In the present study, an evacuated tube collector based solar water heater (ETC-SWH) has been developed and tested in the summer season under the climate of Hisar (29°08′25.1″N 75°44′22.0″E), India. The thermal performance of the developed ETC-SWH has been calculated at six different ETC tilt angles (15°, 20°, 25°, 30°, 35° and 40°) in May 2022. Five water-in-glass type evacuated tubes were used for the collection of solar energy. The maximum thermal efficiency of ETC-SWH was evaluated as 75.04 % at the tilt angle of 15°, which was 5.3 %, 11.6 %, 12.8 %, 17.5 % and 18 % higher than the efficiency at 20°, 25°, 30°, 35° and 40° ETC tilt angles, respectively. The embodied energy of the ETC-SWH was evaluated as 1124.05 kWh. The minimum energy payback time for the developed ETC-SWH was found to be 1.14 years at the ETC tilt angle of 15°. The maximum carbon credit earned ranges from $291.51 to $1166.03. The payback time for the ETC-SWH varied from 1.67 to 2.26 years at different tilt angles and was minimum for ETC having a tilt angle of 15°. The experimental uncertainty varied from 0.161 to 0.254 % throughout the experimentation.