Distributed wind power has received growing attention in recent years. However, high risks remain in its investigation, which severely hindered its development. This study attempts to gather and identify risk factors in distributed wind power through literature reviews and rank the risks based on expert opinions. Based on previous literature, we classified risk for distributed wind power investment into four types, namely the political risks, economic risks, social risks, and technical risks. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method is used to assess risks in the life cycle of the distributed wind farm. Political, Economic, Social and Technical methodology as the criteria hierarchy is introduced to classify the identified risks as the sub-criteria hierarchy in the AHP model. The result shows that the risk of changes in electricity price policy is the most critical impact on the distributed wind power system to obtain sustainable development and make profits. Therefore, the government needs to provide a long-term vision of electricity price policy to promote the development of distributed wind projects. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.