Location
Location
Location
And height. Hundreds of feet and you are golden! Barely above average terrain, fools gold.
Yep.
At the end of the day it's a physics problem. Most people live in an area with an average wind speed of 13 mph or less. Very few can put up a 100' tall tower, either due to regulations or budget so they end up with a turbine mounted on the corner of thier barn or on a 30' or shorter used radio tower. Surrounded by trees of course.
Below is the modeled energy production of a 1kW turbine. Keep in mind it's the perfect turbine at the perfect site so it's production ratings are VERY optimistic. Assumptions:12.5 MPH avg wind speed, 30' tower
Study the "cumulative" column. Note that it will spend almost 50% of the time making 58 watts or less and only 1.5% of it's time making it's rated power and this is the perfect turbine on the perfect site.
What the below table doesn't illustrate is that 90% of that monthly energy will happen in the best 3 days of the month. I know it's a bold statement but still I must say it,
small wind is useless for 99.9% of the population. The biggest lie people tell themselves is that they are in that .1%. People will argue but when asked for data they quickly disappear. I've been right here for years asking and still don't have a single taker.
If you like to tinker then check out Hugh Piggott's homemade wind turbine book. Every once in a while he does a workshop in the US but they are more common in Europe from what I can tell.
https://otherpower.com/node/2540
There's been a handful of "success" stories posted here but not one of them provides any supporting data.
Not doubting them but they are so exceptionally rare vs. the qty of small wind turbines sold they really should be ignored when making a
financial decision about small wind. Spend just a few minutes here or on fieldlines.com and see for yourself.
Small is way cooler than solar to watch, but as has already repeated, solar is your trouble free workhorse.