DA-00-07-1 -- Distributed Electrical Generation Technologies and Methods for Their Economic Assessment PDF

A confluence of events in the electrical generation and transmission industry has produced a new paradigm for distributed electrical generation and distribution in the U.S. Electrical deregulation, reluctance of traditional utilities to commit capital to large central plants and transmission lines, and a suite of new, efficient generation hardware have all combined to bring this about. Persistent environmental concerns have further stimulated several new approaches. In this paper we describe the near term distributed generation technologies and their differentiating characteristics along with their readiness for the U.S. market. In order to decide which approaches are well suited to a specific project, an assessment methodology is needed. A technically sound approach is therefore described and example results are given.

Units: I-P