Eversource Energy (D/B/A)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining and being present at the Eversource Energy first quarter 2022 earnings call. My name is Irene and I will be coordinating today's call. If you would like to ask a question during the presentation, you may do so by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. In case you have joined us online, you have the possibility to press the flag icon on your web browser to ask a question. I will now hand over to your host, Jeffrey Kotkin, Vice President for Investor Relations, to begin. Jeffrey, please go ahead.

Thank you, Irene, and good morning, and thank you all for joining us today. I'm Jeff Kotkin, Eversource Energy's Vice President for Investor Relations. During this call, we'll be referencing slides that we posted yesterday on our website, and as you can see on slide one, some of the statements made during this investor call were 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 forecasts and factors are set forth in the news release issued yesterday afternoon. 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 31st, 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, Phil Lembo, our senior strategic advisor and outgoing CFO, and John Marrera, our treasurer and incoming CFO. Also joining us today is Jay Booth, our VP and controller. Now I will turn the slide to and turn over the call to Joe.

Thank you, Jeff, and thank you, everyone, who was on the call this morning. It's been a very busy start of the year, so let me get right to it. First and most importantly, we have continued to deliver very safe and reliable service to our 4.4 million customers. The average number of months between power interruptions continues to place us and our reliability in the top decile of the electric industry. And our relatively short average duration of outages continues to place us in the top quartile. We also responded promptly to damage caused by a number of Northeasters that seemed to be arriving in New England every weekend from mid-January through February. Despite that inclement weather, response time to natural gas service calls, a key safety and performance metric for our gas distribution business, was excellent. I'm also pleased with our continued work to support our state's efforts to significantly reduce their carbon footprint. Our sustainability ratings at MSCI and Sustainalytics remains among the industry's best when compared to our peer utilities. Our updated 2021 sustainability report will be published mid-year, along with enhanced disclosures on our diversity, equity, and inclusion metrics. We are also currently working to determine how an energy and water delivery company such as Eversource should address scope three emissions. Turning to slide three, as many of you know, the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities is conducting an in-depth inquiry into the role that gas will serve as the state moves to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 85% by 2050. In March, we submitted a lengthy filing in support of the DPU's inquiry. That filing has been posted on our investor website, and its key elements are included on this slide. As you can see, reducing energy demand by vigorously pursuing energy efficiency in both the electric and natural gas business is a cornerstone of our strategy. Additionally, we are recommending pursuing multiple options to reduce carbon emissions from our approximately 650,000 natural gas customers in Massachusetts. They include developing a hybrid electrification pilot in a community where we serve both electric and natural gas customers, building on the network geothermal pilot we announced earlier this year in Framingham, Massachusetts, initiating a renewable natural gas program through purchases in in-state on-system injection and piloting the potential use of hydrogen with certain commercial and industrial customers. There is no question that our natural gas distribution infrastructure will play a critical role in ensuring a successful transition to the state's clean energy future. The DPU is targeting a decision in this inquiry later this year. Turning to offshore wind in slide four, I'm sure most of those on this call have read our news release last night announcing that we have commenced a strategic review of our offshore wind investments where we are partnering with Orsted. It is clear that the landscape for offshore wind continues to evolve in many energy and infrastructure firms and investors both inside and outside North America are extremely interested in investing in the Northeast United States offshore wind market. The extremely strong prices paid for New York bite leases in February attest to this. We plan to evaluate our 50% interest in our partnership with Orsted Together with the significant investment requirements we have ahead of us for our regulated energy and water delivery systems. We have more than $18 billion five-year regulated capital investment program that needs to be financed in additional capital projects that are likely to arise in the coming years. We have concluded that now is an appropriate time to explore monetization of our offshore wind investments. The strategic review we have launched was formally endorsed yesterday by the Eversource Board of Trustees. It could result in potential seal of all or part of our offshore wind interest. We fully expect that given the strong interest for offshore wind assets, we will be able to replace the offshore wind earnings per share that we would realize after our two larger projects reach commercial operation. This could result from either greater levels of regulated investment, less financing needs, or a combination of the two. Finally, I just want to thank Phil for his decades of service to our company and our customers. I have worked with Phil for more than 30 years, playing on the softball team with him back in my early years, and he will be greatly missed. You know, he has been a proven leader and a consummate financial professional. He has been our CFO for the past six years and has steered us through acquisitions, significant equity issuances, and a pandemic, while being transparent with the street, supportive of his staff, and wise in his counsel to senior management and the board. have rated Phil one of the top CFOs in the industry the past few years. I am truly thankful that he is remaining in a senior strategic advisor role with us for the near term to help us with this evaluation of our offshore wind investments. We do not have a specific timeline for the review of our offshore wind investments, project. During this process, we will continue to focus on a successful execution of our three offshore wind projects and will continue to lead the onshore portion of the project during siting and construction. One key element that may amplify market interest in our 50% interest is the strong national and regional policy support for offshore wind. The current administration has targeted 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind in the Atlantic by 2030. And the four states that are the most likely buyers of energy generated by offshore tracks continue to ratchet up their support for this clean energy source. We strongly believe that offshore wind will play a very important role in southern New England's and New York's aggressive decarbonization efforts. And Austin is recognized world leader in engineering constructing and operating offshore wind. Moreover, the sites we are developing are among the best in North America in terms of consistent wind speeds. Moreover, we have moderate water depths in the proximity to the electric load. In terms of our active projects, as illustrated on slide four, onshore cable installations beneath the roads of East Hampton on Long Island is largely complete ahead of schedule. Major offshore work will take place in 2023 and will continue the project bringing 130 megawatt 12 turbine project into service by the end of next year. Siting and permitting on our two larger projects, Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind, also continues to progress. We continue to expect to receive final federal and state approvals in 2023 and bring both projects into service in 2025. Slide 6 shows that there have been no changes to the cost estimates or schedules we discussed during our year-end earnings call in February, with contracts now essentially fully secured for South Fork. We continue to focus on negotiating contracts for the two larger projects, which we expect to be built in 2024 and 2025. In aggregate, about 80% of these projects costs are now locked in. We are making good progress on procuring additional agreements and expect that percentage to rise over the balance of the year. I want to add how thrilled I am that yesterday our board elected John Marrera to be our new CFO. John will hit the ground running, having a leadership position throughout the finance organization over the past two decades, including treasury, accounting, budgeting, regulatory, and investor relations. He has also headed up our investor relations and our strategic initiatives, including our water acquisitions and the offshore wind business review we announced yesterday. He knows Eversource inside and out, and will provide us with experienced financial leadership as we invest on behalf of our customers. Thanks again for your time. I will now turn it over to Phil.