A method and system for communicating information in a cooperative relay network of wireless nodes. The wireless nodes including a source, a set of relays, and a destination. Channel state information for each channel between a particular relay of the set of relays and the destination is estimated. A subset of the relays is selected based on the channel state information. The channel state information is fed back to the subset of relays. The source node can then broadcasting data packets from the source to the subset of relays, and the subset of relays forward coherently the data packets from the subset of relays to the destination using beamforming based on the channel state information, while adjusting power to minimize a total energy consumption in the network.