Distributed generation and targeted demand side management programs offer electric utilities alternatives to large transmission and distribution (T&P) system capacity investments. This paper presents a method to estimate how much a utility can afford to pay for these alternatives when the change in system capacity due to the distributed resource is constant from year to year and when there is no uncertainty. The method is concise, has intuitive appeal, has minimal data requirements, and is accurate when benchmarked against two existing case studies. Analysts who want to screen distributed resource investment opportunities with a minimal amount of effort will find the method particularly useful.
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