An economic analysis for distributed Wind Energy Conversion Systems (WECS) has been conducted for the Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the Solar Commercial Readiness Assessment task at the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI). The objective of this paper is to analyze: the cost of electricity generated by selected wind energy systems in residential and agricultural applications; the breakeven cost of wind systems able to compete economically with conventional power sources in dispersed applications; and the impact of major economic factors on the cost performance index. Two major measures of economics used are breakeven period and levelized cost of electricity (life-cycle cost). The cost performance index was calculated for a dispersed application of a commercially available 10 kW wind turbine generator. All-electric homes consuming 15,000 kWh annually or more have been selected for analysis. The agricultural application is represented by a commercial poultry and egg farm demanding over 92,000 kWh annually.