Solar energy harvesting from evacuated flat plate collector: Design, thermo-economic analysis, and off design performance

Abstract

Adopting renewable energy technologies is becoming more and more popular, particularly in the industrial sector. Evacuated Flat Plate Collector (EFPC) is a promising technology which combines advantages of Flat Plate and Evacuated Tube Collector. It can be a potential device to be integrated into industrial process heating systems. In the current paper, the performance analysis of EFPC has been conducted for an operational textile factory through a validated mathematical model. Optimization of three design parameters, i.e., tube diameter, distance between tubes, and thickness of absorber plate is studied and their effect on four-important parameters, i.e., outlet temperature, overall heat loss coefficient, thermal efficiency, and exergy efficiency have been investigated. In energy and exergy analysis, the aforementioned four parameters are considered as performance indicators of EFPC and investigation is done into how fluid temperature at inlet, fluid flow rate, and variation of solar irradiance affects them. Collector performance in different seasons, i.e., summer, spring, and winter, has been examined using hourly radiation of an arbitrary day of that season. From economic analysis, it is found that up to 21.22% of the required heat can be supplied by EFPC, which ultimately contributes to reduce the cost of fuel up to 19.36 USD per day. Environmental analysis reveals that integration of EFPC can decrease CO2 emission significantly, up to 3.92 tons in summer, which will lead to a positive impact on the environment. Government and environmental organizations might be inspired to fund the installation by this fact which will increase feasibility of project.

Keywords

• Energy harvesting
• CO2 reduction
• Solar energy utilization
• Sustainable energy
• Evacuated flat plate collector