Most solutions available today aren't cost efficient, compared to a utility. Heck even a solar water heater is really iffy. Most of these things take 15/20 years to pay for themselves, if that.
Any home power generation scheme is going to require some kind of "energy storage".
The only thing I see coming, is the new solar cell technology. It *may* allow us to generate some electricity, to charge a battery, which can be used in emergency lighting.
I had already started an emergency lighting system, a few years back, using an old car battery. The idea was to expand it to wire up a house with a 12 Vdc circuit. At the time, it was charged with a battery charger, I had just put in a regulator which was driving a LED. The next logical step would be to wire it up to solar panels for a free charge, and add the power fault circuitry.
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