Numerical simulations were carried out to assess the technical and economic feasibility of a solar water desalination system that has a novel hybrid Concentrating Photovoltaic Thermal (CPVT) collector coupled with a Vacuum Membrane Distillation (VMD) process. A special characteristic of this CPVT is its triangular receiver with PV cells facing the reflecting surface. This type of receiver has the advantage of generating more electricity with less PV surface area and great potential to be used to hybridize conventional parabolic thermal collectors. TRNSYS was employed to analyze the annual performance of the CPVT-VMD system evaluating parameters such as solar fraction, specific permeate production and specific energy production for different coastal cities. In the dynamic simulations, local annual weather data and specific information about the characteristics and operating conditions of a real CPVT collector and a VMD module were considered. From the parametric analysis the optimal surface area of collectors and the input temperature of the VDM module were determined. A maximum specific permeate of 218.410 m ³/m²_VMD for Acapulco, MX, and a minimum of 170.365 m ³/m²_VMD for Singapore, SG, were achieved for the proposed CPVT-VMD system of four solar collectors with an operating set temperature of 55 °C. An economic profit was found after 7 years for Acapulco city, which showed great potential to use solar energy from hybrid CPVT collectors for a VMD process to provide freshwater in coastal cities.

Concentrating photovoltaic-thermal (CPVT) collectors use reflective surfaces to focus sunlight onto a smaller receiver area, increasing thermal energy output while maintaining annual energy efficiency. Ray-tracing simulations are employed in this study using Tonatiuh to optimise the characteristics of the Double MaReCo (DM) collector, which is an improved version of the commercially available Solarus Power Collector (PC). Focused on enhancing electrical performance, the photovoltaic (PV) cell configurations are varied on the bottom side of the receiver, while the top-side PV cells remain constant. The study also analyses the influence of diodes and transparent gables on the annual solar irradiance received by the PV cells. From the analysis, it is observed that the specific annual irradiance received by the PV cells in the DM collector with transparent gables is nearly 64% more compared to that of the PC counterpart. It is also observed that the transparency of gables becomes significant only when the whole area of the receiver is covered by PV cells. With the goal of improving performance while lowering the cost and complexity of the DM collector, the study investigates various collector design characteristics that may shed more light on optimising the current model.

The increasing heat demand in Cyprus' F&B industry presents an opportunity to leverage the abundant solar resources of the country as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels for industrial processes. To project the final energy consumption (FEC) of the national F&B industry from 2024 to 2035, the GDP (PPP) is used as an exogenous variable. A regression model is obtained with an adjusted correlation coefficient (R²) of 85.8%. For the projections, two economic growth scenarios are considered (positive, PEG, [+3%] and negative, NEG, [−1.5%]), combined with two scenarios for solar technology deployment (business-as-usual, BAU, [2%] and large, LTD, [20%]). Additionally, dynamic simulations in TRNSYS are conducted to estimate the annual yield of a model SHIP plant using Parabolic Trough Collectors. The modelled system, consisting of a total collector area of 660 m² and a thermal storage of 30 m³, yielded 4,320 MJ/m² of thermal energy. It was found that solar energy could uptake between 10% and 28% of the FEC for the NEG and PEG scenarios, respectively. Moreover, the solar heat potential ranged between 85 TJ and 444 TJ, which represents between 19,780 m² and 102,800 m² of solar collectors, respectively. Lastly, the projections also analyse the reduction of GHG emissions in 2035 compared with the baseline year (2023), where the NEG-LTD scenario achieved a reduction of 71%; meanwhile, the PEG-BAU scenario presented an increment of 25% in the GHG emissions.