Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments

Initial Date Submitted: Jan 12, 2022; Date Final Disposition Set: Jun 25, 2022; Final Disposition: Accept.

When submitting the revised manuscript, we were informed that in a recent editorial board meeting, the editor-in-chief decided to limit the word count and the number of figures/tables. However, the associate editor understands the authors and recognizes that sometimes it is necessary to include sufficient text and figures/tables to fully describe the research. However, if there are limitations in the main text, he suggested considering adding a Supplementary Material (SM) as Appendix A. This way, the most important content can be retained in the main text, while other content can be transferred to the SM. This practice is adopted by many journals, including Nature and Science. The process from submission to acceptance took a total of 5 months. The editorial efficiency was quite high, with three reviewers providing feedback. The manuscript was returned for major revisions after two months of submission, and the comments were constructive. After another month, it was returned for minor revisions, and after the revisions were made, it was accepted within a month. Overall, the efficiency was quite high. In addition, Professor Ni Meng, the senior editor, is very helpful and actively assists authors in answering questions. Highly recommended.

The editing process is extremely slow and there are no substantial modifications suggested. It has been over 8 months since submission (can you believe it was submitted last year?), and out of the four revisions, three were minor suggestions from the editor. The last time it took 20 days for the editor to not process it, even after urging them once. Now, I see it has been sent for review again, and the editor still hasn't given a reason (the first round of reviewers had already accepted the suggestions for revision, but the EIC keeps finding fault, mostly with minor issues like deleting images, perhaps because I am Chinese?).
The quality of the journal's articles is worrisome, with a large number of nepotistic relationships (especially noticeable in the articles by Indian authors, a quick search would reveal that).
I advise friends who are considering submitting to be cautious. If you can endure the unreasonable demands of the EIC and the nearly month-long editing process after each revision, then go ahead.