This research undertook, a comparative study between the energy and exergy performance by considering four systems or cases namely: partially covered [case (i): N photovoltaic thermal-compound parabolic concentrators (PVT-CPC), case (ii): N photovoltaic thermal (PVT) collectors, case (iii): N compound parabolic concentrators (CPC) and case (iv): N flat plate collectors (FPC)] connected in series. A comparison in performance was carried out by considering the thermal performance of two fluids; water and molten salt. It was observed that N-PVT-CPC collectors (25% PV) and conventional CPC collectors are the most suitable of the investigated configurations for steam cooking using molten salt as the fluid. It was found that, the maximum net annual overall thermal energy and exergy were 1367.86 kW h and 150.45 kW h for the N-CPC collector [case (iii)], which was higher than for N PVT-CPC fluid collectors [case (i) (a)] by 1.6 and 1.06 times, respectively. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.