Can a Solar Generator power an Air Conditioner?
It depends how long you want it to run… And yes, I’ve done it!
Everyone,
A question from the Airstream Addicts group.
Does anyone have any info on this Jackery Solar generator? We met someone who has one. He says we can run our AC with it? Appreciate any info you can give me.
Here’s the basics…
An RV air conditioner requires around 12 to 15 amps of current (or more) while the compressor is running, depending on AC voltage, BTU capacity and ambient air temperature. That works out to around 1,400 to 1,800 watts needed to power a RV air conditioner during hot days.
Time for a little math…
Let’s consider how much run time a Jackery 2000 Explorer can provide. That 2000 number is actually 2,000 Watt-Hours (Wh) of storage. So if we simply divide the Watt-hours of battery capacity by the Watts of power needed (2,000 Watt-hours / 1,800 Watts = 1.1 hours) and throw away 10% for efficiency losses, and you’ll see that a Jackery 2000 Explorer will give you about an hour of Air Conditioner run time per charge. Of course that run time could be a little longer at cooler outside air temperatures.
Real-World Data
These calculations agree with my own lab and field testing. For example my GeoPro trailer has a 400Ah Lithium MasterVolt battery which works out to 5,000Wh of storage.
There’s a 10,500 BTU air conditioner on the roof and 600-Watts of solar panels. I’ve tested this numerous times in the heat and it gets 4 to 5 hours of cooling time on a single 400Ah battery charge with some solar panel makeup.
I’ve tested a single 100Ah Lithium battery on my lab bench powering a 3,000-watt inverter and running a 15,000 BTU Dometic Penguin A/C. It only achieved around 40 minutes of Air Conditioner running time per 100Ah of Lithium battery, which matches the math perfectly.
And I have samples of these so called “Solar Generators” from Jackery, Southwire, BLUETTI and Lion Energy and the above calculations work for all of them.
Final Analysis
While these portable power stations work well for low to mid-power devices, they’re not going to give you any significant air conditioner running time. So don’t spend your money hoping for something that’s not going to cool your RV all day or night. Not going to happen!
Charging the solar generator after it is depleted is the hard part. Either plug it in so a 110 volt source which is typically at least an hour per hour of run time, use solar for many many hours per hour of run time, or run a generator for an hour at least per hour of run time. It is kinda of a zero sum game here.
The battery/inverter theory is ok, but the problem is energy density/capacity of anything handy to carry. Nothing beats a gas generator for that. But one related cousin to the battery pack is to use an EV's enormous battery -- if you can use Vehicle-to-Load, you get 12...30...60.. even hundreds of Killlwatt Hours... which means about that many hours from a 1KW conditioner. Yes, you'll have to recharge your car if it's not a hybrid...