey - these are not discussed in the paper.

Author Responses

We add the information in data part

 

 

Reviewer comments

If you cite other work in the text, it should be clear how it relates to your work, e.g. starting with rad 146 you describe the analysis of guilt using the multinominal logit method. How do you use the conclusions reached in this paper for your research?

Lines 160 to 165 have no information and can be deleted.

On Figure 3 you state that the owner of PV can be a person under 15 years of age - how do you interpret this?

Figure 3 – the income is monthly and gross?

Figure 3 – What is the difference between Diploma 1, Diploma 3, Master and Bachelor?

Author responses

We deleted that irrelevant information and added the explanation about the gross monthly income as well as the classification of educational level

 

Reviewer comments

Line 185 - What is the area involved? Floor area, built-up area, roof area, land area...

Line 189 – what is the difference between homes and family homes?

Lines 230 to 238 – it should be presented in graph. Also what is the motivation to state the power in VA instead of kW?

Figure 5 and corresponding text - wouldn't it be better to give the performance intervals instead of just the threshold values (if intervals are really meant and not just individual values).

Line 275 – the sentence does not make a sence – especially if your are speaking about power, but you state an energy value (kW and kWh). VA : Power capacity limit (batas daya) for subscription

Author responses

We revised the explanation about the area, the area we mean is the size of the house. We also revised the statement of electrical power to electrical capacity limit.

 

Reviewer comments

Line 350: “If the 349 respondents’ income increases by one percent, the opportunity to install a rooftop PV in- 350 creases 15 times.” Does it mean that if I have a double salary (100% increase) I will have a 1500 times increased probability?

Line 363 – “At the same time, the economic factor rarely encountered is why people use rooftop PV considering the expensive installation costs and the return on investment for long installations where the average can be above ten years can feel the cost savings.” If the payback time (here the question is whether discounted or simple) is half the lifetime, the project can be described as economically interesting. For this reason, your statement does not make complete sense to me.

FGD - The FGD is intended to understand the decision-making process of the analysed group. I therefore miss a more detailed explanation of the dynamics of decision making in your conclusions, especially an explanation of why decisions are made the way they are.

Author responses

Instead of providing the odds ratio, we also add the marginal effect results. Therefore, it will be easier in interpreting the logit estimation.

We add the explanation about EFA in analysis of the reasons of using rooftop PV and deleted the FGD method since we cannot provide the appropriate steps of qualitative methods.

Reviewer 2 Report

1. The abstract is sound and well outlined.
2. The Paper is well written, and the language is appropriate.
3. The first paragraph of the introduction should be erased since the paper is not on climate change but PV solar adoption issues.
4. Lines 125-127 - descriptive statistics should be known to the reader; I suggest the explanation be erased.
5. Also, the following discussion on logistic regression should be kept to a minimum and related to the research. This is a well-known and documented method.
6. VA ratings should be explained the first time they are used regardless of the abbreviation listing at the end. It should be evident what they actually mean.
7. The methodological approach is sound; however, the paper would benefit from a more in-depth explanation of how the focus group data collection was done.

Author Response

Reviewer Comments

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The abstract is sound and well outlined.

The Paper is well written, and the language is appropriate.

The first paragraph of the introduction should be erased since the paper is not on climate change but PV solar adoption issues.

Lines 125-127 - descriptive statistics should be known to the reader; I suggest the explanation be erased.

Also, the following discussion on logistic regression should be kept to a minimum and related to the research. This is a well-known and documented method.

VA ratings should be explained the first time they are used regardless of the abbreviation listing at the end. It should be evident what they actually mean.

The methodological approach is sound; however, the paper would benefit from a more in-depth explanation of how the focus group data collection was done.

 

Author responses

Thanks for your review. We did a lot of revision to the introduction.

The explanation of descriptive statistics and logit method also has been deleted. We go straight to the logit model of our research.

We also deleted the FGD method since we cannot provide the comprehensive steps of doing the qualitative research.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I would like to thanks the authors for extensive revision. The clarity and comprehensibility of the text has improved considerably. In general, it can be concluded that the topic of motivation for PV installation is very interesting and it would be useful to continue this topic. In the current form, the authors present predictable conclusions (it is however good to verify them empirically), in follow-up work it would be good to focus on factors that have the potential to influence as yet unconvinced customers and then present these in the form of incentive schemes of support that can be implemented by individual governments.

I recommend the paper for publication.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.