Public Power's Quiet Revolution: Small Utilities Lead on Grid Flexibility

BOULDER, CO – January 28, 2026 – A significant shift in the American energy landscape is gaining momentum, not in the boardrooms of giant investor-owned utilities, but in the community-focused offices of public power providers and electric cooperatives. Clean energy technology firm Uplight has announced a series of new partnerships with CORE Electric Cooperative in Colorado, Imperial Irrigation District in California, and Santee Cooper in South Carolina, signaling a growing trend where smaller, member-owned utilities are aggressively adopting demand flexibility solutions to navigate the complex challenges of the 21st-century grid.

These collaborations aim to enhance grid reliability and customer affordability by activating thousands of customers and their connected devices to shift and save energy. While often perceived as playing catch-up, these public and cooperative utilities, which serve 28% of the U.S. population, are proving to be nimble and effective leaders in the deployment of smart grid technologies.

Navigating a Perfect Storm

Public power providers and electric cooperatives operate under a unique mandate: to provide safe, reliable, and affordable power as a non-profit public service. This mission is becoming increasingly difficult. A recent industry analysis revealed that over 70% of the nation's transmission lines are more than 25 years old, creating a massive hurdle for grid modernization. These utilities, many serving rural and low-to-moderate income (LMI) communities, face this challenge with tighter budgets and fewer resources than their larger counterparts.

Compounding the issue is a well-documented supply chain crisis, particularly for critical components like electrical transformers, with lead times stretching into years. This bottleneck threatens to delay essential infrastructure projects aimed at improving resilience against extreme weather and accommodating new energy sources. At the same time, these utilities must meet rising energy demand driven by electrification and work toward ambitious decarbonization goals, all while integrating intermittent renewable resources without compromising the stability of their networks.

It is within this high-pressure environment that demand flexibility has emerged as a critical, cost-effective tool. Rather than solely relying on building new, expensive power plants, these utilities are turning to their most valuable asset: their customers.

A Trifecta of Tailored Solutions

The new partnerships announced by Uplight showcase how demand flexibility can be tailored to meet diverse regional needs.

In Colorado, CORE Electric Cooperative, one of the nation's largest co-ops, is launching a smart thermostat demand response program. Supported by Uplight’s Edge DERMS (Distributed Energy Resource Management System), the five-year initiative will reward members for reducing energy use during peak periods. This not only helps CORE deliver affordable, reliable power to its 375,000 members but also directly contributes to Colorado's statewide goal of reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2030.

Meanwhile, in one of California’s hottest and most economically challenged regions, the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) is focusing on equity and affordability. Serving over 166,000 customers, many in disadvantaged communities, IID will use Uplight's platform to reduce exposure to volatile fuel costs. The program will begin with behavioral demand response for disadvantaged customers and later expand into a full-scale virtual power plant (VPP) that leverages smart thermostats. A new online marketplace with Spanish-language support will simplify enrollment and offer efficiency products, ensuring broader and more equitable access to the program's benefits.

In the Southeast, Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s largest power provider, is tackling a different challenge: managing both summer and winter peaks that drive significant system costs and reliability risks. Under a five-year agreement, the utility will deploy thermostat-based demand response programs designed to smooth out these seasonal spikes. The utility, which provides power to 2 million people, chose the technology for its customer-centric approach to meeting affordability and reliability objectives.

“Public power providers and co-ops are proving that demand flexibility doesn’t require huge budgets or years-long rollouts,” said Hannah Bascom, Chief Commercial Officer at Uplight, in a statement. “These utilities know their communities better than anyone, and when you combine that trust with easy-to-participate-in programs, you can scale impact quickly.”

Empowering Customers, Stabilizing the Grid

The core of this strategy is the virtual power plant, a system that aggregates and controls a vast network of customer-owned devices—like smart thermostats, batteries, and water heaters—to act as a unified, dispatchable resource. When the grid is stressed, the utility can send a signal to these devices to slightly adjust their consumption, collectively providing the same relief as a traditional power plant but at a fraction of the cost and with zero emissions.

Uplight’s role extends beyond these new partnerships. In Connecticut, the company is collaborating with the administrators of the state's Energy Storage Solutions program to streamline customer enrollment for residential and commercial batteries. By simplifying the process, the program can scale faster, allowing the utility to discharge customer batteries during peak demand while homeowners maintain backup power for outages.

Through these initiatives, utilities are transforming their relationship with customers from a one-way delivery model to a two-way partnership. Customers are empowered with tools to manage their energy use, save money on their bills, and contribute to the health of the grid and the environment. This customer-centric approach is proving highly effective, with Uplight now managing 8.5 GW of flexible capacity across dozens of programs.

As the nation continues its transition toward a cleaner and more decentralized energy future, the innovative and community-driven efforts of public power providers and electric cooperatives demonstrate a powerful and replicable model for success. They are turning their inherent challenges into an opportunity to build a more resilient, affordable, and equitable grid from the ground up.