Energy, exergy, environmental and economic (4E) analysis of evacuated tube solar collector with helical coils

In this article, the comprehensive analysis on the energy, exergy, environmental and economic aspects of the modified evacuated solar collector having helical coils (mETC) and unmodified evacuated solar collector has been presented. For the helical coiled solar collector, the daily variation of energy and exergy efficiency and the variation with mass flow rate has been contrasted to conventional evacuated collector under similar conditions. Furthermore, the life cycle cost analysis for mETC has been presented for economic analysis. For the environmental analysis, the energy and fuel savings achieved by the modified mETC solar air heater have been compared with other sources for predicting fuel savings, cost saving and reduction in CO 2 emissions. It was comprehended that the energy and exergy efficiency for mETC is significantly improved over simple ETC solar air heater. Highest exergy efficiency of 5.61 % has been achieved by mETC whereas for simple ETC, the maximum exergy efficiency was obtained as 2.5 %. The average daily and yearly savings in electricity cost was obtained as Rs. 34.21 (0.44 USD) and Rs. 10262 (131.14 USD), respectively, for mETC solar air heater.