Wind Turbine Facts

There are a lot of factors to be able to determine the cost of a wind turbine. Wind turbines come in many size. They are typically sized in Kilowatts (1000 watts) or Megawatts (one million watts). An example of a small wind turbine is the one we have at NRG, it is rated at 10 Kilowatts. Our turbine makes about $1200 in electricity a year and you could expect to pay about $40,000 to have one installed. The amount of energy the turbine makes depends on the site. At NRG our average wind speed is about 10mph. This is not a very good site. If energy costs stay the same it will take us 33.3 years ($40,000 / $1200) to pay back our original investment. Energy cost will rise over the next 30 years so our payback will be a bit faster but it gives you an idea of how the investment works.
commercial-scale wind turbines typically cost from $1.4 to $2.1 million per Megawatt of capacity. The actual cost depends primarily on brand, location in the world, the site, and maintenance over the life of the turbine.
A turbine with a megawatt capacity does not make a megawatt of electricity all the time. The amount of power it makes on average is much less than megawatt. The actual amount of energy it makes depends primarily on average wind speed.
When looking at the cost of a turbine it is more important to investigate how long the turbine will take to pay for itself, rather than how much the initial cost is. A coal plant may be less expensive but you have to continually buy coal to keep it running. A wind turbine may cost more initially but you do not have to buy the energy source, wind is free.

This information came from Dale