Based on hourly meteorological data of typical meteorological years in Fuzhou, the thermal performance of flat plate solar water heater has been hourly simulated. By synthetic energy price, the effect of collector area on the economy of solar water heater was analyzed; also the economic comparisons of various types of water heaters were discussed. Under the current energy price system, the maximum annual average solar fraction of 67.72% was obtained when the collector area is 8.5 m2; the minimum present value of synthetic energy price of 0.283 ...