This one isn't so much the generation of alternate energy as energy management in the home (or institutions).
I've had running disagreements with the architectural community for a long time. They are extremely "building code" oriented and, Frank Lloyd Wright aside, don't seem too inclined to "experiment" much. The result is that we have houses being built today that don't include technology much beyond the 1920s.
In my kitchen is a refrigerator, nestled into a nook between the dishwasher and pantry. I don't know how it manages to work as well as it does since the heat exchanger is backed up to a blind wall in that nook (with cabinets that overhang the top of the fridge!).
I suppose, in the winter, it's okay since whatever heat load the fridge adds, just sums to the other heat sources in the house. But, in the summer, it doesn't seem like a very good solution.
Houses really need to be designed (in combination with refrigerators) such that the fridge expels its heat into a plenum that has a airflow gating system such that in winter the warm air is returned to the house while in summer that heat vents, via the plenum, to the outside.
Am I the only sane one on this issue or am I missing some major concept in physics?