Rural electric utilities may serve a different type of customer base and may have different concerns and challenges from their much larger counterparts, but they share a common interest in improving and upgrading their services and offerings. 

One of those concerns for rural utilities is they must provide and services and offerings to meet higher expectations from customers, even as their customer base remains flat or erodes as more people move from rural communities to urban areas, according to a new survey report from Zpryme and the Rural Smart Grid Summit (RSGS).

Technology and services upgrades can not only meet those rising demands, but could draw more customers. It does cost money though. One question the 2014 Rural Smart Grid Initiatives report answers is how rural utilities are accomplishing those improvements with a widely dispersed customer base and limited resources.

The survey, sponsored by Honeywell, involved 77 rural cooperatives provides an overview of the challenges they face and where they are succeeding. Only one percent of the survey respondents said they had no smart grid strategy while the others were in various stages, from planning and budgeting to pilot projects and large-scale deployment. The report also breaks out smart meter deployment timetables for the utilities. As of now, 57% of their customers have smart meters and 20% more will have them within the next three years.

A few key takeaways from the report:

• Seven of 10 utilities are seeing positive results from their smart grid programs
• 42% of them are making those programs a part of their core operations
• About two-thirds are involved in AMR and AMI programs
• Many utilities are spending up to $1 million on smart grid technologies, and that is expected to increase to $5 million over the next five years
• Customer interest in home energy management has grown from 4% in 2013 to 16% this year