Techno-Economic and Exergetic Assessment of a Small-Scale Parabolic Trough Collector System for Industrial Process Heat: A Case Study in the Tequila Industry

The industrial sector accounts for 34% of global energy consumption, of which heat accounts for 74%, predominantly derived from fossil fuels. Solar Heat for Industrial Processes (SHIP) offers a viable decarbonisation route for low-to-medium temperature applications (80–250 °C)—a range that includes processes such as tequila production. Yet integrated techno-exergo-economic assessments for small-scale, modular systems in agro-industrial contexts remain scarce. This study presents a technical, thermodynamic, and economic evaluation of a 2.5 MWth parabolic trough collector system with thermocline thermal energy storage, integrated into a tequila production facility in Jalisco, México. A parametric analysis across seven solar multiple configurations identifies SM=1.258 as the economic optimum, yielding an annual solar fraction of 35%, a CO2 reduction of 33.5%, a levelised cost of heat of 75.19 USD/MWhth (16.3% below the fuel-oil baseline), and a payback period of 13.39 years under full accelerated depreciation. The system’s exergy efficiency (23–28%) is nearly four times that of the stand-alone boiler (6.31%); the analysis further quantifies diminishing returns beyond SM≈1.4 and demonstrates that México’s accelerated depreciation provision substantially broadens the economically feasible design space. These findings provide a replicable techno-exergo-economic framework for SHIP integration in gas-constrained, high-irradiation industrial regions, supporting decarbonisation efforts in emerging economies.