@Wilson, (FYI I intend to go fully renewable here at the farm: animals and plants farm, not server farm)
Here is the logic I use.
1: The Primary ways I use power the most is Heating, and Cooling. That covers almost 70% of my energy costs. (refridgeration, cold rooms, chillers, etc etc). Space heating, AC2s , etc.
2: The second highest is in heating: Water heating.
3: The Other really heavy usage of energy is in Pumping (stationary prime mover pumping for about six or seven hours.
4: For me lighting, computers and entertainment (TV, radio etc) fall under "misc" and are less than 5% of the house.
Primary production will be solar (For purposes of this Ill use Solar because thats practical in a lot of cases.) The challenge is how to produce, and store enough energy to do what one needs to do throughout. This is where costs suddenly skyrocket.
My Theory:
If I can find alternative ways of storing "Heat", and "Cold" that are cheap, easy to bulk and affordable, I can easily triple Production of power from my budget.
So far ways Im thinking of doing this are:
a) Find ways of using something like Nitrogen as a heat exchanger, storing "cold" for use when needed. This would take the form of freezing nitrogen, then releasing it to some heat exchange medium to release coolness. If I get a Nitrogen powered freezer, the better. Obviously other materials may apply better than Nitrogen.
b) Find ways of storing heat, Off the cuff Im thinking replicating a big thermos flask. Obviously sizing it up and going large. Find ways of pre-heating food , or a liquid heat exchanger system for doing even things like cooking...
c) Efficient design: Looking at structures at the farm in view of conservaton.... etc etc etc..
Thats the plan.. Whether this works enough to make it fully independent however is another story... will keep updates coming.