Are Wind Turbines Worth It? A Cost Controller's View on ABB Wind Turbines and High Voltage Power Inverter TCO

"Are wind turbines worth it?" My boss asks me this every time we start a new wind project.

The question sounds like it's about technology. People expect me to talk about blade aerodynamics, wind speed distributions, capacity factors. But after six years of managing a renewable energy procurement budget (roughly $1.2 million a year), I have a different answer: the question is really about cost. And most teams approach it the wrong way.

Here's what I mean.

In early 2021, we were spec'ing a medium-sized wind installation. The turbine manufacturer offered two inverter choices. The cheaper third-party unit came in about 18% below the ABB option. My engineering team said the specs looked comparable. My spreadsheet showed $42,000 in upfront savings. My gut said to wait.

I built a total cost of ownership model instead of trusting the headline price. Two years later, the cheap inverter had caused three service call-outs, one unplanned shutdown, and around $17,000 in lost energy revenue. The "savings" vanished. (Surprise, surprise.)

So let's talk about why "are wind turbines worth it" is the wrong question to ask—and what actually determines whether a wind turbine makes financial sense.

The Real Problem Isn't the Turbine

When people search for "ABB wind turbine," they often expect to find a giant machine with rotor and blades. But ABB's role in the wind industry is mostly electrical: the high voltage power inverter, the grid connection, the control system, the transformer. Those parts determine how much generated energy becomes usable revenue.

And that's where the real cost problem lives.

A wind turbine may run for 20+ years. The inverter operates roughly whenever the turbine is turning. If its conversion efficiency is 0.5% lower than another model, you lose that 0.5% on every kilowatt-hour produced over two decades.

What does that mean in dollars? Take a 2MW turbine with a 35% capacity factor. It produces about 6,300 MWh per year. A 0.5% loss is roughly 31.5 MWh per year. At $50/MWh, that's $1,575 a year—or $31,500 over 20 years, just from efficiency. Add a slightly higher failure rate, say one extra unplanned event per year costing $5,000 in lost production and service time, and you're looking at another $100,000 in cost.

The cheap inverter isn't cheap. It's just upfront cheap.

What Most Buyers Miss: Hidden Costs in the Inverter Decision

Let me walk through what does not show up on the initial quote.

1. Efficiency at partial load. Inverters rarely run at rated power. The datasheet may quote a 98.5% peak efficiency, but the weighted efficiency across your site's actual wind distribution can differ by 1–2% between vendors. That's the number you need to model. What most people don't realize is that "peak efficiency" is not the same as "annual energy yield efficiency."

2. The service ecosystem. Is there a repair center near your site? Do they keep spare parts in stock? In 2021, ABB won our comparison partly because their regional service center had the exact fan and power module we might need. The other vendor's repair process required shipping the unit overseas and a 20-page online return form (which, honestly, felt like a job application).

3. Digital access. This one sounds minor, but it matters more every year. With our ABB login, I can view serial-number-specific documentation, download parameter files, and check service advisories. It saves hours of emailing. Hours are a procurement cost too. Last year, that portal also alerted us to a service bulletin about a bad batch of cooling fans—before we installed them. The other vendor's customers found out only when the fans failed.

4. The "small parts" trap. According to a 2017 Sandia National Laboratories reliability review, fans and capacitors are among the most common inverter failure points. These are cheap parts. But the failure can be expensive. I think of it like an Eastman dishwasher mounting bracket: nobody budgets for it when they buy a dishwasher, but a $12 bracket failure can lead to thousands in water damage. In an inverter, a $30 cooling fan can take down a multi-million-dollar turbine and require a crane call.

The Cost of Asking the Wrong Question

According to the U.S. Department of Energy's 2020 Cost of Wind Energy Review, land-based wind levelized costs fell by roughly 50% over the prior decade. Wind economically competes with fossil fuels in many regions. But those average figures hide project-level risk.

The inverter decision can shift a project's economics far more than most engineers expect. Let me illustrate with a combined example from my own files (numbers adjusted to protect supplier data).

One site compared a $138,000 high voltage power inverter package from an established brand versus a $119,000 package from a newer supplier. The savings looked like $19,000. But the cheap unit required three filter changes per year versus one for the established unit—an annual difference of $3,200. It also had a forced outage rate about one event per year higher. Each outage cost about $7,500 in lost production and call-out charges. Over five years, the "cheaper" option was actually $33,500 more expensive.

The lowest quoted price is not the lowest total cost of ownership. It never is.

A Short TCO Checklist for Wind Power Inverters

Before comparing quotes, gather these five items:

• Weighted partial-load efficiency for your specific site's wind profile. Ask the vendor to provide it in a spreadsheet—not a one-line datasheet value.
• Reliability data (MTBF or device failure rates) from field experience, not marketing claims. Some utilities publish this in open substation reliability reports.
• Warranty and service terms, including response times, included parts, and the failure diagnosis process.
• Local spare stock and service team proximity. A 24-hour response guarantee is useless if there are no parts.
• Digital support systems—does the manufacturer offer a customer portal? (A functional ABB login has helped me cut weeks off our documentation requests.)

Then build your own TCO sheet:

Initial hardware + installation + site engineering + lifetime energy loss (from efficiency) + scheduled maintenance + expected failure cost + end-of-life disposal.

You might find that the highest-priced quote wins.

So Are Wind Turbines Worth It?

Yes—when you evaluate them on total cost, not purchase price. The best turbine in the world becomes a money pit if its high voltage power inverter is inefficient or unreliable. And a slightly higher inverter price is often a bargain if it delivers 99.9% availability for two decades.

The next time someone asks, "are wind turbines worth it?" ask them a better question: "What's the total cost over 20 years?" That's the question that makes renewable projects successful.

Note: I'm a procurement manager, not a design engineer. These examples come from my own contract reviews and are anonymized to protect confidential data. Public source: U.S. Department of Energy, 2020 Cost of Wind Energy Review; Sandia National Laboratories, 2017 inverter reliability study.