How Many Solar Panels To Run Rv Ac
I have to run a 1 ton air conditioner how many panels will i need.
How many solar panels to run rv ac. To choose the right size generator you need to know the starting surge watts and running rated watts required by your rv s air conditioning unit. You will need at least 1 800 watts of solar panels to run your rv 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. This is also assuming of course you have a lot of battery power too.
Big ol battery bank. This doesn t include the solar power needed to run anything else in the rv. Every 1 ton of cooling power commonly known as heat removed by a 1 ton ac in one hour is also expressed as 3516 watts. For a 10 000 btu rv air conditioner 2 000 watts is required to start up and 700 once running.
This equals thirty amp hours a day meaning you would need two one hundred watt panels to fully recharge your rv. We suggest a battery bank of 800 amp hours. By this estimate we ll need about 2 500 watts of solar panels just to break even on the ac unit s consumption. This 1500 w of solar panels is in addition to the wattage of solar panels required to power everything else in the rv.
Every air conditioner is different but they all require a specific number of start up watts the initial burst when the unit is turned on. Most boondockers have between 200 to 400 amp hour battery banks. To generate the stored electricity needed to run our rv air conditioner all day you d need over 340 square feet of solar panels ish plus 3600 amp hours of battery capacity and guaranteed perfect sunshine. 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.
You can power your air conditioner with solar panels. How many watts does an rv ac use. For a 15 000 btu rv air conditioner 3 500 watts is required for startup and 1 500 once running. This is assuming you are considering using 12 volt rv grade panels.
Eer amount of heat removed in watt power consumed in watt. Most solar panels feature one hundred watts of power and are capable of producing about six amps for each peak sun hour.