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Replacing legacy high carbon technologies (LHCTs) with new low carbon technologies (NLCTs), particularly NLCTs featuring variable renewable resources, can disproportionally influence the costs associated with maintaining a reliable and competent grid system. Traditional cost metrics and publicly available tools that make use of these metrics fail to capture the total systems cost (TSC) implications of such changes, highlighting the need for a tool that will capture these implications. This paper presents the results of a tool developed to estimate the System Cost of Replacement Energy (SCoRE) when NLCTs replace LHCTs in an operating region. The SCoRE estimates potential changes in the TSC resulting from the replacement. The SCoRE tool is applied to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) operating region. LHCTs, namely coal- and natural gas-fired power plants are replaced by NLCTs including solar photovoltaics and wind, with and without energy storage, and coal and natural gas power plants equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS). The results showcase the TSC implications of different replacement scenarios, which for ERCOT include larger increases in the TSC if LHCTs are replaced with wind and solar, in lieu of natural gas power plants equipped with CCS, for all decarbonization targets considered. • Technology transformations to achieve decarbonization will impact system costs. • SCoRE tool estimates system costs implications of LHCT being replaced with NLCT. • Wind and NGCC + CCS is the least cost pathway for 90% decarbonization in ERCOT. • Renewable energy curtailment appears cheaper than co-locating it with energy storage. • Solar PV + Battery storage become impractical at >70% decarbonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]