IDACORP, Inc.

Welcome to IDACorp's first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Today's call is being recorded and our webcast is live. A replay will be available later today and for the next 12 months on the IDACorp website. If you need assistance at any time during the presentation, please press star zero on your phone. I will now turn the call over to Justin Forsberg, Director of Investor Relations and Treasury.

Thanks, Regina, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you tuning in for our call. This morning, we issued and posted to IDACorp's website our first quarter 2023 earnings release and the associated Form 10-Q. The slides that accompany today's call are also available on IDACorp's website. We'll refer to those slides by number throughout the call today. As detailed on slide two, our discussion today includes forward-looking statements, including earnings guidance, spending forecasts, and regulatory plans which reflect our current views on what the future holds, but are subject to several risks and uncertainties, including uncertainties surrounding the impacts of future economic conditions. This cautionary note is also included in more detail for your review in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from statements made today, and we caution against placing undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. As shown on slide three, on today's call we have Lisa Groh, IDACorp's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Buckham, IDACorp's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In addition to Lisa and Brian, we have other members of our management team available for a Q&A session following our prepared remarks. Slide four shows our quarterly financial results. IDACorp's first quarter 2023 earnings per diluted share were $1.11, compared with 91 cents during last year's first quarter. Today, we also affirmed our full year 2023 IDA Corp earnings guidance estimate in the range of $4.95 to $5.15 per diluted share, which includes our current expectation that Idaho Power will utilize approximately $15 million of additional tax credits that are available to support earnings as a 9.4% return on equity level in the Idaho jurisdiction under its Idaho regulatory settlement stipulation. These estimates assume normal weather conditions and a return to more normal power supply expenses. I'll now turn the call over to Lisa.

Thank you, Justin, and thanks to everyone for joining us on the call today. I'm going to start with some discussion on customer growth, which remains strong across the Idaho Power Service Area. As noted on slide five, we've seen 2.2% total customer growth since the first quarter of last year. with our residential customer growth rate slightly higher at 2.4%. We now proudly serve more than 620,000 customers. A notable portion of our future load growth is from large load additions on the commercial and industrial side. We have several big projects set to come online this spring and summer, including the True West beef processing plant, a Chobani facility, and the Stowe Company's manufacturing facility. Micron has also broken ground on the first phase of its planned Boise expansion project, which will add 6.5 million square feet of new building space over the next several years. I'll also mention our Clean Energy Your Way program. You'll recall we made several filings with the Idaho Commission to establish new offerings to help both residential and business customers reach their clean energy goals. While we're still waiting for approval of the Clean Energy Your Way program, The retail agreement for Micron has been approved, as well as the other power purchase agreements to serve both Micron and Meta. The economy within Idaho Power Service Area has continued to outperform national trends, and sources we look at suggest that the trend will continue. Moody's most recent GDP calculations for our service area forecast a forecast strong growth of 4.7% in 2023 and 4.4% in 2024. Employment across our service area has increased 2% since first quarter 2022, and our region continues to be a great place to live and work, powered by the reliable, affordable, clean energy Idaho Power provides. Currently, as a result of this growth, we expect to file a general rate case with the Idaho Commission on June 1st. requesting rate changes for Idaho customers effective January 1, 2024. We filed our 60-day notice of intent on March 31, and we are currently preparing the filing. A general rate case filing in Oregon will likely follow. As we assemble the case, we're working hard to keep the request below 10% as we're mindful of the impact that rate increases have on our customers. Our last general rate case was in 2011, and our customer count has increased by 23% over the past decade. To serve that growing customer base, we've made significant investments in our infrastructure to maintain, improve, and protect our system. We'll continue to have considerable ongoing investments in response to the rapid customer and load growth we're experiencing. We've worked hard to keep our O&M low for the past decade, with an average annual growth rate of only 1% since 2012. That's a total increase of just over $50 million to serve those 120,000 new customers. We expect our upcoming case to largely focus on the rate-based additions needed to reliably serve our customers. Our case will demonstrate that we have a strong track record of managing expenses and have made the necessary investment to continue providing safe, reliable electric service to our growing customer base. While we understand a rate case could be difficult news for customers, particularly following this spring's power cost adjustment, we are confident in the case we plan to present and in the constructive regulatory environment we've worked hard to maintain. Turning now to slide six, You'll see the latest on our large transmission project, which will be key resources for meeting our increasing demand while moving away from coal-fired resources. We currently expect to break ground on the Boardman to Hemingway 300-mile transmission line project this year. In March, the Oregon State Supreme Court affirmed the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council's final order and site certificate for B2H. now giving us unappealable permits to begin construction. Also in March, we executed an agreement with the Bonneville Power Administration to transfer their 24% interest in B2H to Idaho Power, bringing our interest in the project to 45%. Under the agreement, BPA has agreed to pay Idaho Power for long-term service. In addition to B2H, we're continuing to work with Pacific Corps to plan construction of certain segments of the 1,000-mile Gateway West transmission line project that connects eastern Wyoming with southwestern Idaho. The project will help both companies meet rising demand and reliability needs. Next, on slide 7, we included an update of our anticipated needs for additional energy and capacity resources in 2026 and 2027. We currently have RFPs out for projects to help us meet those future needs, which we estimate to be approximately 350 megawatts of peak capacity and up to 1,100 megawatts of variable energy resources. Our latest five-year CapEx forecast included about 200 million in 2027 related to these RFPs. But those are still rough estimates until we work through the RFP and our 2023 IRP processes. We've recently announced or brought online several new energy resources that are outlined on this slide. As a reminder, we expect the 2023 IRP to show a five-year forecasted annual growth rate of 5.5% on retail sales and 3.7% on annual peak. These preliminary numbers are close to double what was forecasted in the 2021 IRP and are subject to change as our large load customers finalize their plans. Continued growth across our service area underscores the importance of our large transmission project and the need for additional energy and capacity resources. In closing, as highlighted on slide 8, environmental, social, and governance efforts remain key areas of focus for IDACOR. I invite you to read our recently published 2022 ESG report, which highlights our many environmental programs, community giving, volunteerism, and more. I am so proud of our employees who continue the tradition of stewardship that has been at the heart of our company for more than a century. The report is available on the Articor website. With that, I'll hand things over to Brian for a financial overview and our expectations going forward.