Hello from the sunny Spain…

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I've thought about it. Supposing a small 2.5kW unit, you need about 16 sq meters of panels (about 5kWc). Without a battery, I'm not sure the compressor would even start.

A 3000 frigories A/C takes around 1.2KW, more than enough for a living room. That is 4 panels with 450w each with some headroom.
For the “in rush” moment there is a device called “soft starter” wich is used in well pumps. It delivers current slowly, the pump starts spining also slowly and it doesn’t have the peak current.

 

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i even wore a latex catsuit while diying with temperatures above 30°

¿Pictures with the catsuit..??

Welcome!!

Thanks..!!

 

[abbey road d enfer]

A 3000 frigories A/C takes around 1.2KW, more than enough for a living room. That is 4 panels with 450w each with some headroom.

You're very optimistic. Panels are spec'd at peak power. Real world is about 50% in sunny places. 1.2kW is enough for what size of living room?
Typical recommendations are about 60W per cubic meter. 1.2kW would be good for a 8-10 square meter room of standard 2.4m height.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I installed a nice 2400 BTU(?) mitsubishi split about three years ago... At the time I was replacing an in wall airco for cooling my main room. About a year ago I installed an 8" blower to suck cooled/heated air from my main room back to my bedroom. I have been heating-cooling my entire house with this one unit. During the recent heat wave my system was unable to hold temperature on the hottest days. In an excess of caution I had my service guy check refrigerant level, while it was Ok he gave it a little extra to make the customer feel better about the service charge.

My cheap house was built with in wall electric resistance heaters. The modern efficient heat pump cuts my electric heating/cooling bills dramatically. My utility compares my electric bills with my neighbors and routinely shows that I am using less energy than even my efficient neighbors.

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Am I green?? I know that I'm cheap.

JR

 

[ThumbsUp]

You're very optimistic. Panels are spec'd at peak power. Real world is about 50% in sunny places. 1.2kW is enough for what size of living room?
Typical recommendations are about 60W per cubic meter. 1.2kW would be good for a 8-10 square meter room of standard 2.4m height.

To be realistic, my 3000 frigories split (around 12.000 btu wich takes around 1.2KW/h), around 25 years old, no inverter, LG branded A/C, during a heat wave with over 40 degrees is more than enough to cool down a 40 square meters and 2,5 meters height living room to 26 degrees in a country house in Spain. When reached that temperature the compressor is stoped half of the time.
May you be confusing power of cooling capability with power consumtion? 60W of consumtion per cubic meter seems way too much to me.

The soft starter works like a charm in my 1hp well pump. Without it, the start of the pump made the UPS to act for a momment.

Can talk about solar panels since I don’t have any installed.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

To be realistic, my 3000 frigories split (around 12.000 btu wich takes around 1.2KW/h), around 25 years old, no inverter, LG branded A/C, during a heat wave with over 40 degrees is more than enough to cool down a 40 square meters and 2,5 meters height living room to 26 degrees in a country house in Spain. When reached that temperature the compressor is stoped half of the time.
May you be confusing power of cooling capability with power consumtion? 60W of consumtion per cubic meter seems way too much to me.

I believe I understand why we differ.
Acording to charts, a 12 000BTU unit coresponds to 3.5kW.
The 1.2kW.h is the actual consumption, which indicates the compressor works one-third of the time. That's because you don't use your A/C outrageously; 26°C (79°F) is quite reasonable. It's the figure that is recommended by the EU in order to save energy.

 

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I think I saw it…
Watt Is a unity of power. In your equation, 3.5Kw is the cooling power capacity and 1.2Kw/h is the power needed for the system to work. Even both of them are kilowatts, they are different things, and the relation between them depends on eficiency of the system.
The formula is Kw (of cooling capscity) X 0.86 = frigories (or calories, wich is the same but in opposite direction). 1 frigorie = 4 BTU
So in my case, to produce 3000 frigories (3488 watts of cooling capacity) the AC needs 1.2Kw/h of consumtion with the compressor runing. When is stoped it takes just the consumtion of the blowing fan, wich is always running.
Back to the solar panels, I think 5 panels with 450W/h will run it nicely at nearly 50% of load without batteries.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

I think I saw it…
Watt Is a unity of power. In your equation, 3.5Kw is the cooling power capacity and 1.2Kw/h is the power needed for the system to work. Even both of them are kilowatts, they are different things, and the relation between them depends on eficiency of the system.

You're absolutely right, I just forgot the CoP (coefficient of performance).

Back to the solar panels, I think 5 panels with 450W/h will run it nicely at nearly 50% of load without batteries.

I'm interested, please keep us informed of progress.

 

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Well, this is not on my “to do list” yet, but surely will be in a near future.