Homes that are energy-efficient take advantage of the following alternatives to traditional household loads (listed below), and enjoy financial savings because of this.

Vermont Solar carries the following energy-saving alternatives to traditional household loads:	view all products

Refrigerators	Conventional units consume 2-5 kWh/day, four to seven times as much as the most energy efficient models. Efficient electric refrigerators consume up to 80% less power. Propane refrigerators are quite popular and relatively inexpensive to operate.
Lighting	Compact fluorescent lighting generates four times the amount of useable light as incandescent lighting for the same amount of wattage, and they have an extremely long lifetime!
Clothes washing	Energy-efficient washing machines are preferable. If a clothes dryer is used, a gas model is much more efficient than an electric model. To maximize efficiency at an off-grid house, commonly laundry is done while the generator is charging or excess power is available from the batteries (i.e. when the batteries are full in the middle of a sunny day).
Cooking	Microwaves are acceptable in most cases, but a propane range will probably be the method of choice.
Water heating	Renewable electricity can not economically be used to generate electricity for electric water heating! Propane is the most likely choice, perhaps in combination with an active solar hot water system as backup.
Space heating	Renewable electricity can not economically be used to generate electricity for electric space heating! Forced air circulation systems, due to their high wattage blower, consume a lot of power and are not all practical.  It’s common to use wood heat along with a few direct-vent propane heaters as backup. Passive solar heat is an option. Radiant-floor heating systems, which use relatively low power circulators, are compatible with residential solar thermal (solar hot water) systems.