Eversource Energy (D/B/A)

Welcome to the EBER Source Energy Q3 2021 Results Conference Call. My name is Cheryl, and I will be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. During the question-and-answer session, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded, and I will now turn the call over to Jeff Kotkin, so you may begin.

Thank you, Cheryl. Good morning and thank you for joining us. I'm Jeff Kotkin, Eversource Energy's Vice President for Investor Relations. During this call, we'll be referencing slides that we posted last night on our website. And as you can see on slide one, some of the statements made during this investor call may be forward-looking as defined within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risk and uncertainty, which may cause the actual results to differ materially from forecasts and projections. These factors are set forth in the news release issued yesterday. Additional information about the various factors that may cause actual results to differ can be found in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020, and on our Form 10-Q for the six-month end at June 30, 2021. Additionally, our explanation of how and why we use certain non-GAAP measures and how those measures reconcile to GAAP results is contained within our news release and the slides we posted last night and in our most recent 10-K and 10-Q. Speaking today will be Joe Nolan, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Phil Lembow, our Executive Vice President and CFO. Also joining us today are John Marrera, our Treasurer and Senior VP for Finance and Regulatory, and Jay Booth, our VP and Controller. Now I will turn to slide three and turn over the call to Joe.

Thank you, Jeff. We hope that all on the phone are safe and well, and we look forward to seeing many of you in person next week at the EEI conference. I will cover a few topics this morning and then turn over the call to Phil to discuss our third quarter agenda. financial results in our regulatory activity. First, I want to discuss last week's Northeaster, which impacted approximately 525,000 customers across our service territory. Our eastern Massachusetts customers sustained the greatest damage, with more than 450,000 customers impacted. That's over 35% of Eversource's customers in eastern Massachusetts. This storm was far less damaging in Connecticut, western Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. So as we wrapped up the restoration in those areas, we were able to quickly redeploy resources to southeastern Massachusetts, Cape Cod, and Martha's Vineyard, areas that took the brunt of the storm. Our internal resources were supplemented by hundreds of crews from outside the region, and we were able to essentially complete the work over this past weekend. This experience underscores the benefits of a large T&D organization, one where resources can be shifted based on the greatest need. Last year it was Connecticut. Last week it was Massachusetts. Next time it might be in New Hampshire. We have 9,300 dedicated employees, all focused on providing the best possible experience for our customers. Lessons we learned last year in Connecticut, particularly regarding communication with municipalities, have been vigorously applied this year. Our customers and community leaders have certainly noticed our enhancements and we have received many positive comments on our storm response. Customers are noting that not all the best linemen in New England work for the New England Patriots. When storms have threatened us, and recall that we have had glancing blows from three tropical storms this summer in last week's events that I described at the beginning of my comments, I have been at the center of the action from before the storm hits until the last of our customers has power restored. I believe that's critical for us to be out front, visible, transparent, and collaborative during these major events, something that has been difficult to do as we all worked in a remote, pandemic-restricted environment for the last 18 months. Next, I want to discuss our Connecticut rate settlement. To start, I want to thank the parties from DEEP, the Connecticut Attorney General's Office, the Office of the Consumer Council, and the state's industrial consumers for being willing to sit down and work out a settlement that will yield meaningful and immediate bill credits to customers and strengthen the Connecticut focus and control at Connecticut Light and Power. In news reports, Governor Lamont, Attorney General William Tong, and state leaders were quoted as saying that the settlement provides customers with some well-deserved relief in the short term, greater local control and oversight, and an improved customer experience. We agree. I also want to thank PURA, for approving the settlement agreement last Wednesday. Phil will discuss settlement specifics in a moment, but we are very grateful to PIRA for the opportunity to move forward on a positive note. Settling critical regulatory and legal disputes was a necessity to reset our relationship with key Connecticut stakeholders. We all want the state to move ahead on addressing critical energy and climate issues. and the outstanding disputes had the potential to delay some of this important work. Since becoming CEO this past spring, my top priority has been to strengthen our relationship in Connecticut. I've met regularly with key state policymakers as well as business leaders and customers, underscoring our commitment to the state where the largest number of Eversource employees live and work. This will continue to be a strong focus for me going forward. Eversource is fully committed to providing each and every one of our 4.3 million electric, natural gas, and water customers across New England with exceptional service. With Connecticut temporary rate docket now behind us, we can move on to other important topics where progress has been hindered by the drain in time and resources devoted to Storm Isaias and the interim rate reduction. supporting the build-out of electric vehicle infrastructure, incenting the construction of customer-owned energy storage, installing AMI. That is the clean energy future, and we will work together with our customers and policymakers to get there. Changing topics. I'm going to cover some very positive developments in recent months concerning our offshore wind partnership with Orsted. You can see the status of our current projects, on slide three. Each has advanced since our last earnings call. To start, our smaller project, South Fork, has received its final environmental impact statement, and we expect a record of decision to be posted later this month. BOEM's project website anticipates a decision on South Fork's construction and operating permit, or a COP, in January of 2022. and we anticipate construction beginning early next year. We continue to expect commercial operation of the 12 turbines 130 megawatt project by the end of 2023. In August, we announced that Kiewit will commence construction of the project substation this month in Texas. Now, we expect it to be installed in the summer of 2023. Moving to the 704 megawatt Revolution Wind Project that will deliver clean power to Connecticut and Rhode Island. BOEM continues to anticipate a COP decision in July of 2023, which would support a 2025 in-service date. State siting hearings have commenced. Finally, our largest project, Sunrise Wind, which will supply 924 megawatts to New York. we are looking for federal agencies to complete their final reviews in late 2023, a schedule that would support a late 2025 in service date. Last week, we announced that Sunrise will be the first offshore wind project in the United States that will utilize high voltage direct current technology. HVDC offers advantages over AC technology when used over long distances. And Sunrise will have an approximately 100-mile submarine transmission cable from offshore energy production area to the grid connection in Brookhaven, Long Island, New York. We continue to project mid-teens equity returns for these three projects. The Biden administration continues to show significant support for offshore wind in both words and actions, targeting 30,000 megawatts of offshore turbines by 2030. We view our partnerships to ocean tracks off of Massachusetts as the best offshore wind sites on the Atlantic seaboard. Our leases are in close proximity to both the New England and New York markets. They enjoy strong offshore winds particularly in the winter and they have modest ocean depths. They can hold at least 4,000 megawatts of offshore wind turbines, far more than the approximately 760 megawatts we currently have under contract. We continue to exercise strong fiscal discipline in using the remaining offshore acreage that we have leased from the federal government. We did not bid into Massachusetts September RFP for up to 1600 megawatts of offshore wind. Current Massachusetts bidding rules discourage imaginative bid packages. Governor Baker and some Massachusetts policymakers are now recognizing that Massachusetts is not benefiting from the same level of economic development as states that place greater emphasis on infrastructure and supply chain development. As such, the governor recently filed legislation that would eliminate the state's current price gap. In Rhode Island, We are constructing a service vessel in the state. In Connecticut, we are partnering with the state on more than $200 million upgrade of the New London State Pier. The pier will become the premier site in the entire Northeast for staging offshore wind development. Onshore construction is underway, which you can see from either I-95 or Amtrak's nearby Boston to New York line. In New York, I joined members of the Governor HOKO's administration last month in announcing the largest single offshore wind supply chain contract award in New York to support the Sunrise project. The local company, Riggs Distiller, will construct advanced foundation components at the port on the Hudson near Albany. It is just the latest commitment we have made to New York, which also includes basing an offshore wind maintenance hub in Port Jefferson We have an excellent relationship with New York policymakers, and that is where most of our currently contracted offshore wind capacity is headed. We look forward to bidding into future RFPs where our strong mix of sites, skill sets, disciplined bidding strategies, and Orsted's vast offshore wind experience will make us a formidable contender in any competition that takes a broad look at the benefits of offshore wind. Now I will turn the call over to Phil.