Avista Corporation

good day and thank you for standing by welcome to the avista corporation q3 2023 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 the question during the session you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone you will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised To withdraw your questions, 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 first speaker today, Stacey Wenz, Investor Relations Manager. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Welcome to Avista's third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Our earnings and our third quarter 10Q were released pre-market this morning. Both are available on our website. Joining me this morning are Avista Corp CEO Dennis Vermillion, President and COO Heather Rosentrader, Senior Vice President CFO, Treasurer and Regulatory Affairs Officer Kevin Christie, and Vice President Controller and Principal Accounting Officer Ryan Crassels. Today we will make certain statements that are forward looking. These involve assumptions, risks, and uncertainties which are subject to change. Various factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations discussed in today's call. Please refer to our 10-K for 2022 and 10-Q for the third quarter of 2023, which are available on our website for a full discussion of these risk factors. To begin, I'll recap the financial results presented in today's press release. Our consolidated earnings for the third quarter of 2023 were $0.19 per diluted share compared to a loss of $0.08 for the third quarter of 2022. Year-to-date, consolidated earnings were $1.14 per diluted share for 2023 compared to $1.06 last year. Now I'll turn the call over to Dennis.

Well, thanks, Stacey, and good morning, everyone. I hope you're enjoying some nice fall weather wherever you're at here in Spokane and the Inland Northwest. The leaves are showing their brilliant colors, and we even experienced our first light snowfall last week, first one of the season. I'd like to begin by welcoming Heather Rosentrader to our earnings call this morning. In September, you may have seen we announced that Heather would become Avista's 15th president. She is the first female president in our company's 134-year history. You all get a chance to meet Heather at the EEI Financial Conference coming up in November in a couple weeks. When you meet Heather, you'll see that she's a dynamic leader who's built a deep understanding of the utility business. Over the years, she's established a reputation as a thought leader who has the uncanny ability to strategically anticipate what's next. I believe we have the right leadership team in place to successfully lead us forward through a rapidly changing energy landscape and the complex challenges we're facing as a business and as an industry. As we look to the future, I'm confident that we'll continue to tap into our rich history of innovation and ask ourselves, how might we do things differently? Commitment to our strategy and innovation landed us one of only 10 Connected Communities grants awarded by the Department of Energy. We recently completed the first year of this five-year grant that allows us to work with partners to engage customers about their energy usage at a deeper level. Part of this grant work includes using our grid simulator in Avista's Energy Innovation Lab to explore how to make the best use of the existing grid. And at the same time, we're continuing to ask ourselves, how might we possibly expand our owned generation portfolio How might we meet the demand for transmission assets as we move toward our clean energy future? And how might we partner with building owners and operators to actively manage not only how much energy these buildings use, but when they use it? Ideas like these tap into the built environment to create a battery of sorts, moving us closer to achieving our clean energy goals, and can help make energy more affordable for everyone. As we explore options, rest assured, we will be prudent and wise with our decisions. Turning to regulatory outcomes, our results so far this year reflect significant progress we've made on the regulatory front. It includes the benefits from our 2022 Washington rate cases, new electric and natural gas rates went into effect in September in Idaho, the first of a new two-year rate plan, Our Oregon general rate case was approved by the Commission last week and new rates will be effective January 1st. We look to continue executing our strategy with the next multi-year rate plan to be filed in Washington in early 2024, which will allow us the opportunity to earn our allowed return. With respect to earnings, our third quarter results are ahead of our expectations. At Avista Utilities, we're seeing the benefit of our cost management efforts. AEL&P is also ahead of our expectations for the year. Year to date, we've experienced losses in our other businesses, which are driven by valuations of investments. There's value that comes from these investments beyond their expected contribution to earnings. These investments can create opportunities for learning, economic development within our service area, and help propel us towards energy innovation and transformation necessary to meet our clean energy goals. Now I'd like to turn this presentation over to Kevin, who will share more about our earnings.