This paper presents a transient performance comparison of a flat-plate solar collector (FPSC) and a sun-tracked parabolic trough collector (PTC) with a double U-tube receiver. Both collectors were modeled using in-house transient mathematical models and validated against experimental data obtained from a dedicated test stand. After validation, annual simulations were conducted for Kraków, Poland, using hourly meteorological data from the PVGIS database. The analysis focused on the long-term thermal and economic performance of both collector types under identical boundary conditions. The electricity demand of the tracking system was included using a constant motor power assumption. A simplified techno-economic evaluation was performed using the Levelized Cost of Heat (LCOH), accounting for investment costs, operating and maintenance expenses, auxiliary electricity consumption, system degradation, and cost escalation over a 20-year lifetime. For a comparable aperture area, the calculated LCOH amounted to 0.096 EUR/kWh for the sun-tracked PTC and 0.041 EUR/kWh for the stationary FPSC. The results indicate that, despite higher thermal performance, the examined PTC configuration is not economically competitive for low-temperature heat production under the assumed cost structure, mainly due to its higher investment cost.
Zima et al. (Fri,) studied this question.
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