A Sizable and Receptive Market

There are over 860 non-profit, rural electric cooperatives nationwide serving 42M people in 17M homes and businesses across 47 states. They own and maintain 42% of the electric distribution network covering 78% of the U.S. landmass. Size wise there are only a handful of coops over 100,000 members with the majority 10,000-20,000. Customers are member-owners and membership is a requirement to purchase electric power. With this in mind, rural coops have a charter to deliver reliable and affordable electricity, plus support economic development.

Rural carriers are more likely adopters of home energy management than investor and municipal owned utilities for four reasons:

• their customers own them;
   
• while 88% of their customers are residential, slightly more than non-rural utilities, 64% of their revenue comes from residences vs 39% for non-rural utilities. The latter will focus more on commercial and industrial customers that make up 60% of revenue, while rural utilities will see a greater overall and bottom-line impact by focusing on residential consumers;
   
• 80% of rural power comes from coal, versus non-rural around 45%. End-to-end energy management reduces the reliance on additional coal production and makes alternative energy and cogeneration more economic. This has a greater impact in less dense rural markets given the distances involved and the wealth of alternative energy opportunities, and;
   
• there has been a steady population shift from rural America to metropolitan areas over the past 2 decades. Rural utilities need ways to lower operating costs to spread over a declining base, while generating additional areas of revenue growth off existing infrastructure.

Read more for EnerSphere’s energy management and broadband communications advantages optimized for rural markets.