An Economic and Environmental Assessment of Evacuated Tube-Based Solar Air Collector

The potential of evacuated tube-based solar air collector is studied in terms of economic and environmental assessment. Initially, an experimental setup was fabricated and tested which consists of fifteen evacuated tubes associated with heat exchanger. The collected data was used in the economic analysis along with environmental assessment. A significant temperature difference of outlet air of range of 7.2–13.7 °C was observed at 0.081 kg/s of air flow rate with variation of solar radiation from 657 to 883 W/m2. The results found that 6–11.5 ton of coal and Rupees 6619.7–12,595.8 are saved annually by using evacuated tube solar air collector. Finally, maximum 33,550.6 kg of CO2 content is reduced which reflects positive impact on the environment. The payback period of this kind of solar air collector is around 1.5 years.