Combining solar thermal electricity technology with distributed energy system is conducive to increasing the proportion of renewable energy in the energy consumption structure. Parabolic trough solar collectors are currently the most widely used solar-thermal energy conversion equipment in solar thermal electricity. Their operational characteristics determine whether solar thermal electricity technology and other energy technologies in distributed energy systems can cooperate with each other. Aiming at the heat loss affecting the operation characteristics of the trough collectors, this paper carried out the on-site utility-scale experimental system test, then verified the established mathematical model of the trough collectors, and further applied the model to analyze the parameters of the residual gas volume in the vacuum zone, the wind speed, and the emissivity of the absorber.