A portable air conditioner that runs on solar energy also needs batteries and solar panels. For a 5000 BTU portable air conditioner unit, 800 watts of grounded solar panels and 4 100 amp hour lithium phosphate batteries are required. Yes, the short answer is that a solar generator can power an air conditioner. However, there are other factors you should consider before moving forward.
The best way to provide power to an off-grid air conditioning unit is with a portable power plant and a set of solar panels. By the end of this instructional post, you'll know how to assess your AC power consumption, how many solar panels would be needed to run a portable air conditioner unit, and what type of battery storage is recommended. For the charge controller I'm using, I can connect all 4 solar panels both ways: I'll connect them in series in pairs and then connect them in parallel. For a larger air conditioner (~1500 W), use a Bluetti AC200P portable power plant or a 2000 watt Champion Power Equipment portable generator.
Evaluating the power of solar panels is a piece of cake when I tell you that you can calculate it by multiplying this figure by the nominal power of the photovoltaic panels. Don't be fooled by the options that include a small 1.5 W solar panel to charge a 10,000 mAh battery. All of them provide hours of energy to the air conditioner and allow the corresponding solar panels of approximately 200 W to be charged (enough to power a small air conditioning unit). Choose any of these power plants and solar panels for an incredible way to power your portable air conditioner.
But they will be insufficient to power portable AC power due to the low Wh battery and the solar panel's maximum load of 100 W. If you don't think you need to charge so many solar panels, you can always buy a ~200 W solar panel. Professional solar installers use ready-to-use tables and data from third-party sites to estimate solar panel production.
