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Running Air Conditioning on Solar: Does It Work?

Air conditioning is the biggest summer energy load — often exactly when solar peaks. How to match your A/C load to a solar system.

WaterFuelAndSolarEnergy.com Editorial Team Updated December 2024 7 min read

Air conditioning tends to run hardest on hot, sunny afternoons — precisely when rooftop solar produces the most. That overlap makes A/C one of the best loads to offset with solar, but a single inverter A/C can still draw several kW at once.

The load math

  • A small split system can draw 0.5–1.5 kW average while cooling
  • A large ducted system can spike to 3–6 kW on a hot day
  • Solar output peaks around midday, when cooling load peaks
  • Self-consumption of A/C from solar nearly always beats exporting
Can solar power my A/C without the grid?
Only with a battery and careful sizing — A/C draws a lot at once. Most homes run A/C on a mix of solar during the day and grid at night.