When the Federal government announced a solar battery rebate in December 2025, our customers who had installed split system air conditioners started calling our aircon team about potential savings if they buy discounted solar batteries and use their solar PV system to power the split system aircon outdoor compressor and indoor evaporator unit.
Australia receives plenty of sunshine (due to her geophysical location and high pressure weather system) and installing a solar system to power your split or multi split reverse cycle air conditioner is the next logical step to save energy costs of space heating and cooling in your home or at your workplace.
If you already have a solar system installed, you need to choose between a solar AC/DC hybrid split system air conditioner or a standard split system air conditioner.
The purpose built solar AC/DC hybrid split system air conditioner can be directly connected to your solar PV array. The solar powered AC/DC hybrid split system air conditioners have inbuilt hardware that enables it to directly connect it to a solar PV panel.
The standard split system air conditioner (that we offer under Victorian Energy Upgrades scheme) can be coupled with solar panels via an inverter.
How to connect solar panels with split system air conditioners?
The process of connecting the purpose built solar AC/DC hybrid split system is no brainer. However, connection of standard split system air conditioners required some level of technical understanding and expertise.
The standard split system aircons can’t be directly connected to solar panels as such air conditioners work on alternating current (AC).
Therefore, you have to connect them to an inverter. Mostly hybrid (solar+battery) types of inverters are ideal for such split systems as such inverters can effortlessly switch between solar, battery and grid power – depending on the solar panel output, battery level and usage pattern.
After mounting the solar panels on your roof, you need to wire them to a hybrid inverter (with or without battery storage system).
Inverter output is then connected to a 15/20 ampere dedicated circuit breaker of mains switchboard of your home. Finally, all indoor and outdoor units of split system air conditioners are connected to the dedicated circuit breaker.
What savings can I expect after pairing solar with split systems?
The savings depends on your split system air conditioner usage, size of the unit, energy tariff, the region you live in, solar system size and solar battery storage size.
With solar panels installed, air conditioning costs can drop to zero if the solar system is generating enough electricity to power the air conditioning units during the day and you have appropriately sized solar batteries installed to supply power during the night time.
Victorian households would typically need a 10kW solar panel system, a 10kw battery storage system and inverter to slash their space heating/cooling bills to zero.