I did plenty of research into Solar Power for Electricity Supply and at present rates it would take more years than I have left in me to recover the initial outlay.
However, the 2 Water Heaters in our house are the biggest consumers at 6 KW, then comes the Aircon etc.
Solar water heating is very cheap and easy to set up, even DIY if you want to mess around with pipes and tanks etc.
I am planning to have the Electric heaters in for the Shower etc until I have time to play around and set up an alternative, (possibly Solar) Hot Water System then the Electric heaters will go to Standby for when the sun doesnt shine so much.
One other consideration for those of you with 'bigger places'' is a Heat Pump, forum member ''Surin'' is the man to ask, he is an expert.
Basically using the available heat in the air, his machines will extract the freely available energy and use it to heat water and the output is a supply of cooler air and all for a very attractive price, costing almost nothing to run.
I will also be considering one of his smaller units when setting up the Hot water System for my place - it may cost more than Solar initially, but it is more efficient to run and reliable too. Possibly I can also duct the cooler air into my Gymnasium, not that I intend to ever work up a sweat in there, will leave that to the missus !!
Solar Electricity as opposed to the regular supply - no thanks. Water Heating - oh yes !!
Cheers, MH