Shipping container house -- Solar powered air conditioning for off grid shipping container house e-book - www.buildshippingcontainerhous... blog - www.containerhouse.wordpress.com
Hi neilallswheel, thank you for the link to Scott Davies, I have just had a quick look and I am quite sure I will incorporate some of his ideas. I like the idea of an outdoor bathroom with solar heated bath. Cheers Paul
this is great! I have had the same idea. Im going to get an "inverter" aircon which does both hot and cold. I live in a Mediterranean climate too with 300 days of sun a year. With 2.5kw of panels, much like you, after about 11:00 the power is being "lost".
Do you know about the Rawlemon? It looks good and is more efficient then the traditional solar panels. I did some more research and I font out that is possible to extract water from air (good for dry land) and then extract hydrogen from water to be use as fuel to power the car for cooking or just to store energy in liquid form. Amazing new technology are becoming more available is very exiting. Can someone suggest me how can find cheap land near Brisbane? I love your work!
Hi Blake, I am not sure. I think the price of batteries and their limited life means it is not cost effective, to drive an A/C from batteries. Direct sunshine is my only realistic option. However if the sun has gone in it tends to be cooler. On a few hellish hot days we have run the A/C off the generator for an hour or so,
Hi Paul, Do you also use them for running the electricity/lighting? If so, can the battery handle doing both the lighting and A/C for long periods of time?
Hi Emm, Welcome to the channel. Lighting is a separate system, a 250W solar panel and a 200 AH truck battery. Runs perfectly all year. Philosophy, turn the lights out when you dont need them. Electricity 24hours per day goes to fridge, freezer, water pump, sockets, 3 computers permanently on. Runs all year minimum intervention. AC use is only required a 3 - 20 times per year. It is only viable in full sun. This year we used it about 5 time during the summer. When sun goes behind the trees the AC goes off. Fans are used regularly and are not a big drain. If we have an OMG hot spell, after the sun has gone in I can switch on the petrol Honda generator and run the AC for as long as I want. Batteries cannot run the AC. I once tried it and stopped the experiment after 40 about an hour. The long term effect on the battery life was not worth it. I hope that answers your question. Cheers Paul
I also like the idea of using solar panels connected directly to the air conditioner and having no batteries, charge controllers, grid-tied system, etc. But, when you say "kills" the air conditioner, do you mean that it just turns off when the power drops too low and you have to manually turn the A/C back on, or do you mean that it damages the A/C ?
Christmas Eve Hi, Christmas Why you might fry your AC without a battery. I absolutely wanted an AC without a battery myself. When I went off grid I went to the pump shop to buy a water pump. The standard pump comes with an electronic pressure head to regulate the pressure. When I let slip that I would use a generator and solar panels to power it, he cancelled the purchase. He said I needed the old fashion analogue pump with mechanical pressure switches. He said that when the generator runs out of fuel, the voltage decays and the frequency becomes inconsistent. He had replaced countless electronic heads for this reason. The poor quality electricity kills the electronics. Same concept with solar output. When I read my manual for the AC unit, it says the warranty is void if not connected to the grid. I have a superb Honda generator with a high quality sine wave output. I also have a great inverter. When I start my AC unit is has a soft start, and takes a minute to fire up. If it were to lose electricity it would simply drop off and not switch back on. The RU-vid videos showing AC units running on Solar with no battery have a big solar array. They are generating plenty of power. They also point to the space where the batteries would be fitted. They are also a full sun day. They point out when a cloud passes that the tone of the AC unit changes. It’s a great demo, but not realistic for daily operation. I work in an electronic environment and strongly doubt an AC unit can handle dirty power and power cycling. I am open to learning differently, so I invite comments to the contrary. Cheers Paul
Hi Paul! That's too bad that electronic components in air conditioners are destroyed by power cycling, that is, having the power just drop off to nothing and then return to full power at some point. I can understand that undervoltage can cause problems over time but why the same about power cycling? After all, an inverter cutting power is really the same as a power outage from the grid. I guess the only difference is the fact that a solar inverter cutting out would happen far more frequently than grid power outages.. Hmmm I wish there was a way. Thermoelectric coolers are not damaged but they're VERRRYYY inefficient...
Hi Paul, I want to buy some portable solar energy generator for 1 air conditioner(8000-11,000 BTU"S). I'm planning to use the air conditioner for 8 hrs daily. Also, I live in Puerto Rico which is really sunny island in the caribbean. What do you recommend for this folk that doesn't know to much about electronics & solar generators. Thank you
+vintageRE cords Hi Vintage I am not an expert but here is my experience. I bought an underpowered unit to begin with because I did not understand the way they describe them. I since replaced it. A 10,000 BTU unit from ebay was listed as 2.9 KW. The 2.9 is the air rating NOT the electrical power rating. When you read more carefully, this has specs that say 1100W, 5A, 240V. My aircon has 4.4 kw of cooling, I could not find the power specs quickly on google so cant quote the electrical power and current. An air conditioner will never run successfully from a battery alone. I tried once. It will flatten the battery in no time. I have 3000 watts of solar power generation, a 2300 watt inverter producing electricity, and that will happily run a 1100 watt air conditioner (when the sun is shining). You need to put more energy in than you expect out, as there are losses in the conversions. I would have a factor of at least twice the solar capacity of the load. So if you want 1100 watts I would want a system: 2200 watts of panels, and at least a 2kw inverter (ideally 3kw). The 1100 watts can also be a bit misleading, as when a device starts, it can draw momentary power of 5 to 10 times the normal load. This is why inverters state a safe working load and a temporary overload ability. (my old inverter could supply 3000 watts safely and supply 6000 watts for short periods.) I don’t think I answered your question, but I hope I helped explain the problem you need to solve and why. Cheers Paul
