[NiHaoMike]

V/Hz soft start will help considerably in reducing the peak power needed. In fact, you'll likely be limited by oil return issues. Expect maybe a 3:1 dynamic range using an off the shelf compressor. You might be able to improve that by adding some supercaps and using them to allow variation for an oil return cycle.

But it seems like a "cheap" grid tie inverter would probably be your best bet. As long as you're running the loads when the solar is producing, the "50% loss" won't come into play. It doesn't export to the grid only to reimport it - it goes to the load and import/export only comes into play to balance things out.