The Obama Administration unveiled another smart grid initiative today that is likely to resonate through North Carolina as the feds continue their push to modernize the nation's aging power grid.

The latest round of initiatives includes $250 million in loans for rural towns to use for adopting advanced meters and other smart grid technologies. The feds kicked off the program by awarding grants to North Carolina and nine other states, and said more grants could be awarded here as rural electric coopeatives apply for the money.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded $2.4 million for smart grid deployment to the French Broad Electric Membership Corp., a rural coop that serves Mitchell, Buncombe, Madison and Yancey counties, as well as parts of Tennessee.

To date North Carolina has been the single biggest recipient of the White House's $4.5 stimulus package for smart grid development, with this state netting more than $600 million in subsidies, with most of that money going to Progress Energy and Duke Energy.