I am designing solar water heaters using different solar thermal collector. But I want to known your valuable opinions.
Maybe this general comparison between Evacuated Tube Collector & Flat Plate Collector can help.
ETC is best over FPC. ETC have less maintenance, cost effective, efficient and mainly it works on both direct and diffuse radiations.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2018.12.211
https://www.sciencedirect.com/search?qs=type%20of%20solar%20thermal%20collector&show=25&sortBy=relevance
The ambient temperature has a massive impact on the performance. If you have higher ambient temps, e.g. in dessert locations, flat plates losses are reduced and can out perform ETC for the same gross areas, as ETC lose absorber area due to spaces between tubes. In my personal experience as well, ETC have much higher failure rates. In colder climates, (e.g., Canada) ETC can be much more effective due to the reduced thermal losses, although snow clearing may be more of an issue since the high insulation reduced the snow melting.
The classic engineering answer is it depends.
Depending on your application and location I have seen one be better than the other.
I'm not sure which technology has greater market share, but I know both have been used for decades and both continue to be produced. In many cases manufacturers produce both ETC and FPC.
I have used both in my system designs, and will continue to use both from project to project.
To borrow from and modify an American expression, "one size does not fit all".
hope that helps.
Fred
- Badges
- Science topic