The 864 distribution cooperatives are an attractive opportunity for private licensed wireless networks. Together they serve around over 14M power customers. They operate in excess of one hundred billion dollars of assets, including 2.5 million miles or 42% of the nations electric distribution lines, which is identically constructed as a result of the conditions of funding put in place by the USDA's RUS in the 1930s. They deliver 10% of the total KwH sold in the United States each year and also own mostly coal fired generation facilities to produce half of this energy sold through 66 generation and transmission cooperatives.

Furthermore, they serve communities where the cost of spectrum is relatively low and availability relatively plentiful. Finally, they are struggling with the triple problem of:

1.     Low meter density, which means solutions that rely on unlicensed wireless to harvest data, will not work effectively.

2.     Power demands growing at 6% annually, compared with the US overall growing at 1.5%.

3.     A scarcity of power supply options. And, an over reliance on coal based generation, driving a need for line loss elimination, distributed generation and utility directed load shedding to broaden the supply of power.

These three issues are making coops predisposed to deploy the full suite of power grid management solutions as illustrated by the broad range of software applications in use today.

(To download see attached). And therefore a private wireless network solution to connect it all together.  It would appear the the Department of Energy shares this conclusion. In the most recent round of federal stimulus funding for the smart grid, the coops received $300M.