Abstract Air conditioning systems (ACSs) represent one of the main demands for electricity in residential, commercial, and industrial buildings. The use of a photovoltaic air conditioning unit (PVACU) represents an attractive application to this demand for reasons such as environmental concerns and the match between diurnal cooling load and solar resource. A PVACU consists of a photovoltaic generator (PVG) that supply an ACS through direct current to direct current and frequency converters, without energy storage. This system considers the natural adjustment of the ACS cooling capacity according to the PVG power. Modeling the ACS, the PVG, and the thermal load (TL) makes possible to evaluate PVACU performance. For this, a small library’s TL and an ACS supplied by a PVG were used as case study. The PVG installed capacity assumes values of 700, 1000, and 1400 Wp. The simulation results show that the PVACU with a 1400 Wp PVG would be sufficient to regulate internal temperature within international comfort standards in the range of 20 °C to 24 °C. According to the data obtained in the simulations, it was possible to conclude that the PVACU has a large potential to be used in air conditioning of other environments in regions with Amazonian climatic conditions.