Quote:Q&A: How rural co-ops can help lead the smart grid transition
Rural electric cooperatives spread across the U.S. in the 1930s to electrify parts of the country where as many as nine out of ten rural homes lacked electricity. Today, many of those co-ops are building on that legacy by deploying an advanced, 21st-century version of the electricity distribution systems they brought to farms decades ago.
In some cases, rural America is seeing the smart grid arrive at their doorstep well before their urban and suburban counterparts.
Phil Carson, director of the Tri-County Electric Co-op in Illinois, is the new president of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
As the newly elected, two-year-term president of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), Phil Carson has a bird’s-eye view of grid modernization efforts underway in rural America. Carson also sits on the board of directors at Tri-County Electric Cooperative in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, giving him an up-close-and-personal look at the challenges and opportunities facing rural power providers in the age of the smart grid.
Quote:Midwest Energy News: What role should rural cooperatives play in the emerging 21st-century smart grid?
Carson: I think we have a unique opportunity to play a key role in this. Our co-op business model is not-for-profit, member owned, member-controlled [and] service-oriented. It’s a unique business model and it makes us really flexible and responsive to member needs and wishes. . . .
For instance, here in Illinois, we have 25 cooperatives and it’s my understanding that 24 of them have already deployed their AMI systems, and I think the other co-op is the only one outside that is probably ready to take the plunge as well. So I think that’s one example of where we’ve made really good progress in adapting to grid modernization.
The other area that falls under this category would be the way that we have gotten into renewable energy. What we’ve done there is really adapted and adopted new technologies. Co-ops for instance lead the way on community solar: 75 percent of community solar is owned by electric co-ops across the United States.
I love this bit. Rural areas here were redhot for FTTH, offering to copay, until the Coalition got into govt and the Nats sold out their supporters by letting the Libs kill the NBN:
Quote:And finally, the third leg of the stool that we would ask for in an infrastructure bill would be broadband – prioritize that out in rural areas. Eighty years ago when FDR stepped to the plate and said we’ve got to get electricity into rural America, he used [the Rural Electrification Act (REA)] and set up the programs that allow us to do that. Co-ops took that and ran with it.
Even so today, we need broadband in much of a similar way. It’s kind of sporadic out in rural America and we need it for economic diversity, and we need it for in terms of education, we need it in terms of healthcare, advanced healthcare. I think we would, if we were given the program that would allow us economically to have the footing to be able to do that, we’d do it. And we’d do it the way we [deployed] electricity [in that] we made sure that folks had it and the money was wisely used. We think that’s really vital going forward for rural America.
http://midwestenergynews.com/2017/05/02/qa-how-rural-co-ops-can-help-lead-the-sm...