The presented low temperature solar thermal electric generation system mainly consists of compound parabolic concentrators (CPC) and the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) working with HCFC-123. A novel design is proposed to reduce heat transfer irreversibility between conduction oil and HCFC-123 in the heat exchangers while maintaining the stability of electricity output. Mathematical formulations are developed to study the heat transfer and energy conversion processes and the numerical simulation is carried out based on distributed parameters. Annual performances of the proposed system in different areas of Canberra, Singapore, Bombay, Lhasa, Sacramento and Berlin are simulated. The influences of the collector tilt angle adjustment, the connection between the heat exchangers and the CPC collectors, and the ORC evaporation temperature on the system performance are investigated. The results indicate that the three factors have a major impact on the annual electricity output and should be the key points of optimization. And the optimized system shows that: (1) The annual received direct irradiance can be significantly increased by two or three times optimal adjustments even when the CPC concentration ratio is smaller than 3.0. (2) Compared with the traditional single-stage collectors, two-stage collectors connected with the heat exchangers by two thermal oil cycles can improve the collector efficiency by 8.1-20.9% in the simultaneous processes of heat collection and power generation. (3) On the use of the market available collectors the optimal ORC evaporation temperatures in most of the simulated areas are around 120 degrees C. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.