Avista Corporation

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Avista Corporation fourth quarter 2024 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, Stacey Wentz, Investor Relations Manager. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. I'm happy to have you with us this morning on Avista's fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Our earnings and 2024 Form 10-K were released pre-market this morning. You can find both on our website. Joining me this morning are Avista Corp President and CEO, Heather Rosentrader, and Senior Vice President, CFO, Treasurer, and Regulatory Affairs Officer, Gavin Christie. 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 we discuss in today's call. please refer to our Form 10-K for 2024, which is available on our website, for a full discussion of these risk factors. I'll begin with a recap of the financial results presented in today's press release. Our consolidated earnings for the fourth quarter of 2024 were 84 cents per diluted share, compared to $1.08 for the fourth quarter of 2023. For the full year, Consolidated earnings were $2.29 for diluted share compared to $2.24 last year. Now, I'll turn the call over to Heather.

Thank you, Stacey, and good morning, everyone. I want to start by saying how proud I am of the performance and what we accomplished in 2024. Even with the headwinds we experienced from higher costs, including purchase power costs in 2024, Our utility earnings were near the midpoint of our original expectations and improved nearly 5% from 2023. Our regulatory strategy has been central to our focus and critical to our success. Our Washington general rate cases concluded in December with a constructive order from the Washington Commission that provided balanced, positive outcomes for our customers and shareholders. The Commission also increased our return on equity to 9.8% Our shareholders will see the benefit of increased margin related to timely capital and improved operations and maintenance cost recovery. The Commission also continued its support for important deferral mechanisms like our balancing accounts for wildfire and insurance costs. Unfortunately, the Commission did not support our request to modify the mechanics of the Energy Recovery Mechanism, or the ERM. We will continue to look for opportunities to modify the ERM so that, in time, the mechanism appropriately reflects the changes we are experiencing in regional energy markets. And we plan to build on the constructive Washington outcomes in the coming year as we work through the regulatory process in our general rate cases in Oregon and in Idaho. We laid a strong foundation in 2024 in more ways than one. Beyond constructive regulatory outcomes, we invested a record $510 million at Avista Utilities to better serve our customers. We entered a memorandum of understanding from the North Plains Connector, and we're excited about the potential opportunity from that project. Completion of the North Plains Project will connect our region to generation and markets we previously have not been able to access, which is an important step to improve regional reliability and resource adequacy. The North Plains Project was identified in the Preferred Resource Strategy of our Electric Integrated Resource Plan, or IRP. which we filed in December. As an outcome of the finalized IRP, we expect to issue an all-source Request for Proposal, or RFP, calling for bids for up to 375 megawatts of generation, targeted to be online in 2029. We're optimistic about considering ownership options as part of the RFP process through bill transfer agreement options and through our own self-billed options. We continue to lay the groundwork and are actively engaged in conversations with several potential large loads, another example of the opportunity that 2025 presents. We continue to prioritize mitigating the risk of wildfire. In January, two bills were introduced in both branches of the Washington legislature. The first bill relates to approval of wildfire mitigation plans, and the second bill would enable securitization of the costs associated with large disasters, such as a catastrophic wildfire. We're continuing to work with stakeholders on education around these critical legislative changes. In addition to these important legislative efforts, we made great progress in 2024 with our wildfire mitigation plan. We met or exceeded all targets for 2024 for distribution grid hardening, transmission hardening, vegetation management, and continued automation of fire safety mode. In particular, I want to highlight the success of the artificial intelligence enabled cameras we've begun deploying throughout our service territory. When a fire was started in a remote part of our service territory, not near any of our facilities, the Washington Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, was notified immediately through the camera alert system. The information captured by the camera enabled the DNR to appropriately scale their response and quickly manage and contain the situation. We will continue hardening our systems, improving the reliability and resiliency of our grid, and keeping our communities safe. Building on our success in 2024, we are initiating our Consolidated Earnings Guidance for 2025 with a range of $2.52 to $2.72 per diluted share. The midpoint of this guidance range includes an expected 12 cent expense from the energy recovery mechanism and a zero contribution from our other businesses in 2025. And Kevin will provide more detail on our guidance in a minute. Our dividend is an important component of the shareholder return. And for the 23rd consecutive year, the board has increased the dividend for our shareholders just over 3% to $1.96 per share. We target a competitive dividend payout range of 65 to 75%. And over the last few years, we have taken, we have been a bit above our average. We are as committed to the financial strength of our company as we are to the importance of returns for our shareholders. And we expect that our dividend growth rate will be less than the growth in our earnings per share until we reach our target payout range. Now, Kevin, I'll hand the call over to you for discussion of our earnings.