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spk01: Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q2 2024 Evergy, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Peter Flynn, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
spk00: Thank you, DeeDee, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Evergy's second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Our webcast slides and supplemental financial information are available on our Investor Relations website at investors.evergy.com. Today's discussion will include forward-looking information. Slide 2 and the disclosures in our SEC filings contain a list of some of the factors that could cause future results to differ materially from our expectations. They also include additional information on our non-GAAP financial measures. Joining us on today's call are David Campbell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Jeff Lay, Acting Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. David will cover second quarter highlights and an update on our regulatory and legislative agendas. Jeff will cover our second quarter results, retail sales trends, and our financial outlook for 2024. Other members of management are with us and will be available during the Q&A portion of the call. I will now turn the call over to David.
spk10: Thanks, Pete, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin on slide five. This morning, we reported second quarter adjusted earnings of 90 cents per share compared to 81 cents per share a year ago. The increase in adjusted earnings over last year was driven primarily by demand growth, weather, new retail rates, and higher transmission margin, partially offset by higher operations and maintenance costs, DNA, and interest expense. Jeff will discuss these earnings drivers in more detail in his remarks. Now, as you all know, Kirk Andrews resigned from his role as Chief Financial Officer on June 4th. We were excited to appoint Jeff Lay as Acting CFO on June 7th while we conduct an internal and external search. We expect to conclude the search this year. Jeff worked closely with Kirk and me, and he brings an outstanding capability set to the role, which has enabled a smooth transition. We'd like to thank Kirk for his leadership, and we wish him all the best in his next chapter of his career closer to home. In May, we filed our triennial integrated resource plan in Kansas, following a similar filing from Missouri in April. In aggregate, the 2024 preferred plan includes 5,800 megawatts of resource additions through 2033, representing an increase of 1,500 megawatts over the next 10 years when compared to the 2023 preferred plan. Our IRP and its underlying analysis reflect the benefits of a diverse fuel mix. Renewables have low or negative marginal costs and no emissions, but they are intermittent depending on Mother Nature or large-scale storage deployment for reliability. New and existing thermal resources are emitting and have higher marginal costs for fuel and O&M, but they can be dispatched to meet customer demand when they are needed most. The ultimate goal of having a balanced mix is to ensure reliability and affordability for our customers as we advance a responsible fleet transition. This transition will require sustained investment over the coming years and will incorporate the most recent IRP and its higher levels of new generation when we provide an update to our capital plan on the third quarter earnings call. Shifting back to the quarter, since the beginning of April, we experienced 10 severe storm events that produced wind gusts in excess of 50 miles per hour. Wind speeds at this level downed countless trees and tree limbs and caused extensive damage to equipment and structures across our service territory. I'd like to thank our customers for their patience during outages caused by this unusually severe weather, and thank our transmission and distribution teams, contractors, personnel from neighboring utilities and our call center, and customer service employees for their hard work throughout our storm restoration efforts. Our frontline employees are the bedrock of safely delivering affordable and reliable power to our customers and communities. We're extremely proud of their contributions as they worked long shifts through hot and humid conditions. Our team's execution has enabled solid performance in the first half of the year, and we are reaffirming our 2024 adjusted EPS guidance range of $3.73 to $3.93 per share, as well as our target long-term annual adjusted EPS growth target of 4% to 6% from 2023 to 2026. On slide six, we highlight three major economic development wins that we have featured, Google, Panasonic, and Meta. In aggregate, their demand represents approximately 750 megawatts of load, and each will be the largest customer in their respective jurisdiction by a wide margin. The overall economic development pipeline remains robust in both Kansas and Missouri, with projects representing more than six gigawatts of demand actively considering our service territories. As a reminder, our capital investment and load growth forecasts only reflect projects announced to date. Now, many of you will ask us about timing. As a general rule, we will announce specifics on these projects in tandem with customer announcements regarding their plans. Of course, the environment for new economic development projects is competitive. And while we do not expect to win all of these projects in our pipeline, we are excited by the very active dialogue we are having with these potential customers as they consider our region. Our strategic focus on affordability and reliability and regional great competitiveness are important contributors to this pipeline and provide a foundation for the tremendous potential in our region, building on our success with Panasonic, Meta, and Google. As part of the exercise, alongside the economic development rates that are in place in both Kansas and Missouri, we are looking at rate design elements to ensure that there is appropriate and adequate recovery associated with large new loads. Moving to slide seven, based on the announcements of Google's data center, Panasonic's EV battery manufacturing facility, and Meta's data center, along with other announced industrial projects, we expect a solid 2% to 3% weather normalized demand growth through 2028. Moving to slide eight, I'll provide an update on our regulatory and legislative priorities in both Kansas and Missouri. First, I'm pleased to highlight House Bill 2527 in Kansas, which became effective on July 1st of this year. The bill incorporated multiple provisions to establish a competitive framework for electric infrastructure investment, including the use of plant and service accounting, or PISA, and a construction work-in-progress mechanism that applies to new natural gas units. The piece of provisions in HB 2527 served to mitigate regulatory lag between rate cases, very similar to how it works in Missouri, but with a 90% deferral in Kansas. Overall, the passage of HB 2527 signals the support of Kansas legislators, regulators, and stakeholders for infrastructure investment in support of economic development and the importance of a competitive and constructive regulatory framework for infrastructure investment. It is an exciting time in our region as reflected by our significantly higher sales growth forecast relative to recent history. We're also looking forward to our capital structure workshop in Kansas, which we expect to occur in the fourth quarter. This workshop, which was born out of our legislative discussions with Kansas stakeholders earlier in the year, presents an opportunity for constructive dialogue around the importance of a clear and stable framework for regulatory capital structure and authorized return. outside the confines of a litigated proceeding. This framework serves as an important backdrop for providers of capital to invest in Kansas and for Evergy to attract competitively priced capital, much like the constructs that exist in Missouri and other neighboring states. As always, we are committed to advancing the generational economic development opportunity ahead of us in concert with Kansas policymakers and stakeholders. Now pivoting to Missouri, we continue to work our way to our pending rate case at Missouri West. In late June, staff and other interveners filed direct testimony, and earlier this week, all parties filed rebuttal testimony. True-up and sur-rebuttal testimony will be filed on September 10th. In our upcoming filings, we anticipate that our overall revenue request will decrease as a result of lower fuel and power costs, reflecting lower commodity prices and higher market revenue. As a reminder, changes in fuel and power costs are not earnings drivers in the rate case. The expected reduction in fuel costs would be a pass-through benefit to customers in base rates. Any subsequent increases or decreases in these costs after the new base rates are set will be reflected in the fuel clause between rate cases. After true open sewer bubble testimony are filed, a settlement conference will be held on September 23rd, followed by hearings beginning on September 30th and running through early October. Revised rates in Missouri will go into effect by January 1st, 2025. We look forward to working collaboratively with the Missouri Public Service Commission staff and our stakeholders to achieve a constructive outcome for our Missouri West customers. As we've described, we expect our cadence of rate cases going forward to be roughly every other year, so that won't be true for every jurisdiction. Some may be more frequent, others less. I'll conclude my remarks with slide nine, which highlights the core tenets of our strategy, affordability, reliability, and sustainability. On the affordability front, advancing regional rate competitiveness is one of our primary objectives. Our focus on delivering benefits to our customers is demonstrated in the comparative EIA data on rate trends across the central United States over the past five years. Kansas and Missouri stand out positively in that comparison. Our strategic plan is designed to sustain this positive trajectory by keeping our long-term rate trajectory at or below the rate of inflation. By prioritizing affordability, we contribute to the robust economic development pipeline ahead of us and lay the groundwork for continued support for the substantial economic potential within our states. Ensuring reliability is also a core element of our strategy and encompasses safety, safety, grid resiliency, and public safety. This also includes a focus on metrics related to customer service, the commercial availability of our generation fleet, safety, and all elements of our operations, including infrastructure investments. With respect to sustainability, almost half the power generated by Evergy comes from emission-free resources. Since 2005, we have reduced carbon emissions by 53% and sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions by 98% and 90%, respectively. Our integrated resource plan includes a balanced mix of resource additions going forward as we manage the responsible transition of our generation portfolio. Evergy is committed to delivering safe, reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy to customers while being a great place to work for diverse workforce and supporting the communities we serve. With that, I will now turn the call over to Jeff.
spk09: Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Before we walk through our financial results, I wanted to take a moment to mention what an honor and privilege it is for me to have this opportunity to serve as the acting CFO for Evergy. The transition has been a smooth one. to the support that I received throughout from David, our board, and the entire Evergy team, for which I am very grateful. I would be remiss if I also didn't thank my family for their continued support of my career. Back to the business at hand, I'll start by turning to slide 11 with a review of our results for the quarter. For the second quarter of 2024, Evergy delivered adjusted earnings of $207 million, or 90 cents per share, compared to $186.1 million, or 81 cents per share, in the second quarter of 2023. As shown on the slide from left to right, the year-over-year increase in second quarter adjusted EPS was driven by the following. First, a warmer start to the summer resulted in increased cooling degree days, which drove a 3-cent increase in EPS when compared to the second quarter of 2023, and it was an estimated 6 cents above normal. weather normalized demand grew 2.2% driven by growth in residential and commercial demand, which added 6 cents per share. Also, new retail rates in Kansas contributed 6 cents of increased EPS for the quarter. Another 6 cent increase was driven by higher transmission margin resulting from ongoing investments to enhance our transmission infrastructure. There was a 3 cent negative variance in EPS, compared to Q2 2023 driven by higher O&M expense. Approximately one cent of this variance was driven by storm and outage restoration costs, which were related to the severe storms that impacted our service territory. The rest of the variance was due to expected timing of expenditures compared to the second quarter of last year. Next, higher depreciation and amortization expense due to increased infrastructure investment drove a four cent decrease. Additionally, higher interest expense drove a two-cent decrease in EPS for the quarter. And finally, other items drove a two-cent decrease as well. I'll turn next to the year-to-date results, which you'll find on slide 12. Through the first six months of 2024, Evergy delivered adjusted earnings of $331.7 million, or $1.44 per share, compared to $322.2 million, or $1.40 per share for the same period last year. Again, moving from left to right on the slide, our year-over-year EPS drivers compared to the year-to-date period last year include the following. Weather contributed a 3-cent increase in EPS as a warmer start to the summer in Q2 was partially offset by warmer winter weather in Q1. When compared to normal, the impact of weather was a 1-cent decrease in EPS through the year-to-date period. Weather normalized demand increased 0.8%, driven primarily by higher residential and commercial demand, adding 6 cents of EPS. New retail rates in Kansas contributed 11 cents through the second quarter. Increased transmission margin resulting from beneficial investments in our transmission infrastructure drove a 10 cent increase. Higher O&M expense drove a 9 cent negative variance through the second quarter. The timing of this variance was embedded in our four-year guidance and is primarily attributable to implementation of an early retirement program, which significantly reduced O&M in the first half of 2023. We remain confident in our ability to manage costs in the context of our guidance. Next, we had an $0.08 decrease from higher depreciation and amortization expense resulting from infrastructure investments. In addition, there was a $0.06 decrease in EPS due to increased interest expense. And finally, there are other items which collectively drove a $0.03 decrease in EPS through the year-to-date period. Turning to slide 13, I'll provide a brief update on our recent sales trends. On the left side of the screen, you'll see that weather normalized retail sales increased 2.2% in the second quarter as compared to last year, primarily driven by increases in both residential and commercial usage. Year-to-date weather normalized demand was up by approximately 0.8%, with a similar pattern of residential and commercial demand driving growth. We continue to see lower demand from industrial customers despite a recovery among those larger customers who had weaker demand in 2023. Overall, we expect industrial demand to recover as we continue to move through 2024. This will be further augmented as we expect load from large new customers resulting from recent economic development wins to start coming online later this year. we expect to see a more notable pickup in demand beyond 2024, as we anticipate Panasonic, Meta, and Google to reach their full run rates in 2026, 2027, and 2028, respectively. As David noted in his earlier remarks, we expect weather normalized demand growth through 2028 of 2% to 3% as these new large customer loads are added to our base customer demand growth. The continued robust customer demand growth in our service territories is supported by a strong local labor market. As the Kansas City and Kansas metro, Kansas City metro and Kansas areas, unemployment rates remain below the national average of 4.1%. Finally, on slide 14, I'll wrap up with an overview of our long-term financial expectations. With our solid start to the year, we are reaffirming our 2024 adjusted EPS guidance range of $3.73 to $3.93 per share. We are also reaffirming our long-term adjusted EPS growth target of 4% to 6% through 2026, which is based on our original 2023 adjusted EPS guidance midpoint of $3.65 per share. Currently, our five-year capital investment plan includes $12.5 billion of infrastructure investment through 2028. with the expectation that we will fund this program without the need to issue new equity through 2026. This $12.5 billion investment plan does not yet incorporate the impact of changes related to our 2024 IRP filed in the second quarter or other changes in our planned investments since the beginning of the year. On our third quarter earnings call, we will provide updated capital investment and financing plans, which will incorporate these developments. While we are excited for these investments, which are expected to support a generational economic development opportunity for our region, we remain focused on consistent execution of our operational and financial goals as we advance our strategic objectives of ensuring affordability, reliability, and sustainability for our customers. And with that, we will open up the call for questions.
spk01: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. One moment. And our first question comes from James Kennedy of Guggenheim Partners. Your line is open.
spk12: Hey, guys. Good morning. Morning. So I guess just starting with the upcoming Kansas workshop, can you speak a little more to your approach for the event? I guess, you know, what should we expect in terms of outputs? How could this carry forward into the case next year? I guess, you know, will we get a report that could be filed in direct testimony? Just, you know, kind of how to think about the workshop. Thanks.
spk10: It's a great question, and obviously that's something that we're going to work collaboratively with KCC staff in particular on the approach. Our objective, in the workshop is outside the context of a litigated proceeding to really discuss with all parties and ground ourselves in what's the best way for Kansas to have a competitive approach to attracting capital. So we anticipate it's going to be a workshop, not a decision-oriented meeting, but a workshop that enables a robust discussion of the underlying facts in terms of approaches across the country and in Kansas, the competitive landscape, how it impacts the strength of the relative utility and our ability to attract capital. So we really think it's a good dialogue to help level set, not leading to a decision, but to help have a level setting of approach and how we best position Kansas to attract capital competitively. And doing that before the rate case, outside of a rate case, I think is the best way to have a good dialogue around it. And the details will be forthcoming, obviously, as we finalize them, so I won't get ahead of that. We do expect it to occur in the fourth quarter.
spk12: Okay. Any timing expectations within 4Q at this point?
spk10: There'll be advanced notice when the dates are set. We're not trying to have anything. It's really just lining up calendars that we're going through at this stage.
spk12: Okay, perfect. And then just on the data center side, a few of your peers this quarter gave rules of thumb regarding large interconnections and associated residential transmission savings. I guess, is that something you'll see on your system and any kind of quantification there as you get these interconnections online?
spk10: Yeah, the approach we're taking is really specific to each situation because it really varies, frankly, based on location matters a lot, based on availability within the transmission system, what kind of upgrades may be required. So particularly with the large loads, we found a rule of thumb is such a wide range that it's not especially helpful as a rule of thumb. So we generally are linking that to specific projects. So we'll update our capital plan and reflect the projects that have been announced and the specific impacts that they have. So, for example, in our capital plan update we'll do in the third quarter, the Google announcement was subsequent to our last capital filing. We'll incorporate the impacts of the Google announcement and its impact on our T&D system in that update. But the rule of thumb really varies significantly based on size of customer and specific location. We did mention, I know that folks are interested in the quantification of size. We were comfortable describing how projects representing more than six gigawatts were in active discussions with those parties. But, of course, being at the end of the earnings season, we've seen a lot of different companies have discussed very large numbers. There's no doubt that different counterparties are talking to various utilities. That said, we're excited about it. We're very active in specific discussions, so we look forward to advancing those in the coming months. And our approach will be to really announce specifics when customers are ready to announce at the same time.
spk11: Excellent. Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.
spk04: Take care. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you.
spk01: Our next question comes from Nicholas Campanella of Barclays. Your line is open.
spk06: Hey, good morning. Happy Friday. Morning, Nick. Hopefully you can hear me. Morning. So, hey, just to follow up on the data center discussion, just You know, outside of that six gigs, you know, it's only Google that's included in the IRPs today. So if any of this additional comes to fruition, you would have to revisit the capital plan. Is that the right understanding? That's one. And then the secondly is just on the rate tariff, David, that you talked about for large loads, just maybe expand on what the process looks like for that. Do you have to do, would you do that in a formal rate case? And, you know, how should we think about that? Thanks.
spk10: Good question. I'm packing several elements there. And thank you for clarifying on the capital plan refresh, because it's a good point. So the capital plan we published back in February did not include the Google announcement. The IRP that we published in April and May did reflect the Google announcement, but was not incorporated. The IRP refresh was also not reflected in the capital plan refresh. So any subsequent announcements would not only be incorporated in the capital plan refresh, but also be incorporated in any of our resource planning going forward. So hopefully that's clear as mud. But it's – so, again, the capital plan refresh is going to reflect both Google and the new IRP. But any further announcements beyond the three that we mentioned will entail incremental resource additions, because we're – like many, we're really hitting our capacity constraints. The six gigs that we described are and reflects not only data centers, but there's a large range of onshoring manufacturing opportunities. It's certainly fair to say that data centers are the largest, but there's a range of different industries that are looking at our region, frankly, as reflected by the Panasonic announcement, because it's a very big player, too. So six gigs incorporates a diverse set of industries. In terms of tariffs, we've got a pretty good set of tariffs that we can leverage within our system today. So a It's a little bit TBD, but we anticipate that we'll be moving forward, largely leveraging the existing tariff structures that we have in both of our states, because we've got an array of things already on the books. We'll consider, I know in some other jurisdictions, folks have launched specific proceedings around tailored rates, but we like the different structures that we have in place. How we're thinking about it is just to make sure that the economic development rates that were put in place are there for a reason. They're there to attract economic development. but at the size of the potential loads we're talking about and the resource additions they may entail, you know, for the incremental loads that we're looking at, thinking about how do we make sure that we've got a rate structure that takes account of the incremental costs that are being incurred. So it's a fair approach that really benefits everyone because we think there's a win-win all around.
spk03: Hey, that's great. I appreciate that.
spk06: And then just on the upcoming capital refresh into the third quarter, Just wanted to be clear on what to expect. You know, we'll obviously get the new CapEx plan. Would you be giving rate-based growth as well? And then as EPS guidance and, you know, the five-year CAGR more fourth quarter call item, just what are you planning to deliver on? Thank you.
spk10: Thank you, Nick. We anticipate that we're really focused on the CapEx plan and rate-based growth in the third quarter call as well as the associated financing plan. So those are the elements that we expect to cover in the third quarter. And, you know, our typical cadence and timeout earnings is the fourth quarter, but we're absolutely going to go through, you know, if we talk about the CapEx plan in conjunction with that, I think rate-based growth and our financing plan will be the focus on that call.
spk03: Okay. Thanks so much. Have a great weekend. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you.
spk01: Our next question comes from Julian DeMolin Smith of Jefferies. Your line is open.
spk08: Yeah, hi, it's actually Brian Russo on for Julian.
spk10: Good morning. Welcome.
spk08: Thank you. Hey, just in Missouri, the inability at the legislature to extend PISA to include dispatchable generation, does that all impact, I think, what's in the IRP? know and or your earned returns in in Missouri and you know cadence of rate cases or you know do you think this is likely to be picked up with the next legislature and then that gives you more than enough time you know when uh any dispatchable generation is planned in the IRP so thank you for your question um the IRP that we put forward obviously reflects the mechanisms in replace
spk10: Missouri today so you'll see that we and the other large utilities in the state are planning to build new generation including a new natural gas that's in our integrated resource plans. I think it will be very important to find ways to do that in a way that's particularly effective from a credit metric and cash flow perspective so that the construction work in progress mechanism and a piece extension to include new natural gas will be helpful in enabling Missouri to be competitive in sourcing natural gas plants. We thought there was a great dialogue around those provisions in the last legislative session. At the end of the day, there was a new legislation passed, but the range of stakeholders who were supportive of new natural gas generation and having new dispatchable generation in the state, there was a broad and diverse set of folks who were supportive of that. So we look forward with other utilities and the other stakeholders who are supportive to advance that dialogue in the upcoming session. We won't have a the same general election dynamics present in the next session. So we'll really be able to focus in on the merits of those provisions. We think there's broad-based support. But I do think new generation is important for Missouri to take advantage of the growth that is on the Missouri side of the state line. Both Google and Meta, for example, are in our Missouri jurisdiction. So we look forward to advancing that dialogue because having a diverse portfolio of Growing that portfolio is important to support the growth that we expect we can attract into Missouri.
spk08: Okay, great. And then just to confirm the 2% to 3% weather normalized sales growth, it seems clear that it's more back-end loaded. Do you think it's going to kind of track, you know, that 26 to 28 time period for Google, Panasonic, and Meta? And then is Google still, you know, on track and on schedule? Has that broke ground yet, or is it still in the development stage?
spk09: I can cover the first part on the demand, Brian. As we think about the demand going forward, as I mentioned, we have the ramp of Panasonic, Meta, and Google kind of in order over the 26 through 2028 period. So we'll see a light ramp up of some of those in 2024, but you'll see more contributing in 2025, and it'll continue to build momentum as we move through the period through 2028. So you will see that continue to build, but you should see year-over-year increases in that growth rate as we move forward through that 2% to 3% range that we discussed.
spk10: On the Google side, their commitment is very high. They had a very public announcement with a very broad set of stakeholders, the mayor and state officials from Missouri are present. So they've lined up the land and the site. So I think site work is underway. I don't think the data center construction has yet started, but Google is very committed to the region as reflected by their public announcement there. We're excited by—Google's excited about building that facility in our region.
spk08: Okay, and then just lastly on the IRPs, can we expect kind of a supplemental IRP, possibly, you know, in 2025 if some of this 6 gigawatts of potential load materializes?
spk10: So in the process in both of our states, we have a triennial update, but we have an annual refresh. So yes, in practice, you'll have an update in the same timing next year, April, and one May in the other. And the triennial updates historically were the more significant ones. It was a process in Missouri. It's still a relatively new process in Kansas. But with so much happening on the demand side, a lot of changes are now happening year to year. So yes, we'll have an annual process, and we'll So, as new loads emerge and we add them to our plans, those will be reflected in our annual update.
spk04: Okay, great. Thank you very much.
spk10: Thank you.
spk05: Thank you.
spk01: Our next question comes from Michael Sullivan of Wolf. Your line is open.
spk02: Hey, good morning. Good morning, Michael. Hey, David, I just wanted to go back to Nick's question just in terms of, like, expectations for the Q3 call update. In terms of financing needs, are you all still planning to stick with kind of that, I guess, mismatch of three-year view on financing versus five-year on CapEx?
spk10: So, and Michael, I know that you're missing your fellow Demon Deacon on this call, so we're going to have to have no inside Wake Forest comments this time. But the... We expect, and Pete gave me a little elbow in my response to Nick, we'll of course comment on our earnings growth expectations in the third quarter calls. Our focus is on what the CapEx plan update will be, but we're planning to talk about the financing strategy, because obviously if you put changes to a CapEx plan, you've got to talk about your plans for financing that. And we'll talk about our financing plans through the period of the of the CapEx refresh. So, if five-year update in the CapEx plan, we'll talk about our financing plan through that period.
spk02: Okay, great. That's not how it is today, though, right? So, that is kind of different. You talk about no equity through 26? You're right.
spk10: It's a, yeah, what we, what our past comments, we really didn't what we said was we know equity would be required in the future, no equity needs through 26. We weren't specific on what happens after 26, so I guess there was something implicit in those comments. What Jeff described today, and we wanted to frame it clearly, so we'll reiterate here, is that our current capital plan is $12.5 billion. We articulated with that expectation we wouldn't be issuing equity through 2026. As we update that capital plan, you know, we'll update our financing expectations through the five-year period at the same time. Hopefully that makes sense.
spk02: That makes a ton of sense, and this is definitely helpful. Okay, sorry to belabor that. No, no, it's good.
spk10: I appreciate your asking.
spk02: Yeah, okay. No, great to clear that up. And then can you give us any sense of, you know, next year's rate case outlook? I know you said kind of every other year, but it could be different. I had to think about which subsidiaries are going to be in next year.
spk10: Well, we had Kansas rate cases in 2023, so if we're on a typical cadence of every other year, I would expect that we'll be revisiting Kansas next year. And we've seen that with the PISA framework, and again, I think that every company is different, every situation is different, but we see some other utilities who operate in PISA environments, and they've established a cadence that's typically often an 18-month time frame. You know, we want to – there are pros and cons to more frequent cases, but, of course, with the investment levels that we all have, more regular cadence of rate cases helps with respect to keeping up with that level of investment, but also helps with the level of predictability, fewer step function changes for customers. So, I think they're balancing the workload with the benefits of a kind of a steady progress You know, that's why I mentioned that what we expect every other year, some will be more frequent, some less, but we certainly have seen in, in piece of jurisdictions where some, some players have established a cadence, sort of that 18, 24 month timeframe is often pretty effective and efficient.
spk02: Okay. That makes sense. And so do you think you can get what you need out of the workshops and anything to file, um, that come from that before you actually kick off the next rate cases at the beginning of next year, presumably? Or could there be some overlap?
spk10: You know, I think the workshop process will largely conclude. Our expectation is it will wrap up before we get into the rate case, Michael. And we don't want to overstate, but we also want to understate. The workshop is really to enable a dialogue around what's a pretty important provision and feature for the competitiveness of Kansas in attracting capital. But it's a dialogue we want to have with our stakeholders in Kansas. There's one thing that I've learned in my time these few years, and it reinforces my experience in the industry. We just want to be on the same page with and being alongside our regulators and key stakeholders in our states. We think our Kansas regulators and constituents recognize the importance of the economic development opportunity we have and the importance of being competitive in attracting capital. We need a dialogue, we'll help to level set for that, but it's, and our goal is that we have that workshop in the fourth quarter, and we think it will wrap up before we get into the race day.
spk02: Okay. Thanks for all the responses. I appreciate it.
spk10: You bet. Thank you, Michael.
spk05: Thank you.
spk01: Our next question comes from Travis Miller of Morningstar. Your line is open.
spk11: Good morning. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. You just answered my question on the Kansas regulatory environment and the timing there. So I'll ask more broadly, just this 4% to 6%, you're outlining a lot of positives here in terms of growth. The demands, if you do go with the Kansas rate case, you would have something presumably in rates 2026 or so. The CapEx update sounds like it's going to be more positive. What are perhaps the offsets that would keep you at that 4% to 6% versus going to a 5% to 7% or potentially even higher? What are potential offsets to growth given all the positives that you've been outlining here?
spk10: Well, I would reinforce your comment. I think there are a lot of positive dynamics that we're seeing in our jurisdictions. Our level of rate-based growth, is low relative to our peers. So 6% rate-based growth, we've looked across all our peers. I'm sure you have as well that there's typically a gap between what that rate-based growth level is and what the earnings trajectory is because you have to finance that growth. And there's often a little bit of lag. PISA is a very effective mechanism for mitigating lag, but it still has some. So what we want to get into the cadence of is the level of investment, the pace at which we're If we are increasing our investment, the pace at which we increase investment, then that's going to have to roll through into rates on rate cases. So part of it is the timing of when these positives are manifested in the underlying trajectory. You also have to have a financing strategy and make sure that the financing strategy is incorporated around the math. In other words, turning the ship in a regulated industry, you don't turn it overnight. But I think there are a lot of positive dynamics. When I say not turn it overnight, because you do have to roll through the cadence of rate cases, getting that investment in your rate base. and then getting them into rates. But the dynamics that are the tailwinds, the economic development opportunity that supports infrastructure investment because you're adding new loads so you can spread those fixed costs, those are real positives, as you noted. So we think those are nice tailwinds for us as we systematically work through our plan. And we don't plan to get ahead of our regulators and stakeholders on that. We'll be working with our constituents, but we think we are all aligned in being very excited about the economic development opportunity, which is the fundamental tailwind behind us.
spk11: Sure. Okay, great. And then real quick, can you remind us what demand growth expectation is in that 4% to 6% number?
spk10: So it's, as we noted in our materials, a 2% to 3% of weather normalized demand growth through 2028 is reflected. While we're getting our earnings growth target through 26, which Michael indirectly teed up that he'd like to see that go longer, but it's a We've given the earnings growth rate through the 2026, but that sales growth rate we've extended through 2028. Okay.
spk11: And again, just to clarify, I'm not going to say a lot, but some of that was 2027 and 2028 when you see some of these large loads. Come on, so it's safe to assume that 2023 to 2026 is less than 2% to 3% in terms of demand growth?
spk09: Yep, Travis, and I think if you look at our disclosure on the slide, you'll see that our base demand growth projection was 0.5 to 1%. And then when we add on these new large loads through 2028, we see that growing to 2% to 3%. So I think in that interim timeframe, you would see us moving from one range to the other range over time.
spk10: So the answer is yes. I think you've got the sense of it. We're pleased about the growth trends in the first half of the year, obviously, as we showed in the slides. It's been a robust, nice, robust growth. Thank you.
spk11: Yeah, that's very helpful. Appreciate all the details. Thank you so much. Thank you.
spk01: Thank you. Our next question comes from Paul Patterson of Glenrock Associates. Your line is open.
spk07: Hey, good morning, guys. Morning, Paul. Almost all my questions have been answered, but I apologize for being a little dense on this capital structure. workshop. This is a purely regulatory thing, or are you guys expecting legislation or something? I mean, you have had rate cases and stuff, and you guys are pretty effective in portraying your views. I'm just not exactly gathering what exactly... I'm missing something, and I apologize. I just haven't really grasped how this workshop in this context is what it's supposed to achieve. I assume you guys want a higher equity ratio, and the purpose of this is sort of to have a discussion about it, but why is it that this workshop you see as being a more effective way of dealing with this issue than the normal course of business? Or is there something else, like I said, like maybe legislation or something you're thinking about?
spk10: Thank you, Paul, for the question. As you recall, in our rate case last year, there was voluminous testimony filed on the topic. Ultimately, we were able to, all parties were able to reach a settlement that was approved by the commission, so it was an item that was settled. It was also an item that was part of the legislation that was advanced earlier this year. Ultimately, it was removed from the legislation, so HB 2527 included PISA with a 90% deferral and included a construction work in progress mechanism for new natural gas plants. But we with the parties agree that on the capital structure issue, moving from the legislation, let's have a dialogue around it later this year. So our objective, and I think it's pretty straightforward, it's really to have a discussion around that outside the context of a contested case, a litigated proceeding, and really try to level set on what is the prevailing practice, how does Kansas stack up in terms of competitiveness, where to, you know, how to How does it typically impact the company's credit and other factors? So it's really just an opportunity to have a dialogue around an important issue that drives the competitiveness and attracting capital outside of a rate case. Now, in the next rate case, return on equity, capital structure, other things will, of course, be part of those proceedings. So we think having this dialogue on a topic that was a big area of focus in 23, when we were teeing up the importance of being competitive and attracting capital, you know, the parties agreed in the legislative process to have the workshop. So, I'm not overstating what we're seeing accomplished, but it's an important topic, and we look forward to a dialogue outside of a rate kit. Okay, great. Thank you.
spk07: I apologize for not picking up on it quick enough. So just finally, just to sort of clarify, with respect to rate design and what have you, when we think about these new projects, it sounds to me that you expect these new projects to essentially carry the incremental cost of supplying them Is that how we should think about the, you know, the attractive opportunities that are coming up here, or do you see these as being some mix of economic development, subsidized kind of situation or something? I just wanted to sort of make sure I understood that.
spk10: So, I think that the rates that – there are economic development rates that are available, but there's also a series of rate structures that are around that contemplate incremental costs are being incurred. I think our view is that particularly at the size of loads, you know, 6 gigawatts, up to 6 gigawatts or more, you want to make sure that the rates that you're including are ones that reflect the incremental cost. But it doesn't mean that every rate structure is only based on incremental costs. You know, the number of jurisdictions where the rates are based on the average cost across the system. Because in some instances, right, the incremental cost of A new generation may be higher than the average installed base. Not always the case. We're just trying to make sure, and this is the great thing about having a set of structures that are already in place, that the rates that are in place don't end up where a huge burden is shifted to other existing customers. And we think there's a path to get there. I think that's very similar to what other jurisdictions are grappling with at the same time. Again, when you're in a situation where it's 20 megawatts of incremental load and you've got excess capacity in the system, Those often in the past were priced on marginal costs. It's a different context here. But I think the answer is actually probably pretty similar across different jurisdictions. It's finding a set of rate structures that make sure that you're adequately covering the overall cost of the system when you've added that much new load.
spk07: Awesome. Thanks so much, guys. Really appreciate it. Have a great weekend. Thank you. You too.
spk01: Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn it back to David Campbell for closing remarks.
spk10: Great. Thanks, DeeDee. Thanks, everyone, for your interest in Evergy. Have a great day and have a great weekend. That concludes the call.
spk01: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.
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