Exergetic, enviroeconomic and exergoeconomic (3E) assessment of a stationary parabolic trough solar collector with thermal storage

Abstract

A solar heating system operating in thermosyphon regime was experimentally evaluated in this study. The system consisted of a stationary parabolic trough solar collector (PTC) with thermal storage. The effect of three collector inclination angles (0°, +5°, and +10°) and two thermal fluids (water and thermal oil, denoted as WPTC0° and OPTC0°) were evaluated on the exergetic, enviroeconomic, and exergoeconomic (3E) performance of PTC. The average exergetic efficiencies for the evaluated cases were 10.84, 11.75, 12.97, and 19.73% for WPTC+10°, WPTC+5°, WPTC0°, and OPTC0°, respectively. It was observed that about 50% of the input exergy is lost in all cases evaluated, indicating that some improvements could be incorporated to recover part of this loss. WPTC0° had the lowest average destroyed exergy among the inclinations (35%). For the case using thermal oil, the average exergy destroyed was 28%. OPTC0° showed the best results in exergetic terms. OPTC0° also presented the highest values of the exergoeconomic parameter among all the evaluated cases, and WPTC0° presented the highest values among the evaluated inclinations. The energy and carbon payback times obtained were 0.848 and 0.569 for the WPTC0° and 0.923 and 0.608 for the OPTC0°, respectively.