Originally Posted by Crazy_Nate

Well, if you're looking at renewables, I'd suggest this.

Insulation first. There are plenty of natural materials that have pretty good thermal properties (consider straw bale), while being pretty cheap.

From there, solar thermal. It's really easily implemented. Directly on the building, or through a secondary building and something like floorboard heating with plastic tubing. Direct would be from large (double or triple pane) south facing windows. Whether or not this is entirely viable is usually determined by the amount of insolation in your area, and how well the windows insulate. Basically, you're trying to maximize the net energy in during the winter (and not lose it through the windows as they're nowhere near as insulating as walls can be). A secondary building would be an interesting project, where you'd have a large flat plate collector and a storage tank, with water circulating between the flat plate, storage tank, and the floor of your primary building.

For wind, do a little research on Bergey. They have tilt-up options that are very reasonably priced (even with install), and will pay for themselves within a reasonable period of time. How short or long this period is depends on the wind resources in your area and your energy consumption. Battery arrays are usually kept for backup, or for excess power - from the generation not meeting the demand at any given point.

Beyond that, having a diesel generator as backup for power is good, and having a wood stove (with trees on your land that you can sustainably harvest) for heat is also a good idea. Other options for heating include oil burning, and pellet stoves.