SVA with intercept only

Question

[IM]

Dear all,

Could SVA be executed in the following way?

mod <- model.matrix(~1, data=as.data.frame(t(annot_)))  
sva_fit <- sva(data_, mod, method="two-step")

I found this approach in a paper (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-019-0457-8), but I'm not entirely sure how SVA works with the "intercept-only" model. Any insights would be appreciated!