Engineering the Solar-Powered Air Conditioner With Van Neistat

Watch “The Spirited Man” Use an Ecoflow Power Station To Cool Down With Solar Energy!

engineering the solar powered air conditionerIf you don’t know Van Neistat, you probably should. He is the epitome of DIY engineering. His YouTube channel “The Spirited Man” is just over a year old and has millions of followers.

You have probably heard of his brother, Casey Neistat. Casey is one of the original YouTubers, having an extremely successful channel and long-time daily vlog. On the other hand, Van has done most of his work behind the scenes, until now.

Van recently had a project that five or ten years ago would have been impossible: a solar-powered air conditioner.

Engineering the Solar-Powered Air Conditioner

Van’s son has an outdoor playhouse. It’s basically an uninsulated 10×10 shed with some bunks and a play area. In southern California, it can get HOT – well over 100 degrees in the playhouse. Way too warm for a little one.

Now here’s the dilemma. Air conditioners need a LOT of electricity, and they need an outlet with enough amperage to keep running. A circuit like this needs heavy gauge wiring to deliver enough amperage, especially over that distance.  The wiring alone for something like this would be a BIG project. But Van had an idea. Could he create a stand-alone circuit powered by solar energy to keep an air conditioner running and keep the playhouse cool?

The foundation of this idea is a cool little unit called the EcoFlow Delta. The Delta is what’s known as a “power station,” an electric generator you can charge from an outlet OR solar panels. It stores electricity in its large batteries, providing a consistent power source for the air conditioning unit. This theory sounds amazing!

Will the Solar Powered Air Conditioner Work?

Van began by cutting a hole and mounting the small, window A/C unit into the playhouse. He then installed some two-sided solar panels on the roof and ran the wires to the EcoFlow Delta Max units that were wired in series.

In the initial test, the temperature in the playhouse was 84 degrees and needed to be cooled to 63 degrees. Plugged into the EcoFlow power station, the A/C managed to cool the space in about 30 minutes, consuming only about 3.5% of the energy in the system. This means the air conditioner could run for 10 hours on battery power alone. The solar panels completely charge the system in 8 hours or at a rate of 10% an hour, meaning the air conditioner can run on solar power indefinitely.

Great success!

Check out Van Neistat for more amazing projects.

Check out EcoFlow to add some power to your next project.

Subscribe Today!

Get more of this great content sent directly to your inbox

The following two tabs change content below.

Adam Beck

Director of Marketing at CADENAS PARTsolutions | A Marketing graduate from the Miami University, Farmer School of Business in Oxford Ohio, Adam has years of experience in marketing and design for a variety of industries.