How Much Solar Panel To Run Air Conditioner

Video information update our 13 500 btu rv air conditioner actually pulls about 150 amps instead of 73 amps while running from a 12 volt source.

How much solar panel to run air conditioner.

To follow the example above let s say you re looking to generate an additional 3 333 w to run your air conditioner in massachusetts. For a 10 000 btu rv air conditioner 2 000 watts is required to start up and 700 once running. When it s hottest and the sun is shining the brightest i can make lots of power. This number will be the number of solar panels necessary to cover your air conditioning needs.

Ac for grid connected homes the fact that we are all able to access almost unlimited amounts of electricity 24 7 is a beautiful part of our modern electricity grid. How many solar panels to run the air conditioner. The advantage of solar powered air conditioning. A solar panel can run an air conditioner but it ll use a large portion of your panel s capacity.

We suggest a battery bank of 800 amp hours. Air conditioners typically use between 1 2kw 2 5kw of power and a typical solar panel system has an energy output of 2kw 4kw. This is assuming you are considering using 12 volt rv grade panels. Can you run your air conditioner off solar panels.

For a 15 000 btu rv air conditioner 3 500 watts is required for startup and 1 500 once running. Unfortunately this means to run our a c regularly it requires roughly double the wattage of solar panels so 1500 watts and at least double the amp hour. In the video i did not allow the a c to run long enough for the compressor to kick on. Assuming that the air conditioning unit requires 1500 waats of power a collection of 6 solar panels at 250 waats capacity could in theory power the air conditioning unit but a lot of individual factors can throw this number in either direction.

This is also assuming of course you have a lot of battery power too. So we ll assume these to give you an idea. Number of panels additional watts needed watts per panel. The short answer is the number of solar panels depends on which solar panels and air conditioner you have.

This allows me to run the ac full blast to keep my house nice and cool. Even with the air conditioner on high my solar panel system still makes enough power to add 2 000 watts into the batteries. Clearly this kind of setup can get pricey pretty quickly. Not to mention there is only so much room on top of your rv for solar panels.

Let s take a look at ac energy requirements and typical solar production to see if solar panels can really run air conditioners in each setup. We ll need about twelve 200 amp hour solar panels and one 100 amp hour panel to run the ac. However it will require a lot of energy. You can power your air conditioner with solar panels.

And many people wonder if a solar panel system is up to the task.