The Evacuated tube collector consists of a number of rows of parallel transparent glass tubes connected to a header pipe, which are used in place of the blackened heat absorbing plate we saw in the previous flat plate collector. These glass tubes are cylindrical in shape.

Therefore, the angle of the sunlight is always perpendicular to the heat absorbing tubes, which enables these collectors to perform well even when sunlight is low such as when it is early in the morning or late in the afternoon, or when shaded by clouds. Evacuated tube collectors are particularly useful in areas with cold, cloudy wintry weathers.

Unlike flat panel collectors, evacuated tube collectors do not heat the water directly within the tubes. Instead, air is removed or evacuated from the space between the two tubes, forming a vacuum (hence the name evacuated tubes). This vacuum acts as an insulator reducing any heat loss significantly to the surrounding atmosphere either through convection or radiation making the collector much more efficient than the internal insulating that flat plate collectors have to offer. With the assistance of this vacuum, evacuated tube collectors generally produce higher fluid temperatures than their flat plate counterparts thus may become very hot in the summer.