Solar Air Conditioners FAQ’s

Our definition of a solar air conditioner is an air conditioner that is designed, engineered and built with the purpose of being powered using solar electricity. It begins with designing a system that is powered exclusively by DC electricity. This is why we also refer to it as a DC powered air conditioner. Every component is designed to be powered by DC electricity. It is designed to operate off the grid using a battery bank as opposed to being plugged into an electrical outlet.

Electricity is generated using solar panels. The electricity produced by solar panels is DC electricity. This electricity is then sent to a battery bank (again stored in DC power) and is available for use by the air conditioner on demand. Excess electricity produced by the solar panels is stored in the batteries for usage when the solar panels are not producing electricity (usually at night). This allow the air conditioner to be operated day and night.

The solar panels produce DC Power. The batteries store DC Power so it is only logical that the air conditioner should operate on only DC Power. Having an air conditioner powered solely by DC Power eliminates the need for an inverter. The elimination of the inverter saves on the cost of the inverter and the maintenance of an inverter. No inverter also means there is no power loss from conversion from DC to AC power.

In places where there is sufficient wind and the wind is more reliable than solar, you can absolutely use wind energy. Again, electricity produced by a wind turbine is DC Power so there is the benefit of not converting from DC to AC Power. In several situations, wind may be a cheaper and more reliable solution than solar and our air conditioners can be powered by wind or solar electricity.

Solar air conditioners are an ideal solution in places where electricity is either expensive or not reliably available. In parts of the world where electricity is cheap and reliable, a solar air conditioner offers the benefit of being carbon neutral. You produce your own electricity to power your air conditioner and therefore do not contribute to global warming.

If one is to consider just the cost of the air conditioner, the solar air conditioner is definitely more expensive. If however, the decision is to power the air conditioner using solar electricity, the cost of the total solution is significantly cheaper. Our 12,000 BTU solar air conditioner requires just 670W as opposed to almost 1,500W or more for a standard air conditioner. What this means that you will require fewer solar panels and a smaller battery bank to operate our 100% DC Powered Air Conditioner as opposed to a standard air conditioner. You will realize savings over an inverter based air conditioning solution as well. For further information on the true cost of powering your air conditioner using solar electricity please refer to the chart at solar-electricity-cost

Our Solar Air Conditioner is 100% DC Powered and designed to operate independent of the electric grid. It is designed to operate using just the solar panels and batteries that can be installed along with the air conditioner. The operating cost of our units is zero once installed. The air conditioner is designed to provide years of trouble free and cost free operations. Most solar panels come with a 25 year warranty and most quality deep cycle Gel batteries have an expected life of 7-10 years. You can expect years of trouble free and expense free operation using our solar air conditioner.

While our DC Powered air conditioner is designed to operate of the utility grid, customers who pay a very high price for electricity can connect our air conditioner to a standard 110V or 220V outlet using our optional power connector. The advantage is obvious, you will consume less than half the power of a standard air conditioner. This alone can pay for the air conditioner in a few short years.

Currently, the solar air conditioner is available as a 12,000 BTU unit and a 15,000 BTU unit. Both sizes are available with or without a heat pump. For customers who do not require a heating system the unit without the heat pump may be preferred. If you require heat even for a few days in the year, the heat pump unit is only $50 more so this may be a better solution for you.

A 100% DC powered air conditioner is designed and engineered to operate primarily on solar or wind power. It is designed to operate using DC Power. A DC motor or DC inverter air conditioner is designed to operate primarily using AC power. It takes some design elements from a 100% DC air conditioner but only gets halfway there. It is not designed to operate using solar or wind power and in our opinion is a half solution.

There are various hybrid solar air conditioners and most of them fail miserably in our opinion. Some are designed using evacuated vacuum tubes and could save a little bit of electricity during the day but they do nothing to save electricity at night or on cloudy or rainy days. Several manufactures of the vacuum based air conditioner make claims that we have found to be greatly exaggerated when used in a real world scenario outside a test laboratory.

If a 100% solar air conditioner is out of your budget, you may want to consider our hybrid air conditioner solution. While our hybrid air conditioner needs to be connected to the electric grid, we have found that using just 2-3 solar panels, the savings are significantly higher than the other hybrid technologies. For more information on our hybrid solar air conditioners click on the following link www.geinnovations.net/hybrid-solar-air-conditioner.html

The number of solar panels required is determined by the number of hours of operation, the number of hours of sunshine and the model of air conditioner. For further information refer to the chart at www.geinnovations.net/solar_panels_required.html

The solar air conditioner operates using 48V so you will need a 48V battery bank. This could be 2*24V batteries, 4*12V batteries, 8*6V batteries, etc. Depending on the hours of operation you will need to determine the storage capacity of your battery bank. The greater the expected hours of operation, the larger the storage capacity will need to be. Storage capacity of batteries is expressed in Amp Hours or Ah. In order to calculate the size of the storage requirements, you can refer to the chart at www.geinnovations.net/battery_requirements.html

The solar air conditioner is a split type air conditioning system. The standard air conditioner includes the outdoor unit (compressor unit) the indoor unit (blower unit) and the line set that connects the 2 units. Solar panels and batteries are available as optional equipment.