Running an RV air conditioner with batteries is very possible but it takes a lot of battery power. In this video I will show you how long a Dometic Blizzard NXT 15000 BTU air conditioner will run on two 100 amp hour batteries running on a Xantrex Freedom X 2000 watt pure sine wave inverter.  

Components

The components that I’m using are two lithium ion batteries from Greenlife, they are each 100 amp hours. We have our 2000 watt pure sine wave inverter by Xantrex. We are using a Blizzard NXT 2 RV air conditioner. This is a 15000 BTU unit that uses 1500 watts.

I wired the system for this test and I’m going to walk you through the process. I'm going to charge my lithium ion batteries to 100 percent, then we will wire in the air conditioning unit and run it off the battery.

Wiring

I rewired the inverter so it will run the a/c. I usually have it run only through shore power but for this test I wired it to the batteries. You can see the voltage is starting to drop down to the lithium ion batteries resting voltage.

The go pro on the right will indicate the load in watts so we can see how much power draw we have. I will run this until I think it’s going to have a hard time starting the compressor on the a/c because I don’t want to damage these components.

The Test

The fan has started and the a/c is running. The temp is now at 86 degrees, I have set it to 72 degrees and have the fan on low. We will be able to see when the compressor kicks on. We are currently drawing 182 watts of power.

The compressor has now clicked on, we are pulling 1100 watts. It will be much higher once the a/c really gets wound up. So far, the a/c is working and blowing cold air.

In about thirty minutes it has dropped the inside temperature by about five degrees. At an hour and twenty-four minutes into the test, I turned the a/c down to 66 degrees because I don’t want it to shut off during this test.

Results

My low power warning is now going off, it has been a total of an hour and a half. I could have perhaps left it running for another twenty minutes but did not want to risk damaging my components. So, we were ultimately able to run the air conditioner for roughly 90 minutes on two lithium ion batteries charged to full capacity.

You would need four lead acid batteries to achieve the same results as you can obtain from two lithium ion batteries. I hope this gives you a good indication of what it really takes to run an a/c off battery power.

Cost

Those batteries each cost 1200 dollars, plus the pure sine wave  inverter is around 600 dollars, so a total of 3000 dollars (not including the a/c).

I will have another video showing you how to use solar and battery power to run your a/c in a practical way. I have a 160 watt solar panel on my roof that was disconnected for this test, but for our next video I will show how to use solar and battery power in conjunction.

If this was helpful to you please remember to like and share. As always, thanks for watching and Happy Camping!

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