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spk06: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Entergy Corporation third quarter 2021 earnings release and teleconference. At this time, all participants are on listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you need to press star 1 on your telephone. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Bill Abler, Vice President, Investor Relations. You may begin.
spk02: Good morning, and thank you for joining us. We will begin today with comments from Entergy's Chairman and CEO, Leo Denault, and then Drew Marsh, our CFO, will review results. In an effort to accommodate everyone who has questions, we request that each person ask no more than two questions. In today's call, management will make certain forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those forward-looking statements due to a number of factors which are set forth in our earnings release, our slide presentation, and our SEC filings. Entergy does not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Management will also discuss non-GAAP financial information. Reconciliations to the applicable GAAP measures are included in today's press release and slide presentation, both of which can be found on the investor relations section of our website. And now, I will turn the call over to Leo.
spk08: Thank you, Bill, and good morning, everyone. Today, we're reporting quarterly results that keep us firmly on track to meet our financial commitments. Third quarter adjusted earnings were $2.45 per share. With good visibility into the rest of the year, we are narrowing our 2021 guidance range to 590 through 610 per share and expect to achieve 2022 and 2023 results in line with our outlooks. Further, We are extending our outlooks to include 2024 and see our steady predictable growth of 5% to 7% continuing through this period. Additionally, we achieved the milestone of raising our dividend by 6% and aligning with our earnings growth. This happened on the schedule we previously communicated and represents another commitment met. We have developed a more resilient business, and despite $65 million of non-fuel revenue losses in the third quarter due to Hurricane Ida, we are maintaining our financial commitments. Our resiliency provides stability that is valuable to all of our stakeholders, particularly customers and owners. The quarter was heavily impacted by Hurricane Ida, which made landfall as a strong Category 4 hurricane, bringing powerful, destructive winds across New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and beyond. Our coastal communities were particularly hard hit by both strong winds and storm surge. Ida disrupted the lives and businesses of many of our customers and communities, and Entergy was there to help when they needed us. We gathered a restoration force of 27,000, our largest ever, representing Entergy employees, contractors, and mutual assistance crews, from 41 states across the country. I would like to take a moment to personally thank our employees and the crews who answered the call to come help restore power to our impacted customers. Further gratitude goes to our employees who worked restoration despite their own homes being damaged by Ida. They epitomize what it means to put our customers first. I never cease to be amazed by the dedication and effectiveness of the many restoration workers who step away from their lives for weeks at a time to help our customers and communities get their lives and livelihoods back up and running again. Despite IDA's winds creating significant damage and destruction across our power grid with close to a million peak outages, our team restored customers at a rapid pace. In just over a week, we had roughly half of all customers restored. Metro areas like New Orleans and Baton Rouge saw restoration essentially completed by day 10. Within three weeks, more than 98% of all affected customers were restored. And it's easy to lose sight of the fact that this restoration was successfully accomplished while dealing with the effects of the pandemic. Entergy also helped our customers and communities throughout the recovery process by developing or deploying 165 commercial scale generators power critical community infrastructure like medical facilities, gas stations, grocery stores, municipal water systems, and community cooling centers in advance of power being restored. In addition to restoration work, Entergy's employees contributed countless hours to their communities, and Entergy's shareholders committed $1.25 million to help affected communities rebuild and recover. While power has been restored to customers who can safely take it, Our job is not finished. We are committed to minimizing the effects of IDA on our customers' bills. We will work with our regulators to seek securitization of IDA storm costs, which is a proven and low-cost means of recovery. Further, we are coordinating with key officials and stakeholders, including Louisiana Governor Edwards, the City Council of New Orleans, Louisiana Public Service Commission, Louisiana Congressional Delegation, and the Biden administration to seek federal support that could offset the cost of our customers for Ida in the 2020 storms. There is widespread alignment among state and local leaders on the compelling case that Louisiana has to obtain federal support. We are fully aligned with this perspective. To be clear, any federal funding that energy utilities obtain will reduce the customer obligation dollar for dollar. We're also committed to mitigating the impacts of future storms. Entergy has made significant transmission and distribution investments, nearly $10 billion over the last five years, which made our system more resilient. We've seen those new investments perform well under the most challenging conditions. Wind damage to our transmission structures, for example, has occurred most almost exclusively to older structures built to prior standards. It has become clear that major weather events of all types are occurring more frequently and with greater intensity. Hurricane Laura made landfall as the strongest storm to hit the Louisiana coast since 1856. Then exactly 12 months later, Hurricane Ida hit with almost equal force. Our resilience standards and asset programs have never been static, and we've continued to evolve them. And as I mentioned, our investments are working as designed. However, the uptick in severity and frequency of storms is compelling us to take a fresh look at how we can make our system more resilient, including the pace at which we can achieve it. Even prior to Ida, we are actively deploying multiple options along a resiliency scale, particularly for our service area south of I-10 and I-12, which has the greatest exposure to hurricane strength winds and flooding. Evaluating these resiliency options needs to be done under future climate scenarios. And we are taking into account important considerations such as customer affordability and sufficiency of materials and skilled labor. This customer-driven investment will be significant and we will work collaboratively with our regulators and other stakeholders to determine the optimal path forward. Coming back to the quarter, I would like to highlight that despite dealing with a major storm, the business continued to run well without missing a beat. We've made great progress in several open proceedings. First, Entergy Arkansas filed a unanimous settlement for its formula rate plan, and the Arkansas Commission has agreed to cancel the hearing and take up the settlement based on the filed testimony, which is positive. New rates in Arkansas will be implemented in January. In New Orleans, We recently implemented rates at the level that reflected all adjustments proposed by the Council's advisors, so there are no further proceedings there. We also are pleased to note that Energy Arkansas reached a settlement with key customers of its green promise tariff filing. If approved, this tariff will enable us to offer green solutions to meet the growing sustainability demands of our customers. And we're making progress on other open proceedings. At Entergy Louisiana, its FRP rates went into effect. Entergy Arkansas received approval for the West Memphis Solar Project. Entergy Texas reached an unopposed settlement on its 2020 storm cost filing. And Entergy Texas also filed for approval of the Orange County Advanced Power Station. And the Louisiana 2020 storm recovery and securitization process remains on track. We continue to make progress on decarbonizing our fleet. We've announced five gigawatts of solar in our supply plan through 2030 with a goal of doing more. And an update to our supply plan and renewables growth will be provided next week at EEI. In addition to helping meet decarbonization goals, the cost of renewable resources relative to conventional resources continues to trend favorably and renewable resources provide an important edge against rising and volatile natural gas prices. We will provide more details around our latest resource plans at EEI. Last quarter, I discussed ways in which Entergy can help our industrial customers meet their sustainability goals. While many have expressed long-term goals like net zero by 2050, even more have developed shorter-term interim goals that will require action by the end of the decade. Clean electrification is one of several important tools that our industrial customers have as a means to achieve their objectives. Clean electrification provides a great opportunity for load growth and will require significant capital investment in renewable generation, transmission, and distribution. The load growth that comes with electrification will help pay for incremental customer-centric investments. We'll have more to discuss regarding the opportunity we have to help our customers meet their sustainability objectives next week at EEI. While it is important to discuss these longer-term growth opportunities, I want to make sure we don't lose sight of the very solid based investment plan that we have in front of us. Over the next three years, we have a $12 billion capital plan that is designed to deliver reliability, resilience, and improved customer experience and environmental and cost-efficiency benefits to our customers. When paired with our well-defined regulatory constructs, our plan will deliver 5% to 7% adjusted EPS growth for our owners over the next three years. That's a very solid base plan. And beyond this strong foundation, these other opportunities in renewable generation, clean electrification, and resilience acceleration will serve to extend our runway of growth throughout the rest of the decade. We look forward to continuing the conversation with you at the EEI Financial Conference. Now, Drew will review the quarterly results.
spk02: Thank you, Leo. Good morning, everyone. Today, we are reporting solid results, even with the challenges from Hurricane Ida. Summarized on slide five, our adjusted earnings per share was $2.45, slightly higher than a year ago. continue to execute our strategy, and we are firmly on track to meet our commitments. In fact, with three-quarters of the year behind us, we are narrowing our guidance range to $5.90 to $6.10. We're also affirming our outlooks and extending the outlook period through 2024, and we recently raised our dividend to align with our adjusted EPS growth rate. Turning to slide six, our investments to improve customer outcomes continue to drive growth. That includes rate changes to recover those investments as well as associated new operating expenses. Industrial build sales were 10% stronger than a year ago. We saw increases across most segments with largest increases in primary metals, petrochemicals, transportation, industrial gases, and chloralkali. This reaffirms the strength of our industrial customer base. In a world with supply chain constraints and higher energy prices, our industrial customers' businesses remained strong and competitive. These industrial sales were strong despite Hurricane Ida. Overall, across all classes, we estimate that third quarter revenues were approximately $65 million lower as a result of Ida. Hurricane Laura's impact on third quarter 2020 was approximately half of that. Other O&M was higher this quarter as planned. This is partly due to higher costs for distribution operations, including reliability costs, higher expenses in our power generation function, and higher health and benefit costs. Moving to EWC on slide seven, you'll see results were slightly lower than a year ago. The key driver was the shutdown and sale of Indian Point. Operating cash flow for the quarter is shown on slide eight. The quarter's result is about $300 million higher than last year. The increase is due largely to improved collections from customers, including collections associated with investments to benefit customers and Winter Storm URI. This was partially offset by expenditures related to higher natural gas prices. Slide 9 summarizes our credit and liquidity. We expect to maintain our current credit ratings, and we continue to expect to achieve targeted rating agency credit metrics as storm restoration spending is securitized and we retire storm-related debt. I'll take a minute to discuss our balance sheet, beginning with a quick update on Hurricane Ida on slide 10. Over the past several weeks, we've refined our cost estimates and we've shaved $100 million off the upper end of the range. The total cost is now expected to be $2.1 to $2.5 billion. We've also updated our estimate of the non-fuel revenue loss to $75 to $80 million, the lower half of our previous range. While our net liquidity, including storm reserves, remains strong at $4 billion, we're also working to ensure timely storm cost recovery. That starts with a successful restoration effort and proceeds through two avenues. First, InterJews Louisiana amended its 2020 storm filing to request an additional $1 billion to provide early liquidity for Hurricane Ida costs. And in Texas, we reached a settlement on the 2020 storm cost filing, and that is now before the PUCT. Second, we have improved the efficiency of our storm invoice processing to accelerate our filings and ultimately cost recovery. We plan to complete financing for the 2020 storms by early next year and Ida by the end of next year. And our work isn't over. will continue to identify ways to further reduce business risk. As Leo highlighted, we are looking forward to a conversation with our customers, retail regulators, and other stakeholders about how we best accelerate and implement a strong resilience plan. We have already hardened more than half of our critical transmission and distribution structures along the Gulf Coast to standards implemented after Katrina and Rita. Continue to move the bar higher by reevaluating current standards using the latest weather data. In addition, a comprehensive resilience plan needs to include the strategic placement of assets to allow higher-risk communities to recover more quickly. For example, microgrids, distributed energy resources, and the deployment of generators Leo highlighted to certain critical customers in the aftermath of storms could be very helpful in supporting communities as they recover. We'll go into more depth on this in our conversations at EEI. In addition to physical resilience, our regulators know the importance of a healthy credit at the operating companies to support customers. And they have put in place time-tested cost recovery mechanisms such as securitization and storm reserves to support that need. They're fortunate that in looking to recover the 2020 and 2021 storm costs, we are starting with some of the lowest rates in the country. We have significant electrification growth potential that could help pay for incremental customer-centric investments and future storm costs. All of these will support our credit as our regulators and key stakeholders align with us around a strong resilience acceleration plan. In addition, we continue to execute on the exit of EWC, and we're less than a year from completing our plans. The resulting improvements were recognized by S&P last fall through our improved business risk profile and by Moody's just this past quarter through changes to our rating thresholds. Those changes remain in place and our ratings reflect future storm risk. As a result, we were able to reduce our 2021 to 2024 equity need. Combined with our ATM transactions, our future equity need is more than 50% lower than the $2.5 billion communicated at Analyst Day last year. Moving to slide 11, we have a clear line of sight on the remainder of the year, and for the third year in a row, we are narrowing our adjusted EPS guidance. In this case, for 2021, to $5.90 to $6.10. We are also affirming our longer-term outlooks of 5% to 7% adjusted EPS growth and extending to 2024. Our confidence in our solid base plan continues to grow. The key expression of that confidence is the dividend. For the last several years, we've discussed our goal to align our dividend growth with our adjusted EPS growth. Our board of directors recently declared a six cent increase in our quarterly common dividend, which is now $1.01 per share. That's a 6% increase as planned. We expect to continue this growth trend going forward obviously subject to board approval. That's good news for our owners who provide the capital needed to meet our customers' evolving needs. Today, we are executing on key deliverables, and we have a solid base plan to meet or exceed our strategic and financial objectives. In less than a week, Leo, Rod, and I will be in Florida to meet with many of you in person for the first time in almost two years. We'll provide our typical updates on considerations for next year's earnings expectations. and we'll provide our preliminary three-year capital plan, including a positive update on our expectation for renewables. We'll also talk about the significant long-term customer-centric investment beyond our current outlooks from renewables, clean electrification, and acceleration of our system resilience. We're excited about these opportunities ahead and look forward to talking to you about all of it at EEI. And now the Entergy team is available to answer questions.
spk06: Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or a comment at this time, please press the star, then the one key on your touch-tone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to move yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. And we also ask that you limit yourself to two questions. Our next – I'm sorry, our first question comes from Shara Perez with Guggenheim.
spk04: Hey, good morning, guys. How are you doing? Good morning, Shara. Just a quick question here. It's starting maybe high level, Leo, if it's okay. With kind of the regulatory complaints from New Orleans, do you have a sense for how the council wants to proceed at this point? I mean, obviously they're looking for input into everything from operational response to ultimate ownership of the assets. Do you envision a path where you don't own the assets anymore, or on the contrary, is there a negotiated outcome where the city authorizes the incremental spending like more transmission interconnection funded by E&O customers to address their concern?
spk08: Yeah, well, thanks, Char. I'd say, first of all, you know, obviously what we've been doing recently with the council is we've got through the formula rate plan and got those rates in effect. Both the council, us, as well as the LPSC and others, as I had mentioned, we're all aligned on approaching the federal government or offsets to customer costs through potentially CDBG funds, and then even in the future in terms of storm hardening as it relates to infrastructure. So that's really been where we are in terms of what's been going on recently. All focus has been really on how do we get the next steps done and what's the logical progression to what we want to do, and that is to support the credit of E&O. As it relates to those other items, they're still out there and we plan to cooperate with the council as they go forward. In most of those instances, we're still wanting to hear from them in terms of what their objectives are as it relates to whether it's the ownership structure or what have you. Those are processes that they began and to the extent that they have objectives, we'll work collaboratively with them to meet those needs. we think that however it works out, it'll work out fine for us and for them.
spk04: Got it. Perfect. Thank you for that, Leo. And then just lastly for me, and then I know you sort of touched on it a little bit around, you know, your prepare comments. And it's been obviously an immediate question with investors is just around the storms and maybe the expenses that were incurred. Can we just maybe get an update on some of the other mitigating factors that for customer bill headrooms. And he obviously talked about volumetric growth and the macro backdrop. But there's obviously, and also there's work you're doing with the, you know, LPSC in New Orleans to get federal support. But how are you, I guess, thinking about other charges rolling off and potentially having the bill headroom to continue kind of investing in CAPES, especially as we're seeing your, you know, your 24 numbers in line with the 6% midpoint growth in 24? So, you know, can we assume this run rate remains healthy despite some of the near-term concerns around build pressure and escalating storm issues?
spk02: Yeah, Char, this is Drew. I'll tackle that first, and then I'll let Rod and Leo pitch in. So I'll mention a couple of things. First of all, you know, the securitization is, you know, what we're moving forward with in Texas and Louisiana for the recent storms. But there's also a bunch of securitization is also still rolling off, and that includes, you know, costs associated with Ike and Texas. I think that comes – rolls off next year. Similar in Louisiana, Gustav and Ike are rolling off, and even Isaac costs are going to start to roll off maybe in 2024. So those are relatively near term that can take some of the pressure off of the – the securitization costs. Also, natural gas prices. There's been a lot of discussion about natural gas prices. Obviously, a lot of people are experiencing higher natural gas prices. It highlights some of the investments we've made in high-efficiency CCGTs, the diversification in our fleet for nuclear. It also highlights the stronger business case for solar. But the forward curve for natural gas is you know, somewhat, as you know, backwardated, and the prices get pretty low. In fact, if you just go out a couple of years, you know, our internal forecasts are higher than what the NYMEX curve would say, you know, by the time you get out to something like 2024. So that's, you know, we don't necessarily view that as a long-term problem. Certainly, it's a challenge for our customers right now, and it's starting with winter storm URI and the price spikes then, but we've already recovered all of those costs, and we're moving forward. And then finally, for some of the growth capital that's out there, we highlighted the three areas associated with significant potential investment, starting with resilience and accelerating our resilience program. That's really kind of in lieu of future securitization to the extent that we can put more resilience in place than what we were already planning. that would offset future securitization costs. So that's a different portion of the bill, so to speak, than we would normally see. And then, of course, with renewables, the fuel costs, the O&M associated with that. And if you look at our capital plan, we'll talk about this at EEI, there's been quite a bit of rotation in our capital plan in the generation space from future CCGTs to renewables. And so that's, you know, taking up bill space that we are already planning to use. And then finally, the clean electrification, as Leo mentioned in his remarks, that includes incremental sales. And that should, you know, provide space for that incremental investment. So we believe that all of that should There are spaces for all of this to happen and even accelerate as we go forward in the next few years.
spk04: Got it. Got it. I think that was helpful. Thank you for that. Appreciate it, guys. I'll leave it at that.
spk08: Thanks, Char.
spk06: Our next question comes from Jeremy Thelmet with JP Morgan.
spk03: Hi, this is actually Brandon Travis on for Jeremy. Thanks for having me. First question, I'll follow up with the second one. Can you just comment on the Build Back Better framework and the implications it may have on energy in its current form, and then just particularly as it relates to nuclear hydrogen renewables ahead of your plan refresh at EEI?
spk08: Sure, sure, and there's a lot in there. Certainly, as we look for support for things like hydrogen and support for things like existing nuclear. We view all of that, in addition to continued support for renewables, we view all that as positive towards our ability to keep a low-cost profile of the future benefits associated with our capital plan. We're really, really, I guess I'll start by saying I'm cautiously optimistic that there will be and infrastructure bills that will be passed. Every day there's new news one way or the other in terms of how that's going, depending on who you hear from. But as you know, we're pretty well positioned in the hydrogen space. We have a significant fleet of existing nuclear plants. We're deploying a lot of new renewables. So all of that focus on Tax credits, particularly production tax credits, is really, we view that as highly supportive of what we were already planning on working forward with. And we would anticipate having the capability, at least as we're interpreting things today, and I know there's a lot of devil in the details to come, to be able to utilize as much of that as we can for the benefit of our customers. But again, as you know, we're very excited about the hydrogen space. As I mentioned in my remarks, we made the filing associated with getting the Orange County Advanced Power Station, which will be hydrogen capable, approved in Texas with all the hydrogen infrastructure that's around us. That'll be very, very important for not only us, but for the industry as we look to utilize Long duration storage, a critical factor in anyone's ability to get to net zero by 2050. And I'd also say that's well supported by the fact that the industrial gas customers in our service territory are all exploring green, blue, and pink hydrogen as well. And so I think specifically we'll have to see exactly where everything ends up if it gets done. But we see it as really a way for us to accelerate what we're already trying to do.
spk03: Great. That's helpful. Thank you. And then we're just curious on what drove the delay on the Sunflower Solar Project. If you could say that it was maybe supply chain related or if there's anything else specific that you can point to there. Thanks.
spk02: Yeah, it wasn't really supply chain related. It was just some on-site challenges that our partner ran into, but we expect it to be constructed early next year, and then we'll proceed on with it.
spk03: Got it. Thanks. I'll leave that there.
spk06: Appreciate it.
spk08: Thank you.
spk06: Our next question comes from Julian Dunham-Smith with Bank of America.
spk07: Hey, good morning, team. Thanks for the time. So just first off, I'll leave some of the bigger details for EEI, but Just following up here on the opportunities around renewables and the reconciliation bill, I mean, to the extent to which direct pay happens here, just how meaningful could this be, especially given the prospective acceleration that you all are talking about coming with GEI here?
spk02: You're talking about the refundable PTCs?
spk07: Yeah, the refundability and how that improves your credit metrics, hopefully.
spk02: Yeah, that would certainly help. It'll also... potentially change some of the investment profile that we have because right now we're assuming tax equity partners for all of our own transactions to facilitate the investment tax credit today. And to the extent that there are refundable PTCs that are available and it's more economic for our customers, then I think that we would be moving more towards 100% ownership instead of something that looks like 70%, 75% ownership of each facility.
spk07: Got it, right. So it's both capital opportunity and credit metric enhancing, or you're saying it's not decisively credit enhancing because of the higher capital and you haven't updated the equity component yet either?
spk02: Yeah, I mean, it would probably help a little bit, but, you know, it's – I don't know if it's going to – it's more neutral, I would think, for us right now.
spk07: Got it. Okay, that's good color. Thank you. And then separately, a little bit further afield here, Any progress on transmission here in SIRI? I mean, I know that's been out there for a bit. Obviously, we've got some others in the sector resolving or de-settling their issues here. Any thoughts?
spk01: This is Rod. Good morning. On the SIRI front, a short answer is no. The litigation matters that have been pending for some time, as we shared before, FERC doesn't have any specified timeline. We are hopeful that between the end of this year, beginning of 2022, we'll begin to see some resolution, I think starting first with the ROE cap structure matter. But the short answer is no material changes because it's all in FERC's domain at this point.
spk07: All right, excellent. Well, I'll leave it to EEI to follow up with you further, guys. Best of luck. See you soon. Thank you, Wayne.
spk06: Our next question comes from Durgess Chopper with Evercore ISI.
spk07: Hey, I'll cede it back to someone else. My questions have been already asked and answered.
spk06: Thank you.
spk08: Thank you.
spk06: Our next question comes from Steve Fleischman with The Wolf Research.
spk05: Hey, good morning. Good morning, Steve. By the way, Rod, my team is putting in a good word for Wake Forest.
spk01: No comment.
spk05: We've got two graduates. So just first on the support from the federal government, could you just talk a little bit more about the path to – is there certain bills? Is this just going to be an executive order? Can you just talk a little bit more about how we'll learn about this?
spk08: Sure. I'll start and let Rod jump in because Rod's actually been down this path before post-Katrina as it relates to CDBG funds that were acquired for New Orleans. As you know, Governor Edwards previously has made an appeal to the government for funds to support recovery for a variety of reasons as it relates to 2020 storms as well as Hurricane Ida. And in those requests of the administration, he's put in about $1.2, $1.3 billion for utility restoration offsets for our customers. The process has been for us to work with our congressional delegations, the LPSC, the city council, and the governor to try and convince effectively the federal government to appropriate dollars to go. They would go through HUD to the state in the form of community development block grants and then We are also petitioning for HUD to provide an opportunity for a waiver so that the governor can actually allocate those dollars to investor-owned utilities, in addition to what munis and co-ops and housing and other things that obviously are very, very important. So we're working through that process right now. A lot of us have spent time with our delegations. We've spent time at the White House. We're spending time with the agency. secretaries. So all of that is in place to try and work toward offsetting the costs associated with not only Hurricane Ida, but this would also go back to 2020 storms, which was also part of the governor's request. I don't know, Rod, if you have anything.
spk01: Yeah, and I guess the only thing that remains uncertain is the timing. Just like I made reference to FERC and some of the There's no specific timetable for the administration, Congress, or HUD to act on the governor's request. It's now in their hands. I think the most significant development from our vantage point is that we have clear alignment amongst the delegation and express support from the White House and our governor for the utility customers. That's a big deal as we think back to our experiences during Katrina, it took a while to get that alignment, that the objective of offsetting on dollar-for-dollar basis the regulatory compact impact of storms on customer bills. There's no lack of alignment around the desire to achieve that. So that part we've been able to close the gap on quicker than in prior years. storm or disaster events, now comes the ultimate decision-making process of allocating those funds to the state so that the governor could then distribute. Timeline's uncertain, Steve.
spk05: Okay. And then the same alignment as you talked about, focusing on better resiliency, I mean, I think you've talked about how your newer polls have held up well to these two storms, and but there's just a huge amount of pole replacement that could be needed to broadly do that. So just as we're thinking about this, is this something that would likely end up being done through kind of a rate-based type mechanism or something different than that?
spk01: If we were to accelerate the capital program, the short answer is yes. Obviously, we're mindful of affordability in this conversation, but if we were accelerating a resiliency build-out, you would expect that we would seek some type of alignment from the regulators with some type of recovery rider that might have to operate outside of an existing FRP or some adjustment to the FRP to attack this specific asset kind of renewal and resiliency plan. So it'd play out on a jurisdiction by jurisdiction basis, as you know. But yeah, I think the answer to your question is yes, it would play as a rate-based play. but on an accelerated basis outside of the normal rate making.
spk05: Okay. And that's helpful. And then just on the, as you mentioned, you lowered the equity financing need by more than half when you did the update a month or two ago. Just any better sense on timing and are you still looking at options other than just straight equity issuance to facilitate that?
spk02: Yeah, Steve, this is Drew. So, you know, we haven't updated anything except, you know, what we've said before. That's through 2024. And, you know, we've also said that we could accomplish all of this through the ATM program. That doesn't mean that we aren't looking at blocks or preferreds. Those are still out there. But, you know, we would look to do those opportunistically depending on market conditions. And, you know, we've been executing successfully with the ATM over the last several months. We'll continue to do that unless, like I said, an opportunistic point comes along and we can execute with the block. But otherwise, we'll just continue to complete with our ATM, and we should get it done fairly quickly would be my guess.
spk05: Okay, great. Thank you very much.
spk00: Thanks, Steve.
spk06: Our last question comes from Jonathan Arnold with Vertical Research.
spk00: Good morning, guys. Good morning, Jonathan. Just a couple – from your comment, Leo, at the beginning, that there's no sort of outstanding issue with the New Orleans City Council, I was good to hear. I recall at one point they were – they sort of – Prevented you from implementing the formula rate is it does the decision effectively last week You have just really move you beyond that. Is that what we're saying?
spk01: Yes Yes, the decision to implement the the FRP basically obviates the conversation around any pushback on the normal operation of the formula rate plan as we had settled with the council so that is a net positive in the continuing discussions with the council.
spk00: Great. Thank you, Rod. Just more broadly, there's started to be, I feel, some noise around the cost-benefit of NTG's membership of MITRE in some of your jurisdictions. I'm just curious whether you have any perspective as to whether we might see any changes and what kind of you know, what venues throughout the forum?
spk08: So, Jonathan, obviously, our participation in MISO to date has been very valuable to our customers. We've saved about $1.75 billion nominally over the period of times, you know, since 2014 when we joined and to 2013. So, certainly, there's been a benefit to MISO where Where we see our regulators taking issue, and actually we're supportive of them, is just making sure that we get the allocation of costs of major transmission projects done correctly and making sure that, as we would like to see, that the people who get the benefit to major transmission upgrades are the ones who actually bear the costs of major transmission upgrades as opposed to people who don't get any benefit bearing that cost. So we're aligned with our regulators in that concept and that theory. We're certainly not in a position where we're looking to exit MISO at any point in time. We entered MISO because of the benefits. We've obviously seen those benefits. But as the world evolves and as capital plans evolve and the transition to renewables evolves Differently, north versus south, we just need to make sure that we continue to evolve the process cost allocation in a thoughtful way. That's all.
spk00: Great. Thank you, Ed.
spk08: Thank you.
spk06: I'll now turn the call back over to Bill Adler for closing remarks.
spk02: Thank you, Kevin, and thanks to everyone for participating this morning. Our quarterly report on Form 10-Q is due to the SEC on November 5th. and provides more details and disclosures about our financial statements. Events that occur prior to the date of our 10 filing that provide additional evidence of conditions that existed at the date of the balance sheet would be reflected in our financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Also, as a reminder, we maintain a webpage as part of Entergy's investor relations website called regulatory and other information. which provides key updates on regulatory proceedings and important milestones on our strategic execution. While some of this information may be considered material information, you should not rely exclusively on this page for all relevant company information. And this concludes our call. Thank you very much.
spk06: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's presentation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.
spk02: Wonderful day.
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