Exergy Analysis of Solar Collector

Important factors in evaluating solar collcetor efficiency are solar radiation, temperature and flow rate of the working fluid. The effects of these factors on the energy and the exergy gained by water, the working fluid, from the collector were analyzed. The results indicated that the collector efficiency and the energy and the exergy gained by the water from the collcetor increased with the increase of solar radiation. According to the exergy analysis, as the water temperature at the inlet of the collector increased, the exergy gained by the water increased while the energy gained by the water decreased. The water temperature at the outlet of the collector could be calculated with a mean error of 2.8%, and the energy and the exergy could be calculated theoretically with mean errors of 16.8% and 19.1%, respcetively.