I have some experience of this from Portugal

You have to start from what you want to do with it in terms of use and calculate your requirements in watts (most aplliances are rated in watts) and how many amps you need to generate and store to service this

For example if you work from 12 volts a 60 watt tv or fan will use 60divided by 12 equals 5amps per hour if you use it 6 hours a day thats 30amps of consumption a 75 watt solar panel at peak might give you 4-5amps per hour for 8-9 hours depending on intensity and you can make your list of projected expenditure at peak and your required input at min in a 24 hour period, winter calculations are best as you use more lighting at least here. your batteries act as the reservoir and balance out the peaks and troughs

A friend of mine installed 4 x 75watt panels on a manual swivel stand (you can get auto trackers)

He had 12 x 2volt 100amper batteries which is your energy storage

And a 1.5 kilowatt inverter which converts 24volt dc to 220 ac

About £5000 8 years ago but the advantage was that to have mains power brought there he would have paid that for the installation so he effectively for the same money had power but no bills

It was enough for all his audio and lighting ran washing machine without heating the water (did this with 12mm coils of alkathene on his roof with water flowing through which could be stored for later use in the house)

It also ran all his power tools although he would try to gear this for full sun times no good for refrigeration though he had gas

He also used a 1mt parabolic reflector about £120 easy to make if you buy the mirror quality ali pre cut out and this would boil a gallon of water in a caste iron kettle in 5mins at 9am in Sep in Portugal There are also quite efficient designs for earth /solar ovens if anyone is interested and cant find out tell me and i have good access to these resources and will point you in the right directions.

I am involved with Green/Alternative Tech Events for many years and have helped in Thailand with a few small projects

If you have access to wind and or water there are other low cost strategies
Including Savernous Rotars (spelling) and pelton wheels that dont require more than village blacksmith tech