Exploring the impact of non-similar collectors in advanced solar network design

In this paper, a solar network considering flat plate collector (FPC) is optimized considering both efficiency and annual cost as objective functions. Two distinct scenarios are explored: a similar case and a non-similar case, allowing for the selection of collectors with different parameters. The study investigates three cases involving 2–4 collectors in the network, leading to the consideration of 6 design parameters including mass flow rate, number and diameter of tubes, collector length and width, as well as insulator thickness, in the similar case and 12–24 design parameters in the non-similar case. The optimization results revealed that, for all studied examples, the results from the similar case were consistently outperformed by those from the non-similar case. The maximum efficiency improved by 1.63 %–1.94 % in the non-similar case as compared with the similar case. The annual cost is improved by 1.24 %–2.62 % in the final optimum solution. For example, the maximum efficiency increases from 0.7068 in the similar FPC case to 0.7183 in the non-similar configuration for two collectors. The mentioned values were respectively 0.7195 and 0.7333 in the four collectors. These improvements offer real-world benefits, including higher energy yield and lower operating costs—key to accelerating solar adoption.