Distributed generation (DG) is rapidly increasing its penetration level worldwide and is expected to play a more important role in providing power. An important benefit of DG is its ability to defer transmission investments. In this paper, a simulation model is implemented to conduct quantitative analysis on the effect of DG on transmission investment deferral. The transmission expansion model is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem with comprehensive technical constraints, such as AC power flow and system reliability and/or security. The case study that was selected is the Queensland electricity market in Australia. Simulation results show that DG can reduce transmission investments significantly. This ability however is greatly influenced by a number of factors, such as the location of DG, the network topology, and power system technical constraints.
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Luo et al. (2014) studied this question.