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An important goal for the smart grid is to give power grid operators like utilities a global view of the health of the power grid. As the smart grid is built-out, the size and complexity of the required communications network is increasing. In this paper we propose using software defined networks (SDN) for the smart grid, as SDN allow for a flexibly defined network (through programmability) along with superior performance and implementations based on industry standards. To demonstrate that SDN can be used as the underlying technology for power grid networking we have implemented a multi-rate, multicast network for phasor measurement unit (PMU) data. We compare the SDN solution to the conventional approach as well as two other advanced PMU networking methods, IP Multicast and GridStat and show that our method achieves lower latency and optimal network utilization.