Formulation of an Efficiency Model Valid for High Vacuum Flat Plate Collectors

High Vacuum Flat Plate Collectors (HVFPCs) are the only type of flat plate thermal collectors capable of producing thermal energy for middle-temperature applications (up to 200 degrees C). As the trend in research plans is to develop new Selective Solar Absorbers to extend the range of HVFPC application up to 250 degrees C, it is necessary to correctly evaluate the collector efficiency up to such temperatures to predict the energy production accurately. We propose an efficiency model for these collectors based on the selective absorber optical properties. The proposed efficiency model explicitly includes the radiative heat exchange with the ambient, which is the main source of thermal losses for evacuated collectors at high temperatures. It also decouples the radiative losses that depend on the optical properties of the absorber adopted from the other thermal losses due to HVFPC architecture. The model has been validated by applying it to MT-Power HVFPC manufactured by TVP-Solar. The dissipative losses other than thermal radiation were found to be mostly conductive with a linear coefficient k = 0.258 W/m2K. The efficiency model has been also used to predict the energy production of HVFPCs equipped with new, optimized Selective Solar Absorbers developed in recent years. Considering the 2019 meteorological data in Cairo and an operating temperature of 250 degrees C, the annual energy production of an HVFPC equipped with an optimized absorber is estimated to be 638 kWh/m2.