Performance and economic analysis of hybrid PVT collectors in solar DHW system

Performance of different concepts of solar hybrid PVT liquid collectors has been analyzed for domestic hot water application in a block of flats. A comparison with conventional installation of photovoltaic (PV) and photothermal (PT) solar collectors with the same total collector area 100 m(2) has been done for identical load conditions. Conventional solar system has been considered with different fraction of PV collector to PT collector area for comparison with the PVT system. Economic analysis based on the performance results, energy prices and conventional PV and PT collector prices has revealed several important facts. Unglazed PVT collector cannot be competitive with conventional PV-PT collectors in given solar DHW system. Competitive price of unglazed PVT collector is negative in most of variants. Competitive price of glazed PVT collector available at the market is about less than half of its real today market price. Competitive price range has been set in advance for solar PVT collectors being under development with novel siloxane lamination: 290-410 (sic)/m(2) for nonselective type and 370-500 (sic)/m(2) for selective type. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.