Xcel Energy Inc.

Good day, and welcome to Xcel Energy's second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Questions will only be taken from institutional investors. Reporters can contact media relations with inquiries and individual investors, and others can reach out to investor relations. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Paul Johnson, Vice President, Treasurer, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, and welcome to Xcel Energy's 2022 Second Quarter Earnings Call. Joining me today are Bob Frenzel, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In addition, we have other members of the management team in the room to answer your questions if needed. This morning, we will review our 2022 results, share recent business and regulatory developments. Slides that accompany today's call are available on our website. As a reminder, some comments made during today's call may contain forward-looking information. Significant factors that could cause results to differ from those anticipated are described in our earnings release and our SEC filings. Today we will discuss certain metrics that are non-GAAP measures. Information on the comparable GAAP measures and reconciliations are included in our earnings release. With that, I'll turn it over to Bob. Thanks.

Thanks, Paul. Good morning, everybody. It was certainly an interesting 11th hour twist in legislative news last evening, but we'll get to that in just a minute. Let's start with our financial results. We had another solid quarter recording earnings of 60 cents per share in 2022 compared with 58 cents per share in 21. Our earnings are on track with expectations, and as a result, we're reaffirming our 2022 earnings guidance of $3.10 to $3.20 per share. During the quarter, we made good progress on our clean energy plans, achieving constructive regulatory outcomes. In June, the Colorado Commission approved our resource plan settlement, which includes approximately 4,000 megawatts of utility scale renewable additions, the conversion of our Pawnee coal plant to natural gas by the end of 2025, and the early retirement of our Comanche III coal unit by the end of 2030, which will be the final coal plant retirement in Colorado. We now have the approval of both our Minnesota and our Colorado resource plans, which together will add 10,000 megawatts of utility scale renewables to our system and achieve an 85% carbon reduction by 2030. We anticipate issuing RFPs later this year, submitting our recommended portfolios by mid 2023, and receiving commission decisions in the second half of 2023. We expect the recommended portfolio We expect the recommended portfolio of generation assets will include self-build, build-owned transfers, and power purchase agreements. Our plans are consistent with our seal for fuel strategy, which provides a valuable hedge for our customers against rising commodity prices. Our owned wind farms are projected to generate nearly $1 billion of fuel-related customer savings in 2022 alone, and a total of $2.7 billion since 2017. We're excited about our transmission expansion opportunity. MISO's long-term planning approach identified projects in Futures One with an estimated investment of $30 billion that will be awarded in four discrete tranches. Earlier this week, the MISO Board approved tranche one, which includes $10 billion in projects. Based on the most recent information from MISO, we anticipate a $1.2 billion investment opportunity for Xcel Energy within tranche one. Turning to electric vehicles, we're making progress on our goal to power 1.5 million EVs by 2030, supporting our states in achieving their electrification goals. We are excited to be the first U.S. energy company to introduce all electric bucket trucks to our fleet, and we expect to file comprehensive transportation plans in Minnesota and Wisconsin in early August. These state proposals include single and multifamily residential offerings. commercial customer programs, as well as a school bus pilot. In addition, we're looking to accelerate EV adoption through the development of high-speed public charging infrastructure by partnering with our states and other organizations. The proposed programs will also foster customer affordability, providing significant fuel savings for EV drivers and helping to keep bills affordable for all customers, through load growth and enabling more efficient utilization of distribution grid infrastructure. The Minnesota and Wisconsin proposals reflect capital investment of approximately $325 million from 2024 to 2026, which does not include distribution investment needed to upgrade the grid. Xcel Energy's clean energy leadership, including our longstanding track record of carbon reduction, is the direct result of the passion that our dedicated employees bring to serve our customers and our communities. Earlier this month, we received another exemplary rating from the Institute of Nuclear Power Operators for our Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant. We've continued to improve performance and cost efficiencies, demonstrating sustainable excellence in operations. I want to congratulate and thank all of our nuclear employees support teams, contractors, and suppliers for their commitment and impact. Nuclear remains a very important source of reliable, carbon-free energy. We're proud to be one of the top operators in the nation. Yesterday, it was announced that Senators Schumer and Manchin had reached agreement on the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. While we still need to analyze the details to understand all of the nuances of the act, it appears to include nearly all the broader clean energy tax credits, including new and extended tax credits for wind, solar, hydrogen, storage, and nuclear. While it doesn't include direct pay for all taxpayers for all tax credits, it does include tax credit transferability as an option when direct pay is unavailable. As we've previously discussed, our capital investment plan is not dependent on changes in federal policy. However, the energy provisions included in the Act would provide substantial customer benefits and help enable our clean energy transition while keeping our customer bills affordable. There's still a lot of twists and turns that can happen in Washington, but we're optimistic that the bill could become law. This past quarter, we were honored to be among the first companies inducted into the Climate Leadership Hall of Fame. which recognizes different organizations across the country for exemplary leadership in response to climate change. We're also recognized with a Hubert H. Humphrey Public Leadership Award for our groundbreaking sustainability goals in Minnesota. And finally, we received the EEI National Key Accounts Award for Outstanding Customer Engagement, which recognizes companies and their account executives for providing excellent support and offerings to corporate customers. Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, and it's great to be recognized for our work in helping them achieve their goals. I want to thank these organizations for the recognition, along with our employees, partners, and stakeholders who make it possible. With that, I'll turn it over to Brian.

Thanks, Bob, and good morning, everyone. We had another solid quarter, recording earnings of 60 cents per share for the second quarter of 2022, compared to 58 cents per share in 2021. The most significant earnings drivers for the quarter included the following. Higher electric and natural gas margins increased earnings by $0.25 per share, primarily driven by riders and regulatory outcomes to recover our capital investments. In addition, a lower effective tax rate increased earnings by $0.06 per share. Now, keep in mind, production tax credits lower the ETR. However, PTCs are flowed back to customers through lower electric margin and are largely earnings neutral. Offsetting these positive drivers were increased depreciation expense, which reduced earnings by 15 cents per share, reflecting our capital investment program in the recognition of previously deferred costs related to the Texas electric rate case. Higher O&M expense, which decreased earnings by 2 cents per share. Higher interest expense and other taxes, primarily property taxes, decreased earnings by 8 cents per share. And other items combined introduced earnings by 4 cents per share. Turning to sales, weather adjusted electric sales increased by 3.1% for the first six months of 2022, largely due to higher C&I sales driven by strong economic activity in our service territories. In addition, our unemployment rate is 80 basis points below the national average. As a result, we have revised our assumption for 2022 sales growth to 2%. O&M expenses increased $14 million for the second quarter, primarily driven by the recognition of previously deferred expenses related to the Texas electric rate case, additional investments in technology and customer programs, and increased costs for storms and vegetation management. Like other businesses, we are facing inflationary pressures and now expect an annual O&M increase of approximately 2%. In addition to the Colorado Resource Plan approval, we also made strong progress on a number of other regulatory proceedings. The Colorado Commission approved our yearly storm settlement, including full recovery of all costs with the exception of an $8 million dislounge primarily related to conservation messaging. In Minnesota, an ALGA recommended full recovery of all URI-related fuel costs. We anticipate a Commission decision later this summer. In Texas, the Commission approved our Electric Rate Case Settlement, which provides a rate increase of $89 million. Rates were effective back to March 2021, which is why you see some year-to-date true-ups in revenue and various expense lines of the income statement. The agreement also accelerates the depreciation life of the Tote Coal plant to 2034. We have a pending natural gas case in Colorado seeking a rate increase of approximately $175 million over three years based on an ROE of 10.25% and an equity ratio of 55.7%. In June, intervener testimony was filed. The staff recommended a ROE of 9%, an equity ratio of 55%, and a historic test year, while the UCA recommended a 9% ROE, an equity ratio of 51.5%, and a historic test year. In July, we filed a rebuttal testimony providing additional support for a filed position. Hearings are scheduled for late August. We anticipate a commission decision later this year with final rates implemented in November of this year. We recently filed our first electric rate case in South Dakota since 2014. We are seeking a $44 million revenue increase based on an ROE of 10.75%, an equity ratio of 53%, and a historic test year. We expect a decision and final rates implemented in the first quarter of 2023. We also have pending electric and natural gas rate cases in Minnesota. We are in the discovery phase and expect intervener testimony this fall, followed by Commission decisions in 2023. Details on these cases and schedules are included in our earnings release. Shifting to earnings, we've updated our 2022 guidance assumptions to reflect the latest information. Details are included in our earnings release. We are reaffirming our 2022 earnings guidance range of $3.10 to $3.20 per share. which is consistent with our long-term 5 to 7% EPS growth objective. With that, I'll wrap up with a quick summary. The Colorado Commission approved our resource plan and storm URI cost recovery settlement. We received an ALJ recommendation in Minnesota for full recovery of fuel costs related to winter storm URI. We'll be filing our Midwest EV plans shortly. The Texas Commission approved our rate case settlement. We are reaffirming our 2022 earnings guidance. and we remain confident we can continue to deliver long-term earnings and dividend growth within the upper half of our 5% to 7% objective range as we lead the clean energy transition and keep bills low for our customers. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we will now take questions.

Thank you. And if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again, everyone, to ask a question, simply press star 1 on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for a moment to assemble the queue.

All right, and our first question will come from Nicholas Campanella with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Morning. So I guess, hey, yeah, morning. I guess just thanks for the upfront color on the Inflation Reduction Act. helpful, just if there is an alternative minimum tax, can you just remind us how your business is positioned there?

Hey, Nick. Good morning. This is Brian. Yeah, that's a good question. So the way we think about that book AMT is we look at it a couple different ways. First is we have credits available where you can offset 75% of that book AMT impact. and then also when we look at the transferability that's included in the legislation that ultimately when we put those two together that we see this as cash flow accretive um for us now i'll caveat that you know this came out yesterday and it's 700 pages of legislative text so we're still working through it but that's our view on the book amt okay great that that's helpful um

And then I guess on sales, you know, this is like the second time I think this year that your electric sales forecast for the near year has changed to the positive. So just maybe kind of talk about what type of trends you're seeing for this year, how that kind of compares to your long-term forecast. And are you kind of starting to see, you know, structurally higher demand going forward? And is that a long-term tailwind for you? Thanks.

So that's a good question. And, you know, we've seen – you're right, both in Q1 and Q2, we've increased our sales guidance for the year. And I would say there's probably some more opportunity there as we look into the balance of the year. Now, certainly the dependence and the macro impacts that could occur with what the Fed's doing, but we see strong C&I sales. And it's even better if you look at where Colorado is. The C&I sales in Colorado, that's There's an adjustment there when you normalize for this large solar farm that we helped with a major customer behind the meter. C&I sales in Colorado are strong too. So we're seeing that across our service territories with that C&I strength. Good economic rebound. We're seeing it on the residential side. We expected that call reduction. And when we look at our budget, we're actually higher on residential than we expected. So Structurally, I think we've seen a strong economy in the first half of the year and is certainly in the energy sector and the manufacturing sector across the board. So as I think about longer term, obviously you could have some potential headwinds if there's a recession or what happens and how big an impact interest rates have. But I think we're bullish longer term when we start to think about the electrification opportunities, when we start to see EV penetration, When you start to see electrification of industrial processes, so I think there's a longer term tailwind as I look at our service territories. And just another example, down in the Permian Basin, we've seen extremely strong growth, but longer term, we're talking to our customers about electrification. They have their own ESG goals and net zero goals in the Permian. And so we're in discussions of how do you electrify pumps and rigs and compressors and ensuring that we have the capacity and the investments in our distribution and transmission system down there to serve them. So I think there are tailwinds longer term, and it's great to see the rebounds that we have in the CNI sector.

That's great. I appreciate it. I'll get back in the queue. All right. And our next question will come from

Jeremy Toney with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Good morning, Jeremy. Hey, how are you? Good, good, thanks. Just want to dive into MISA a little bit here now that we have some more developments and touching on your $1.2 billion. Just wondering if you could characterize a bit more in terms of Greenfield versus Brownfield. And I guess this is just a preliminary estimate, but what's the scope, I guess, of what – What could possibly fall in incremental to this? Is this some competitive processes that still could make their way in? Just trying to feel our way through what this could mean.

Yeah, good morning. This is Bob. Look, first of all, let me just comment on transmission broadly. We feel very confident and excited about the transmission build-out opportunities we have. And if you think about where we've been this past quarter, between the Colorado Power Pathway, the transmission needs from the Minnesota Resource Plan, and now the MISO and TEP Tranche 1, that's about $3.5 billion of large-scale transmission projects that we've identified and in some cases have approved. So the class is important to us. It's certainly gonna enable our ability to add the 10,000 megawatts of renewables that we need from the Minnesota and the Colorado Resource Plans. and to continue to execute on our 2030 80 percent carbon reduction vision. Particularly with regard to the MISO M-TEP process, I think we've put our best estimate out in terms of the investment opportunity around a billion and a quarter for about six different – portions of six different projects. We're up for legislation in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and feel pretty confident about what we've put forward in terms of the opportunity in MTEP.

And, Jeremy, I'll just add to that. Like Bob said, we feel good about our point estimate, and the Wisconsin projects were deemed upgrades, so they're not expected to be competitively bid. So what you see as we put in our earnings presentation are what we expect to be ours and owned, and that's our good estimate right now.

And the estimate does not include any competitive bid. So if we choose to competitively bid and we're successful, that would be incremental to the 1.2.

Got it. So this 1.2 replaces the 1 to 2 range, but there's still potentially competitive processes that could add to this. Is a fair way to think about it? Correct.

Yeah.

Got it. Thanks. And thanks for all the comments on the climate policies so far and noting that this is hot off the press. But just wondering, you know, if there's any particular items in there, if we peel back the onion more, what do you see as the largest potential impact and points of opportunity to your plan near and long term? I mean, could CCS be something that's thought about more now?

You know, great question. Again, as Brian said, you kind of have to absorb about a page a minute since it came out last night to get through all the text. But, you know, we've been talking about A lot of these broad strokes since the third quarter call and EEI financial conference last fall. Some really interesting things in here is we've seen production increases in solar. The PTC for solar is really interesting relative to an ITC. You might see some regional differentiations on people using PTCs versus ITCs. I think the transferability piece is really interesting as we think about Not just for our account, but for everybody who builds renewable assets and the friction costs that are embedded with financing some of those things, particularly with tax equity. This could overall bring the cost of both owned and PPA assets down. Again, real benefits for our customers as we continue to make this transition. Standalone storage credit is interesting. There's some really challenges with the pairing of solar and storage. We've made them work. But this makes standalone storage pretty interesting. And then obviously our North Dakota company is, the governor there has put a very aggressive carbon neutral goal on the table. And CCS is really important to North Dakota. So I think as we look across the country and across our portfolio, you're going to find bits and pieces of all of this to be interesting and Notwithstanding all that, there's great stuff around energy security, electric vehicles, and resiliency all built into this that we really haven't even dug into. But I think it's a terrific piece of legislation for us as a company, and we're excited to dig in and hopefully see this pass the House and the Senate before the end of the fiscal year.

Yeah, and I'll just add to that, Bob. I mean, as we're in the middle of developing our clean heat plans for our gas LDCs in Colorado and Minnesota, and they have a hydrogen PTC. So you can couple that with a long-term PTC for wind or solar. It really should give green hydrogen a jumpstart. And so we're excited about that. And so I think there's a number of great things in this bill, and ultimately we look at it. um it's really looks and feels similar what i talked about on q3 of last year in terms of the impacts to us but ultimately now we look as cash flow accrete of um and slightly there's some slight rate based reductions from we become more tax efficient but slightly eps beneficial now again that's the caveat we're digging into and make sure we understand everything particularly around transferability but we look at this whole package as we talked about Our current plan is not built on this. Our current five-year plan and long-term plan, our resource plans were approved with current tax law. This just makes our plans even better for our customers, and that's the important point. Long run, great for our customers as we make this clean energy transition even more affordable. So we're excited about this and optimistic that it gets passed.

Got it. That's super helpful. If I could just circle back to MISO real quick, real quick, last one here. Of the $10.3 billion of capital there, Would you be willing to share any thoughts on how much of that you think could go through a competitive process?

I think the estimates I've seen are about a billion dollars. Got it. Thanks so much. I'll leave it there.

All right. Our next question will come from Julian DeMolin-Smith with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, team. Thanks for the time and the opportunity to connect here. Really appreciate it.

Morning, Julian.

Hey, so I'm going to keep going on the same front. Let's talk a little bit more on the legislative. How does your prior FFO to debt improvement target under BBB with direct pay compare to your first take of the provisions under the IRA factoring in the transferability elements, right? You specifically called that out a moment ago in your prepared remarks.

Hey, Julian, good morning. No, like I said, it was, and Bob said it's hot off the press and 700 pages of legislative texts, making sure we understand it and there are nuances. So there's absolutely caveats as we think about it. But I think the best way to think about it, if you remember what we talked about on Q3 is, you know, maybe 175 to 100 basis points or higher improvement in FFO to debt, CFO to debt, as we look at it, which gives us financing flexibility down the road, potential capital headroom. But again, right, there's a lot to unpack around transferability and how that ultimately work. But ultimately, you know, our initial take is a little bit in line with what we talked about Q3. So really good for us, but ultimately great for our customers as we think about how we can make this clean energy transition even more affordable for our customers.

It's supposed to be noted that Brian didn't go to bed last night, so he's doing all the math on this, so take that with a grain of salt. Yeah, totally.

In his delirium, though, nonetheless, he's broadly affirming your expectation that the math is not too different from what you described with third quarter. Correct. With the caveat that we're still understanding this. Totally, completely. With that asterisk, But also, what does that do for your equity needs, right? Let's just take that a step further if we can start to unpack that.

Look, so we talked about it gives us more flexibility. I think how we're going to unpack all this is we're rolling forward our capital plans, and we'll release those in Q3 in our October earnings release. We'll know whether or not this passes by then. We should know a lot sooner. whether this passes or not, and we can provide you a full update because that'll include updated capital plans and how we're going to finance that. But it certainly does give us more financing flexibility.

Got it.

Excellent.

All right. And then a super quick last one here. I know on transmission we talked a bit already. What about these ROFR challenges at FERC? Again, I know that's more recent here, but Any thoughts, perspective on the FERC angle here? Again, I guess this is states versus FERC, and then also time frame.

Yeah, hey, Julian. It's Bob. I think these have been challenged in both state and federal court, and the ropers have held up, and we expect them to.

Got it. All right. Plain and simple. Excellent, guys. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Into Kim with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for the question. Thanks for taking my question. My first one just regarding the inflation on impact in the O&M and the higher financing costs there. As we look, I guess, beyond 22 into 23 and you try to get ahead of it, what are some options you have that you could do now and any levers, I guess, to get ahead and position for 23?

Hey, good morning, Insu. Certainly, we're continually looking to offset inflationary pressures, and this is no different than any other year. Like, we've had O&M flat since 2014, and we're very proud of that because it has a direct impact on customer bills. Now, like everyone else, we're feeling the inflationary pressures this year and adjusted our O&M up by a percentage. But, you know, as we go through the year and see how the year unfolds, you certainly take action to see if you can set up next year in terms of how it's looking. We have a continuous improvement team that is regularly working with our business areas. We're investing in technology this year. We have something called the Digital Operations Factory that helps drive technology into the business areas to reduce O&M costs and make us more efficient. So that's just part of our DNA and part of our culture that we've stood up. And you can see it in how we've managed O&M over the long term. So that's really our focus in terms of what we see now. We do expect some inflationary pressures to continue through the balance of the year, and that's a bit why we increased our guidance. But, you know, I think you should expect more of the same odds, right? We're going to deliver for our customers, we're going to deliver operationally, and we'll deliver financially this year and in the future.

Got it. My second one, and I I think I know the answer to this one, but just given, yeah, what could be on the table here on the legislative front for nuclear, does that change your thoughts on, I guess, over the next five to ten year plan on building more, maybe it's the small module with nuclear or others?

Hey, Ed, it's Bob. Look, I think the legislation as it starts is really beneficial for the existing nuclear owners and in our case the customers who would receive any benefits from production tax credits associated with the existing nuclear embedded within the new legislation. I think longer term we've been pretty stalwart in saying that we as a country need to identify new clean energy resources that can be dispatchable and carbon free. to enable a transition to a carbon light economy or a carbon neutral economy. And I think new nuclear has to play a role in that. I don't think it's a this decade role, certainly not for Xcel Energy, but we are active at NEI. We are active in the development process. We've been working diligently with NuScale as they've been trying to stand up there and get permission to build their first new nuclear reactor. We watch very closely. We're engaged in the dialogue. I think it's a next decade or beyond issue and opportunity for us as a company.

Got it. It's what I expected. Thank you. Thank you both.

All right. Moving on, we'll take our next question from David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning.

Thanks so much for taking my question. Hey, David. Hey, let's see. I had a quick question on the Colorado pathway and the potential upside opportunity there. Is that something that could crystallize basically after you get the RFPs done and you get a sense of when and where the projects are coming into place there that we get a sense of whether that could be added to the plan at some point in 2023?

Yeah, David, you're exactly right. Once we kind of see where these projects are located and call it the mix of projects, we'll be able to come out at the same time with what we expect to call the network upgrades, voltage support that we need. And also, the commission did conditionally approve that call it that leg um that 250 million dollar leg uh uh basically a radial um and you know we fully expect projects to show up there too so we'll give be able to give color both on the call our renewable opportunity at that point in time plus the trans the incremental transmission investments we expect to make which which will be probably if we play this out probably middle of next year once we see that final portfolio

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, thanks. And on the Minnesota rate case, I was wondering when does the window kind of open for a potential settlement and any thoughts on prospects of a settlement given the focus areas and what you've proposed here?

Yeah, thanks, David. It's Bob. Look, the cases are progressing through the regulatory process. I think when I look at the cases, they... reflect a lot of the investment categories in alignment with our policy and stakeholders. So we don't expect any contentious issues there. Typically, we don't start talking settlement with counterparties until after their testimony has been received. So on the gas case, that's expected at the end of August. And in the electric case, that's early October. So probably more ripe for discussions in late Q3 or into Q4.

Okay, great. Sounds good. Thanks so much. Our next question will come from Sophie Karp with KeyBank. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. If I may follow up on the MISO, French one. How much of the 1.2 is sort of low-hanging fruit here where you have right-of-ways and basically shovel-ready, if you will? And then the same question for your competitive opportunities that could potentially come behind it.

Yeah, so look, I think we're in early innings in terms of the development of those lines. I think that some of them conclude into existing substations, but most of the lines themselves are going to be greenfield and require local siting and permitting processes. I think that this is an area of strength and execution for the companies. We do this. We did the CapEx 2020 plans up in the upper Midwest. We did the MVP plans, and so we've got a really strong team and a good partnership with the GridNorth Partners Group that we think that from an execution perspective, this is something that's right in our wheelhouse.

And I'll just add, Sophie, is we'll go through the regulatory processes, certificate of need processes with our commissions, and so, you know, that'll take a year, year and a half to get through those processes where we'll determine final work on final routing and permitting everything.

Right, right. And so is that, how much of that is already baked into your long-term capital plan, if anything can you remind us?

So we had some, a little bit in our five-year plan, but when we look at it, right, these in-service states are expected to be called by 2030. So we'll start, well, you'll start to see as we roll forward our five-year plan is that spend will kind of be baked in that new five-year plan that we roll forward is how you'll see it in October.

and we'll include it in our in our 10-year plan as we bring roll forward our 10-year plan too you know we did have some of it captured in the second five years of our forecast so not the first not not materially for the first five years but in the second piece got it thank you and another question i had is uh on the roes right so kind of seeing uh nines and low nines right across the board in your territories interest rates keep going up um you know roes are kind of sticky at this level. And I can appreciate the fact that they were sticky on the way down too, right? But with the rates being higher and, you know, arguments being made that they could structurally be higher in the next decade, do you see this trend kind of reversing a little bit and maybe they are already sticking up or is that pretty much not something that we should look forward to?

You know, Sophie, that's a good question. I think the way we look at it, we kind of look at some recent data points, and there's a couple data points in Minnesota. One was an ROE decision late last year for Otter Tail at a 9-4-8, and we have a 9-0-6 in our Minnesota electric business right now. And then the gas side center point has a settlement pending in Minnesota with a 939 and our Minnesota gas ROE is a 904. So, no, I think as we see inflationary pressures, interest rates go up that, you know, they were sticky to go down, but I think we do have below the national average authorized ROEs across most of our jurisdictions. And we'd like to work to get those closer to that national average. We do think we are. a very good operator. We are policy aligned with our commissions, policy aligned with our states in terms of helping them achieve their decarbonization goals, and hopefully it can be reflective in some of the outcomes we see in the future.

Great. Thank you. That's all for me.

And next we'll take a question from Paul Patterson with Glenrock Associates. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Hey, Paul. So just, and I know I can completely relate to the 700 pages late night experience, but you mentioned how affordability could be potentially beneficial from the bill. Do you have any sense as to what the potential rate impact might be from the bill? So

This is longer term when we look at it, and this is some of the analysis. We haven't done a very long-term model. We modeled it a while ago, and we were looking at the earlier provisions. We saw about a 1% benefit to our customers over the long-term on a CAGR basis, as we thought about. Now, there's a lot of caveat there in terms of what type of renewable deployment we have, but We're looking at inflation, right? Our target is long-term customer bill impacts at inflation, and this helped us drive below that. So I think that's kind of the magnitude. Now, certainly it'll depend on the nuclear PTC and some of the nuances in terms of hydrogen, but I think longer term we see a significant benefit to that. And I would just add that You know, we're really well positioned for this type of long-term credit extension because I don't believe there's an IOU that has a better combination of wind and solar in our backyard than we do. And so, you know, our commission's approved our plans without any extension of tax credits. Now to have this on top of it just puts us in a really good position to deliver on this clean energy transition for customers even more affordably. And, you know, our view is long-term customer bills matter. And for us to make this transition more affordably for our customers is great, and we look forward to working through it with our commissions.

Yeah, I'll just add on to what Brian said, and I agree with him completely. I think the opportunity here is really interesting because if we can make the energy transition more cost-effective, that becomes an economic driver engine. Businesses are attracted to places that have clean energy and low-cost clean energy and reliable energy. clean energy. When I think about a transition to clean fuels and green hydrogen with the production capability that we have and the wind and the solar resources we've got in and adjacent to our footprint should make the production of clean fuels more cost effective in the middle of the country, in the Midwest and in the Southwest than other parts. And you've seen that as we've located wind and solar across the country. They've been concentrated in those areas. we'd expect those continued economic development drivers to drive our business long-term.

Yeah, and then just to clarify, when I talk about 1%, that's on a CAGR basis. So as you accumulate that over time, it becomes very significant for our customers. So like I said, no, optimistic this gets passed because our plans are not built on it. But if it does, we look forward to driving forward our plans even faster.

Awesome. And then there was a local article about curtailments of wind production in southern Minnesota. And I know you guys are pretty well positioned and what have you, but you guys are also very large footprint and you guys are all very familiar with the situation around you. Do you see any, well, are there any issues potentially that you're seeing, but also more significantly perhaps, are there any situations that you're seeing with specific wind farms and curtailment occurring with other parties in your jurisdiction. I mean, the story sounds pretty significant in terms of how some counties were being impacted from a tax revenue perspective in the southern part of Minnesota. So I just was wondering if you had any insight on that.

Yeah, look, I think that we have seen curtailment in southwestern Minnesota. It was a source of a significant amount of wind buildout over the last decade for us and for the region. And so one of the great things about the MTEP program is that it's identifying the need and locating transmission resources to move that zero-cost resource to the load. In the short term, it's led to curtailment. and congestion in the longer term, we think that frees up and is able to get to the load and deliver. I don't think that it's concentrated in any one entity in terms of the owners of the farms, but I think it's out there. And as we think about the impact for our customers, some of that just is driven by The desire and the need for clean energy, you know, is built into a lot of our plans, and we recognize that sometimes that has implications for local communities on property taxes or wind production payments. But I think it's certainly manageable and something we're in conversations with our stakeholders about.

Awesome. Thanks so much, guys.

We have no additional questions. I'll turn the call back to CFO Ryan Van Abel for closing remarks.

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And this does conclude today's call. We thank you again for your participation. You may now disconnect.