ASSESSING THE ECONOMIC-ASPECTS OF SOLAR HOT-WATER PRODUCTION IN GREECE

The long-term performance of various systems was determined and the ec onomic aspects of solar hot water production were investigated in this work. The effect of the collector inclination angle, collector area a nd storage volume was examined for all systems, and various climatic c onditions and their payback period was calculated. It was found that t he collector inclination angle does not have a significant effect on s ystem performance. Large collector areas have a diminishing effect on the system's overall efficiency. The increase in storage volume has a detrimental effect for small daily load volumes, but a beneficial one when there is a large daily consumption. Solar energy was found to be truly competitive when the conventional fuel being substituted is elec tricity, and it should not replace diesel oil on pure economic grounds . Large daily load volumes and large collector areas are in general as sociated with shorter payback periods. Overall, the systems are oversi zed and are economically suitable for large daily hot water load volum es. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.