How many watts an air conditioner uses depends not only on the btu but what kind of ac it is.
How many solar panels to power air conditioner.
When it s hottest and the sun is shining the brightest i can make lots of power.
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.
The only option for solar powered air conditioning is to use an inverter air conditioning unit.
So to power a 13 500 btu air conditioner 1 500 watts of solar panels is the minimum required.
For example a portable ac like the honeywell 10000 btu only requires 880 watts.
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 the most energy efficient type in the industry and it is simply amazing.
Most on the market today are between 250 365 w.
The higher number of watts per panel the less of them you ll need to generate your full electricity needs.
A few factors determine how many solar panels you will require to run an air conditioner.
A single solar panel is going to charge your batteries much too slowly you ll use up the stored electricity faster than the solar panel can charge them again.
My inverter ac unit can use as little as 240watts right up to its maximum rating.
So smaller portable air conditioners or window units would be able to run on the yeti power station we looked at above.
So we ll assume these to give you an idea.
Solar panels come in a range of sizes.
This number will be the number of solar panels necessary to cover your air conditioning needs.
The size of the air conditioner and solar panels.
I actually gave away my original 18000btu unit to install a 10000btu inverter.
It depends on the air conditioner and how much power it needs.
To provide about 14 5 kwh of electricity each day in arizona you d need a 3kw solar installation or a system with about 12 solar panels.
More is needed with more clouds.
Even with the air conditioner on high my solar panel system still makes enough power to add 2 000 watts into the batteries.
The advantage of solar powered air conditioning.
In order to meet this need the solar panels would be required to generate 107 amps 7 hours every day this is if it is a clear sunny day.