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Abstract Heterogeneous cellular networks (HetNets) consist of different tiers of base stations (BSs) to meet the ever-increasing mobile traffic demand. Due to the random deployment of BSs, Poisson point process (PPP) is often used to model the BS distribution. However, low power small cells are usually clustered around the popular areas, and PPP can not reflect such a feature. To this end, we in this paper consider base station (BS) cooperation and analyze user rate and energy efficiency of HetNets based on a Poisson cluster process (PCP). A calculable formula for the average data rate (or spectral efficiency) and its approximated closed form are derived. Based on this closed form, a power minimization solution with certain spectral efficiency constraint is proposed, and the optimal cooperation radii are derived. Furthermore, we analyze spectral efficiency under a limited number of cooperative BSs in a two-tier network. Finally, we propose a range expansion (RE) scheme and examine the impact of this scheme. The theoretical analyses are verified by simulation results.