Solar thermal conversion technologies are widely adopted in both industrial and domestic sectors because they offer low carbon emissions. The applications of low temperature solar thermal collectors are water heating, desalination, drying and dehumidification. However, the adoption of these technologies in developing countries remains limited due to insufficient information and limited institutional support. This study focuses on the design, development of an evacuated tube solar heater, and the performance has been measured at different inclination angles (20°, 25°, 30° and 35°) in India. At the optimum angle, the collector's energy and exergy performance have been analysed. The setup for the experiment comprises 15 evacuated tubes linked in series and an overhead water tank. The computed thermal efficiency for the evacuated tube solar water heater is 55.3 %, 59.3%, 65.3% and 54.3% at 20°, 25°, 30° and 35° tilt angles. The maximum water outlet temperature has been achieved at 85.2 °C. To encourage broader utilization of the technology, a detailed economic and environmental analysis of the collector has been performed, which determined a net payback period of 1.73 years.