Electrical Cooperatives are Unsung Heroes Stellar Enables Options in Dispatchable Power
U.S. electrical cooperatives (co-ops) are non-profit, member-owned utilities that provide affordable power and support local economies. In 1935, only one in ten rural U.S. homes had electricity because private companies thought serving remote farms was too costly. Today,
- Co-op territories span across 48 states maintaining 2.7 million miles of electric distribution lines, which accounts for roughly 42% of the entire U.S. electric grid.
- Co-ops average only 7.4 consumers per mile of line, compared to investor-owned utilities which average 34 consumers per mile.
- Co-ops provide power to 42 million people (about 1 in 8 Americans) and connects over 22 million homes, businesses, farms, and schools.
Co-ops power America.
Today, co-ops are entering a new era where reliability, resilience, and affordability must all improve at the same time. As distributed energy resources become more common across cooperative territories, operators need a way to coordinate these assets as an intelligent, flexible system. New Sun Road’s Stellar platform can provide the necessary interoperability and control, transforming distributed energy resources into dispatchable, grid-supporting assets.
At the heart of the platform is a cloud-based energy management system paired with the local Stellar Edge controller. Together they provide real-time monitoring, collect operational data, execute control strategies, and communicate with utility operations. Because the platform is vendor agnostic, it integrates with existing hardware, SCADA systems, and a wide variety of renewable energy technologies, allowing co-ops to modernize without replacing existing infrastructure.
Stellar enables co-ops to optimize front-of-the-meter and behind-the-meter battery storage to dispatch stored energy when the grid is stressed and reduce costly peak demand. Operators can configure alerts, access centralized analytics, and manage fleets of distributed systems across service territories from a single dashboard. API integrations and cloud connectivity make it possible to combine weather data, utility signals, analytics, and operational reporting, giving operators the information they need to make faster, better-informed decisions.
Whether supporting community microgrids, telecom infrastructure, or utility-owned renewable assets, real-world deployments demonstrate the platform’s versatility. Since 2021 New Sun Road has managed the PG&E remote grid system. With more than 15 sites on the Stellar platform, remote grids improve wildfire resilience by removing the need for transmission lines. In Latin America, more than 1,000 telecom sites are remotely managed through the Stellar platform, enabling operators to scale efficiently while maintaining visibility and control. With EPRI, the technology has been demonstrated to show how microgrids can respond automatically to distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) signals, illustrating how dispatch-able power can become a grid resource.
Beyond day-to-day operations, the platform provides sophisticated planning and optimization tools. Operators can build annual schedules, prioritize operating modes, automate reporting, and remotely manage and troubleshoot equipment. These capabilities help maximize renewable energy production, reduce fuel consumption, improve battery performance, and streamline operations.
For electrical cooperatives, dispatchable power is increasingly valuable that can reduce costly infrastructure upgrades. By combining flexible controls, interoperability, fleet management, and intelligent optimization, New Sun Road’s Stellar platform enables co-ops to meet demands for reliability, community resilience, and new power resources. The result is a smarter, more responsive electric grid capable of meeting today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.