Wind Turbine Payback in Northwest Arctic Borough, AK

Wind turbine payback in Northwest Arctic Borough

No. The turbine wears out before it pays for itself.

At 30 m, the height a home turbine tower usually reaches, the wind in Northwest Arctic Borough, AK averages 5.52 m/s (12.3 mph). A 10 kW turbine there would make about 16,181 kWh a year, worth $4,421 at AK's 27.32¢/kWh. Against an installed cost of about $100,000, that is a payback of 23 years, and the turbine is built to last about 20.

What to do in Northwest Arctic Borough

A home turbine is not worth buying for savings in Northwest Arctic Borough unless your spot is far windier than the county average, 5.8 m/s at the hub against 5.52 m/s here. Per kW, solar panels would make about 715 kWh a year here against the turbine's 1,618, so get a solar quote first.

What would have to change

• Power would have to cost 31¢/kWh, 1.1 times what AK pays now.
• Or the average wind at the hub would have to be 5.8 m/s instead of 5.52. A taller tower or an exposed ridge can add some of that; a rooftop never will.

Against the rest of AK

Northwest Arctic Borough is the 1,207th windiest of 3,144 US counties at turbine height; the national middle is 4.79 m/s. The windiest in AK is Aleutians West Census Area at 9.35 m/s, payback 9 years.

Month by month in Northwest Arctic Borough

January is the strongest month here, at 7.25 m/s and about 2,446 kWh. June is the weakest, 3.79 m/s and 459 kWh, so the best month makes 5.3 times the worst. November to March brings in 64% of the year's output in Northwest Arctic Borough.

What a taller tower would buy

Measured at 10 m the wind in Northwest Arctic Borough averages 4.39 m/s; at 50 m it is 6.14 m/s. That gives a shear exponent of 0.208, typical of ordinary open country. Going from 20 m to 50 m takes output from 13,041 to 20,742 kWh a year, 59% more, before counting the extra cost of the taller tower. Why tower height decides it explains the shear behind these numbers.

Counties around Northwest Arctic Borough

2 of the 6 closest counties are windier at turbine height; the windiest, Kusilvak Census Area, averages 6.25 m/s.

• Nome Census Area, AK: 5.74 m/s, 17,785 kWh, payback 21 years (193 mi)
• North Slope Borough, AK: 4.73 m/s, 10,762 kWh, payback 34 years (238 mi)
• Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, AK: 5.2 m/s, 13,907 kWh, payback 26 years (261 mi)
• Kusilvak Census Area, AK: 6.25 m/s, 21,558 kWh, payback 17 years (339 mi)
• Denali Borough, AK: 4.06 m/s, 6,883 kWh, payback 53 years (368 mi)
• Fairbanks North Star Borough, AK: 3.23 m/s, 3,333 kWh, payback over 100 years (414 mi)

Sun versus wind in Northwest Arctic Borough

Northwest Arctic Borough gets 2.45 kWh of sunshine per square metre a day on average. One kW of solar panels here would make roughly 715 kWh a year; one kW of the turbine above makes 1,618. This is one of the rare places where a kilowatt of turbine out-produces a kilowatt of panels, by 2.3 times. Panel output assumes an 80% system performance ratio. Wind or solar runs the same comparison for every county.

How this is worked out

Wind is NASA's Power climate record, the 2001-2025 average at 10 m and 50 m for the county's centre, carried to 30 m with this county's own measured wind shear and spread into hours with a Rayleigh distribution. The turbine is a generic 10 kW, 7 m rotor machine with 10% losses. Cost is $10,000 per kW installed with no tax credit, because the federal one ended in 2025. One county-centre number cannot see your hilltop or your tree line, so treat it as the starting point for a site survey, not a substitute. The full method and its weak spots are in how the numbers are made.