Is there a compact solar powered air conditioner I can buy for my car? I do not have an air conditioner is the car that I bought several years ago. Approximately four months of the year, it is really hot! I do not want to spend $ 3,000 for a CA. Seems like there should be a good technology out there, but have not really found anything worth buying yet. I can not find a solar unit that draws heat from the car when it is parked.
No, there is no such thing, yet.
Currently, solar panels (all costs, and eco friendly and all ...) are not "great" to electricity. I mean, the solar panels do not create "free" electricity, it is only a little electricity. It does not take much power to run a small fan that sucks hot air out of the car.
But an air conditioning compressor (the thing that cools the air) takes a lot of power compared to a fan. So you need a very large (larger than the car) group (array) of solar panels to generate energy sufficient to operate an air conditioner.
You could buy an electric air conditioner, the runoff batteries (6 and then put in the trunk) and charge batteries with a solar panel while the car was parked. Something like 100 hours of sunshine should give you two or three hours of air conditioning. Of course, the cost would be closer to the sum of 3000 you do not want to spend.
Sorry, there is not (yet) a super efficient solar panels available, capable of transforming 5 minutes of sun power sufficient to operate a car, the more air conditioning all day.
Posted on June 10, 2010.
