What Electricity Price Makes a Home Turbine Pay?
The break-even price
A turbine pays back inside its 20-year life when a year of its output, valued at your power price, covers one 20th of its cost. Every county page works out that break-even price from its own wind. In the middle county it is 45¢/kWh. The middle state charges 15.48¢. That gap is why most of the map says no.
Where price helps most
HI has the highest residential price at 46.41¢/kWh, and 4 of its 5 counties pay back. ND has the lowest at 12.46¢, with 0 of 53. Price matters, but wind matters more: output rises with the cube of wind speed and only in proportion to price. Compare Honolulu County, HI, the fastest payback in the priciest state, with Bowman County, ND, the windiest county in ND, and Emanuel County, GA, the national middle for wind.
If power cost twice as much
Doubling every state's price would turn 1,243 more counties into places where a turbine pays back, on top of the 50 where it already does. Rising prices help a turbine you already own, but they are a weak reason to buy one in a county where the wind is light.
Your own rate
The state average is not your bill. Find the per-kWh energy charge on your utility statement, ignoring fixed monthly fees a turbine cannot cut, and compare it with the break-even price on your county page. Also ask your utility what it pays for power you send back to the grid: if net metering is not offered, surplus output is worth far less than the retail price assumed here. A lower installed cost works like a higher price; the ended tax credit shows how much, and how the numbers are made covers the price data.