Maintenance and operational costs of the wind turbines which consists of insurance cost regular maintenance repair and.
Micro wind turbine vs solar panel.
Those without battery backup there is very little.
The answer of course is that it isn t as simple as stating which technology is better both have their benefits and drawbacks and which technology is best depends very much on the application and the location of the.
Wind turbines vs solar panels.
Most solar panel manufacturers will not warranty solar panels installed on boats or rv s.
This is specifically a comparison of solar panels to small scale wind turbines for small businesses homes farms etc.
Comparing the top renewables.
Also this article will not address utility scale wind turbines 2 5 mw.
In the united states wind power is significantly more popular than solar.
Compared to solar panels wind turbines release less co2 to the atmosphere consume less energy and produce more energy overall.
A 10 kw turbine can cost 40 000 or more without shipping and cost of installation.
Wind turbine systems can run as high as 65 000 installed while the average cost nationally for a professionally installed solar panel system is about 8 to 9 per watt.
Over the course of 14 months the solar panels produced about five times as much electricity as the wind turbine.
That means a 2 kilowatt kw grid tied system with no battery back up can run to 16 000 and a similar 5 kw system could cost upwards of 40 000.
This means that over the life of a wind turbine and solar system the actual cost per kwh with solar is less than half the lifetime cost per kwh of wind for small scale systems.
However a wind turbine has far higher ongoing maintenance costs than solar panels and typically only has a 5 year warranty.
In fact one wind turbine can generate the same amount of electricity per kwh as about 48 704 solar panels.
Which is 16 000 compared to the 10 000 average cost of 4 kw generating solar panels.
Solar panels including charge controller and mounting hardware are generally less expensive than a wind generator.
But the enormous power generating capacity of wind turbines doesn t make wind energy a clear winner.
For standard arrays with a grid tie inverter or micro inverters i e.
The negatives on solar panels are the effective charging time space required and problems with shadows on a sailboat.
Written by michael boxwell.