Wind Turbine Cost

How Much Does A Wind Turbine Cost?

There are 3 very distinct levels of wind turbine cost you should be aware of. They are, in order of lowest to highest price; do it yourself wind turbines, kitset wind turbines and lastly the commercial and professionally installed wind turbines.

In this short article I’ll explain exactly what you can expect to pay for each type and outline the costs and benefits of each type. An important factor to consider when looking at the overall wind turbine cost is the price per watt of power produced.

This should be the benchmark for any analysis of cost for any renewable energy source and thus is your most reliable comparison tool. To get this figure you simply divide the total cost of the wind turbine by the wattage output of the unit.

Wind Turbine Cost For Homes

If you buy a decent guide and source the parts yourself, it’s possible to keep your total wind turbine cost under $150. The guide and the generator are the most expensive parts, as well as the most important. A successful DIY wind turbine project will give you the best value wind turbine cost of around 10 cents per watt.

This is incredible value and these types of windmills for homes are surprisingly easy to put together, if you get the right guide. To see a list of the Top 10 renewable energy guides check out our list (right side bar, above), or facebook page for more details.

If you’re not into doing this yourself you can buy pre packaged wind turbines for the home kitsets for around a grand. You’ll get pretty much the same thing but it won’t be as much as work involved finding the parts. You’ll still have to assemble and mount it yourself, but a lot of people are used to kitsets nowadays so this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. The wind turbine cost for kitset units is around $1 per
watt. This is 10 times as much as if you did it yourself.

Personally, I don’t think the price difference is justified just for someone to buy the parts and put them in a box. However, this is totally up to you to decide.

Residential Wind Turbine Cost

The top of the line wind generators for home use are the professionally installed systems. These types of units obviously have the highest wind turbine cost in terms of overall price as well as cost per watt.

A typical unit will cost you anywhere from $15,000 right up to $100,000, depending on your needs and budget. The advantage of doing it this way is that you don’t have to do anything in terms of construction and installation.

In most cases you will also get a good warranty of anywhere up to 20 years. With one of these units the wind turbine cost per watt you’ll pay is around $5 per watt.

This figure is 5 times as much as the kitset windmills for electricity and a staggering 50 times as much as the DIY wind turbines which you can make for a few hundred bucks.

I am a strong advocate for the DIY wind turbines as they offer the best value and in terms of sustainability, these types of units are the only viable option for us to move forward towards a more renewable energy supply.