•A solar dish collector with spiral coil absorber is investigated parametrically.•The analysis is performed with a validated thermal model with experimental results.•The optimum exergetically inlet temperature and flow rate are found for many cases.•For the main case, the maximum exergetic efficiency is found 21.42%.•The optimum inlet temperature and flow rate are 212.3 °C and 314.6 L/h respectively. The objective of this work is to investigate parametrically an innovative solar dish collector with a spiral-coil absorber and to determine its optimum operating conditions. This solar dish collector is a lightweight and low-cost technology which can operate mainly at medium temperature levels. A thermal model is developed in Engineering Equation Solver and it is validated with the experimental results. Different parameters as the inlet temperature, the flow rate, the absorber emittance, the optical efficiency, the wind velocity and the ambient temperature are investigated parametrically in order to investigate their impact on the collector performance. The analysis is performed in energetic and exergetic terms and the emphasis is given in the quantity and the quality of the useful product. In the last part of this work, the optimum inlet temperature and flow rate, which maximize the collector exergetic performance, are determined for various design cases. According to the results, the optimum fluid temperature is 212.3 °C and the optimum flow rate is 314.6 L/h with the thermal and exergetic efficiencies to be 49.83% and 21.42% respectively. The results of this work can be utilized for the improvement of the examined physical model in order to establish it as a reliable solar technology.