There are hundreds (yes,hundreds) of windmills around here and they are noisy. And all the flashing red lights at night. Annoying. Seems as though there is always a crane in the neighborhood working on them. I know of one guy with a smaller residential windmill and is very disappointed, broken down most of the time. Says it will never pay for itself.
A friend of mine has solar panels and is happy with them. Runs his house and auto body business with them and still has enough to sell to the power company. No noise, no lights just an adjustment once in a while to keep the angle correct to catch the most sun.