Stress testing my portable ac unit and solar panel power system.
How many solar panels to run a window ac unit.
Ballpark 800 to 1000 amp hours of battery and 1500 watts of solar would be a starting point.
Of 325 wp to run 5 stars 1 ton ac.
Solar panels come in a range of sizes.
The higher number of watts per panel the less of them you ll need to generate your full electricity needs.
There are solar generators that will run some ac units.
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.
Hence 1 625 kwp system would be required with 5 nos.
The first 500 watts produced go to the air conditioner directly.
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.
This number will be the number of solar panels necessary to cover your air conditioning needs.
With 325 wp solar module no.
It depends on the air conditioner and how much power it needs.
I wanted to see how long it would take for my solar panel system batteries to bottom out 50 discharge.
Where you are and what tempetature and humidity you want can require double or half that.
So smaller portable air conditioners or window units would be able to run on the yeti power station we looked at above.
In seattle you d need a 4 75 kw installation about 18 panels.
Most on the market today are between 250 365 w.
For example a portable ac like the honeywell 10000 btu only requires 880 watts.
I decided to stress test my solar panel system by turning the portable ac unit on high and setting the thermostat to 60 degrees.
For the above ac requirement a 1 4 kw on grid system is required as per thumb rule 4 units are generated from 1 kwp in a day.