Parabolic trough Photovoltaic/Thermal hybrid system: Thermal modeling, case studies, and economic and environmental analyzes

This work concerns a new thermal modeling for parabolic trough photovoltaic/thermal hybrid system along with case studies. A new thermal modeling using resistance analogy is conducted on the system, compared and validated against previous works. Case studies are performed on three countries of different climates which are Lebanon (mild climate), France (cold climate) and United Arab Emirates (warm climate) in order to study the electrical and thermal performance of the system. Results reveal that the highest achieved outlet temperature among the three cases is 95 °C in Lebanon, while the highest thermal efficiency is attained in United Arab Emirates (51.1%), and the highest electrical efficiency is 27.9% in France. Besides, environmental and economic analyses are carried out for each country to shed light on the significance of the studied system. It is observed that the payback period in Lebanon, France and United Arab Emirates is 1.4 years, 1.6 years and 1.7 years respectively, while the annual amount of alleviated carbon dioxide emissions is 72.9 t, 5.1 t and 71.1 t respectively.