Optimization of a Multilevel Inverter Design Used for Photovoltaic Systems under Variable Switching Controllers

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

• The contribution of the work has to be better highlighted to show the novelty and significance of the work against the previously conducted studies in the literature.
• Please compare the obtained result of the proposed approach with pulse-width modulation method in term of THD.
• In practice, how much the suggested MLI can be cost effective compared with other models?
• Please more clearly explain about the way IGBTs are controlled.

Author Response

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to submit a revised draft of my manuscript titled “Optimization of a multilevel inverter Design Used for Photo-voltaic systems under variability of switching controllers” to Processes. We appreciate the time and effort that you and the reviewers have dedicated to providing your valuable feedback on our manuscript. We are grateful to the reviewers for their insightful comments on my paper. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript is well written and has a significant value. The paper proposed a multi-level inverter with few components However, it contains major grammatical errors which must be corrected with the help of expert person with good technical writing. Kindly, check grammar for whole manuscript in addition to the following comments for the possibility of publication.

• Kindly, add the implications for the practical application of the proposed inverter for the PV systems. Also paper lacks drawbacks of the proposed design, which can be highlighted after the explanation of practical use of the proposed inverters.
• Line 171 and input data: Kindly, provide references for the data used in simulation.
• Also, please add estimated cost of the proposed design.
• Kindly avoid abbreviations in the title. Instead use full word for MLI, PV.
• It is difficult to identify verb in the sentence “The used switched capacitors models 14 based on series to parallel topology.”
• Kindly check in whole manuscript that the abbreviations are not used without defining at the first place. Define full word for “THD” in Abstract.
• Kindly revise Abstract in a more comprehensive and detailed level. It looks less interesting and poorly organized. Kindly revise with interesting practical need of new inverter, what is exactly done in this paper, what methods were used, and what is a key major result.
• Line 32: To overcome this issue, switched capacitor cells is promising…. (In this sentence, correct may be “switched capacitor cells is promising”. Hence, Introduction and whole paper contains major grammatical errors which should be corrected before publication.
• “Introduction: contains very short paragraphs without strong link between paragraph to paragraph. Hence, it makes weak arguments.
• Kindly, revise “Introduction” with a strong link between sentence to sentence and “paragraph to paragraph”. In addition, "avoid "lump sum references", such as [1-4], [5-8], [9-15], and [16-30], [29-36]. Kindly, use reference one by one only for supporting your arguments.
• Kindly define list of abbreviations and symbols used in the Figures, equations at proper places.
• Line 133: The figure below illustrates the pulses required to create a 7-level output voltage. Kindly provide Figure number here. In addition, check for all Figures and Tables, and provide numbers for these.
• Line 135: see sentence: Section 2.1 presents the basic principle of generating different voltage levels across a load 135 through different modes of operation. Kindly clarify where in Section 2.1.
• Table 2.: Font style is not same as in other Tables and text.
• Kindly, add more details with argument and references. Paper needs more detailed justification of the proposed design.

Author Response

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to submit a revised draft of my manuscript titled “Optimization of a multilevel inverter Design Used for Photo-voltaic systems under variability of switching controllers” to Processes. We appreciate the time and effort that you and the reviewers have dedicated to providing your valuable feedback on our manuscript. We are grateful to the reviewers for their insightful comments on my paper. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

No novelty in work.....sorry to say that.

Author Response

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to submit a revised draft of my manuscript titled “Optimization of a multilevel inverter Design Used for Photo-voltaic systems under variability of switching controllers” to Processes. We appreciate the time and effort that you and the reviewers have dedicated to providing your valuable feedback on our manuscript. We are grateful to the reviewers for their insightful comments on my paper. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The title of the reviewed article suggests that this article could be interesting, but it is poorly prepared. I suggest the Authors to perform major revision of this article. In the revised version of this article the Authors should take into account following remarks:

1. In the title PV system is mentioned, by in the body of the article I cannot find any information about investigations performed for any PV system. The title should be changed or some new results should be given.
2. In Introduction only one citation of the papers [9 - 30] is given. The Authors should be shortly explaining what important is presented in each of the cited papers.
3. In Section 2 a description of the Figure 1 should be included. Table 1 should be given in Section 2.
4. All the symbols used in equations (1-8) should be explained.
5. Axes of Figures 2, 4 and 5 should be given with units. The numbers describing these axes should be given with bigger fonts. Now they are difficult to read.
6. Description of Fig. 3 should be extended. Principle of operation of the presented circuit in each mode should be described in detail.
7. Description of first column in Table 1 is not clear for me.
8. In capture of Fig. 4 two graphs are given, but I can see only one graph.
9. Description of Figs. 4 and 5 are not clear for me.
10. No results of experiments are presented.
11. Conclusions should clearly describe advantages of the proposed circuit.
12. The list of references should be extended and some articles describing actual PV systems should be cited, e.g. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14196247

Author Response

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to submit a revised draft of my manuscript titled “Optimization of a multilevel inverter Design Used for Photo-voltaic systems under variability of switching controllers” to Processes. We appreciate the time and effort that you and the reviewers have dedicated to providing your valuable feedback on our manuscript. We are grateful to the reviewers for their insightful comments on my paper. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

No novelty of work found despite revision.

Author Response

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to submit a revised draft of my manuscript titled “Optimization of a Multilevel Inverter Design Used for Photovoltaic Systems Under Variability of Switching Controllers” to Processes. We appreciate the time and effort that you and the reviewers have dedicated to providing your valuable feedback on our manuscript. We are grateful to the reviewers for their insightful comments on my paper, which was taking about the article novelty.

To be added to this revised article, we have added a remark 1 concluding section 6 seeking to clarify the article contribution.

I addition to that, this article English was reviewed and checked by English expert.    

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The Authors properly addressed all my remarks.

The quality of the article is visibly improved.

Before final acceptance the Authors should prepare final version of the article without annotations.

Author Response

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to submit a revised draft of our manuscript titled “Optimization of a Multilevel Inverter Design Used for Photovoltaic Systems Under Variability of Switching Controllers” to Processes. We appreciate the time and effort that you and the reviewers have dedicated to providing your valuable feedback on our manuscript. We are grateful to the reviewers for their insightful comments on our paper. The paper was checked by English native speaker who is specialist in proofreading and copyediting.    

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

No novelty of work