Techno-economic Analysis of Evacuated Tube Solar Water Heater using F-chart Method

Solar thermal utilization, especially the application of solar water heater technology, has developed rapidly in recent decades. Solar water heating systems based on thermal collector alone or connected with photovoltaic called as photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) are practical applications to replace the use of electrical water heaters but weather dependent performance of these systems is not linear. Therefore on the basis of short term or average weather conditions, accurate analysis of performance is quite difficult. The objective of this paper is to show thermal and economic analysis of evacuated tube collector solar water heaters. Analysis done by F-Chart shows that evacuated tube solar water heater achieves fraction value of 1 to fulfil hot water demand of 150liters and above per day for a family without any auxiliary energy usage. Evacuated tube solar water heater show life cycle savings of RM 5200. At water set temperature of 100 degrees C, RM 12000 is achieved and highest life cycle savings of RM 6100 at the environmental temperature of 18 degrees C are achieved. Best thermal and economic performance is obtained which results in reduction of household greenhouse gas emissions, reduction of energy consumption and saves money on energy bills.