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The growth experienced by DEMCO mirrors what’s happened in the communities and parishes surrounding Baton Rouge over the past decade.

“We’re proud of our rural background,” says Jeff Kilpatrick, CEO and general manager of the electric co-op. But a steady stream of mid-afternoon traffic zipping by just outside the window of Kilpatrick’s Wax Road office shows how much things have changed in DEMCO’s service area.

The co-op has about 92,500 members in a seven-parish area sandwiched between the Mississippi River and Interstate 55. According to the company, the membership has doubled in less than 20 years.

The electric co-op has seen its revenues increase by 27% since 2000, when it brought in $106 million, and they’ve moved up from 26th on the Top 100 list to 20th.

Kilpatrick and DEMCO officials credit the growth to a variety of factors. The population has increased dramatically in Livingston and Ascension parishes and in areas such as Zachary. But the company has been aggressive about seeking out customers and not content just to let new residents walk into their office.

Mark Bonner, vice president of marketing and member services, says DEMCO has encouraged developers to select their company to provide electricity to subdivisions and retail centers. “Typically, a developer makes a choice of which utility they want to service them,” Bonner says. DEMCO has gotten a reputation of providing quality service at low rates, allowing the company to get clients such as the Copper Mill subdivision in Zachary, Greystone Golf Course and Country Club in Denham Springs and the Super Target shopping center on Millerville Road.

Low utility rates have been another factor in DEMCO’s growth. According to figures from the Louisiana Public Service Commission, the co-op rates have been between 16% and 36% lower a month than Entergy-Gulf States Utilities. In June, a household that used 1,500-kilowatt hours of power paid $127.27 to DEMCO, while the same usage would cost $147.51 with Entergy.

DEMCO’s rates are lower because the company gets its power from the Big Cajun plant near New Roads, which is powered by coal. It’s cheaper to generate power with coal than natural gas or nuclear power, which fuels most of Entergy’s plants.

“Coal has been the most economical fuel for electricity over the past 10 years,” PSC Commissioner Jimmy Field says.

Kilpatrick says DEMCO had the good fortune to strike a deal with Louisiana Generating, the owners of Big Cajun. “We signed a long-term agreement several years ago that was below the market rate for power that came from natural gas,” he says. “Then gas prices went up, and we were much further below market.”

Although the agreement doesn’t expire until 2014, DEMCO is looking down the line at keeping rates low. One of the options under consideration is for the co-op to build its own power plant. “We always leave the option open,” Kilpatrick says.

DEMCO was formed in 1938 and originally serviced 750 members in East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana and Livingston parishes. The company has now grown to become one of the largest electric co-ops in the United States.

That growth didn’t come painlessly. About 10 years ago, DEMCO acquired a negative reputation for customer service and frequent utility outages.

Field says the co-op was caught up in the ongoing bankruptcy of Cajun Electric, which at the time provided it with power. “Quite frankly, with a lot of the other electric co-operatives, it needed maintenance, and trimming wasn’t taking place because of the bankruptcy,” he says.

After the Cajun bankruptcy was settled, the PSC ordered $293 million in rate repayments to all electric co-op customers in Louisiana. There was also money set aside for upgrading infrastructure and tree trimming.

“DEMCO had a tremendous expansion of services, and they got a little behind,” Field says. “Once we called it to their attention, there was a marked turnaround and a reduction in complaints.”

The co-op now trims trees in right of ways every four and a half years, instead of every nine years as it did earlier. This has caused power outages to drop from seven hours a year to five hours a year. “You wouldn’t believe how such a little thing can make a big difference,” says Turk Tynes, DEMCO’s economic development manager.

Customer service is important to DEMCO since the people who get power from the company own a share of it. That’s led the company to keep various bill-paying locations open in order to satisfy member demands.

The company has also expanded its services, adding features such as automated meter reading. This allows employees to gauge how much power a home or business is using from an office computer without having to send workers out to read a meter. DEMCO is in the middle of converting the whole system to AMR, a project that will take years. Once the process is complete, Kilpatrick says it will result in significant savings.

Next year, DEMCO will mark its 80th anniversary. Events are already being planned to commemorate the milestone.

Even without the anniversary, Kilpatrick says the company has reasons to celebrate. DEMCO anticipates a decade of growth, since two-thirds of the areas it services are expecting population increases.