Energy, exergy, environmental, enviroeconomic, exergoenvironmental (EXEN) and exergoenviroeconomic (EXENEC) analyses of solar collectors

In this study, the energy, exergy, environmental, enviroeconomic, exergoenvironmental (EXEN), Exergoenviroeconomic (EXENEC) analyses are performed to a solar collector. The enviroeconomic (energy based environmental analysis), EXEN (exergy based environmental analysis) and EXENEC (exergy based environmental and economic analysis) analyses are firstly conducted in this kind of system in the literature. It is found that most of the energy and exergy are lost by the radiation. The major reason is the big temperature difference between sky and glass surface of the collector. Furthermore, the energy efficiency (25.40%) of the system is higher than the corresponding exergy efficiency (0.732%). Also, the solar exergy of the system is the maximum exergy input rate, and most of it is destructed in the system due to the irreversibility. It shows the major disadvantages of the solar collector system. The EXEN result (0.0727 kg CO2/day) is lower than the corresponding environmental one (0.0777 kg CO2/day). The enviroeconomic result (0.00112 $/day) is higher than the EXENEC result (0.00105 $/day). So, exergy based EXENEC method is more reliable. It can be generally concluded that the solar collector systems can be assessed more effectively by using the exergy and economy based EXEN and EXENEC methods, respectively due to the consideration of the environmental condition and useful energy into calculation.