So smaller portable air conditioners or.
How many solar panels to power ac unit.
While it is technically possible to power an rv air conditioner with solar panels to generate enough power a large amount of solar panels and upgrades to the electrical system would be required.
If you re connected to the grid and you ve got the roof space installing enough solar panels to cover your entire electricity usage including ac is a very doable task and one that.
This doesn t include the solar power needed to run anything else in the rv.
How many solar panels do i need to run my rv ac.
It works the other way as well.
I decided to stress test my solar panel system by turning the portable ac unit on high and setting the thermostat to 60 degrees.
These ac units generally require about 3 500 watts of power just to start up and then about 1 500 watts just to keep running.
So we ll assume these to give you an idea.
How many solar panels do i need to power my house.
So will any solar generator be able to run your air conditioner.
If you prefer higher efficiency 350 w panels the number would be reduced to 9 to 10 panels.
Thus as a practical matter the vast majority of rv owners will never be able to set up their rv in a way that solar could power an ac unit.
Solar power is one of the finest ways that can mitigate your electricity cost as you use air conditioner excessive so let get straight into it.
Stress testing my portable ac unit and solar panel power system.
Installing air conditioning after a solar installation.
If you want to run your rv air conditioner on solar and battery remember that a typical rv air conditioning unit outputs 15 000 btus of cooling power.
To get these numbers we used high and low panel production ratios to calculate how many solar panels are needed on average.
I wanted to see how long it would take for my solar panel system batteries to bottom out 50 discharge.
For example a portable ac like the honeywell 10000 btu only requires 880 watts.
How many watts an air conditioner uses depends not only on the btu but what kind of ac it is.
Clearly this kind of setup can get pricey pretty quickly.
The typical homeowner will need 28 34 solar panels to cover 100 of their energy usage dependent on location and roof size.
We ll need about twelve 200 amp hour solar panels and one 100 amp hour panel to run the ac.
Air conditioning doesn t have to be your motive for going solar.
Using solar panels to run air conditioner units ac units use a lot of electricity but they re really no match for a well sized solar installation.
The short answer is the number of solar panels depends on which solar panels and air conditioner you have.