[RE-wrenches] Air Conditioning energy usage

[Dave Angelini Offgrid Solar]

No laughing here about AC! We only use the best SEER mini-splits for
offgrid. Even large homes can be done this way with separate split units. I
never use a multizone split as they are down the list energy wise from
single 1 ton/12000 btu. Look for 30 SEER. Only the best models from LG,
Fugitsu, Mitsu and a few others. Stay away from the cheaper models from any
of these makes.  

Most grid people in NA think that you need to cool down
a home in 15 minutes or so. Hence 5 ton. 

Offgrid, in many places, we just
cool from 7am to 7pm this time of year off the sun. We never let the house
get hot. Because there are no ducts, we gain 30% with a split. 

Doing this
since 2007 when Sanyo hired me to test for offgrid. Game changer! Reliving
this again during recent wildfire seasons and smoke. I have done this in
the tropics also. Even Florida.....You need a big array of 6KW or more or
virtual/active track to keep off the battery. Even up here last week when
it was 100f/80f, we ran 75 F and 78 at night 24/7 on a 200AH LFP battery,
in a 1800 square foot house. You just have to scale it for larger houses.
People just do not believe this. If you had a Schneider gateway you could
watch it here. We can make 50+ KWH here if we need to but seldom do. That
power use to be for winter and not needing a genset, but the last 5 years,
it is needed during wildfire smoke cutting into available cooling power. I
would say about 100 of my clients do this. 

Less is much more offgrid! The
thought of building a power system to support a 5 ton ducted really is a
off the mark these days, I think. Good Luck William. Take a drive up the
park and see us! Fully vaccinated here!  

Dave Angelini Offgrid Solar
"we
go where powerlines don't"
http://members.sti.net/offgridsolar/ [1]
e-mail
offgridsolar at sti.net [2]
text 209 813 0060

On Wed, 23 Jun 2021 09:30:28
-0700, William Miller  wrote:   

Friends: 

In the old days when a client
suggested they might want to run air conditioning equipment on an off-grid
system we would just laugh. Now I find I get that request more frequently
and clients are willing to pay to acquire enough system capacity to run AC
equipment. 

This means I need to size off-grid installations appropriately
for the loads. I have a job pending with a 5 ton AC unit. I cannot find
real-life energy specs. 

I do have a new, fairly efficient 3 ton unit at
my grid-connected home and I do have energy monitoring. On a real hot day
recently we used a little less than 11kWh in this unit. The max power draw
was about 2.5 kW. 

Here are my questions:  

1. Can I linearly extrapolate
my usage to a 5 ton unit? 

2. Do any of you have real-life, measured
energy data on modern AC condenser units that you would be willing to
share? 

Thanks in advance! 

William Miller 

Miller Solar 

17395 Oak
Road, Atascadero, CA 93422 

805-438-5600 

www.millersolar.com [3] 

CA
Lic. 773985 

   

Links:
------
[1]
http://members.sti.net/offgridsolar/
[2] mailto:offgridsolar at sti.net
[3]
http://www.millersolar.com/
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