IDACORP, Inc.

Welcome to IDACORP's fourth quarter and year-end 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 this presentation, please press star zero on your phone. I will now turn the call over to Amy Shaw, Vice President of Finance, Compliance, and Risk.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining our call. This morning, we issued and posted to IDACorp's website our fourth quarter and year-end 2023 earnings release and our Form 10-K. The slides that accompany today's call are also available on IDACorp's website. During the call, we'll refer to the slides by number. As noted on slide two, our discussion today includes forward-looking statements, including earnings guidance, spending forecasts, and regulatory plans that reflect our current views on what the future holds, but are subject to risks and uncertainties. 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. This cautionary note is included in more detail for your review in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As shown on slide three, Lisa Groh, IDA Corp's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Buckham, IDACorp's Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer, will be presenting today. 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 full year financial results. IDACorp's 2023 diluted earnings per share were 514, compared with 511 last year. Both 2023 revenues and earnings are IDACorp's highest in the history of the company, and 2023 was the 16th consecutive year of growth in earnings per share, which is something to celebrate. Today, we initiated our full year 2024 IDA Corp earnings guidance estimate in the range of 525 to 545 diluted earnings per share, which includes our expectation that Idaho Power will utilize approximately 35 to 60 million of additional tax credits that are available to support earnings at the 9.12% return on equity level in the Idaho jurisdiction under its Idaho general rate case settlement stipulation. These estimates assume historically normal weather conditions throughout the year and normal power supply expenses. Also, it is important to note that approximately $25 million of our expected usage of additional tax credits relates to amortization of incremental tax credits generated from Idaho Power's investment in 2023 battery storage projects, which you may recall we removed from the revenue requirement as part of our 2023 general rate case proceeding in Idaho. Now I'll turn the call over to Lisa.

Thanks, Amy, and thanks to everyone for joining us on today's call. I want to begin my remarks by highlighting Amy's comment on IdaCorp completing our 16th year of earnings growth as shown on slide five. Idaho Power also didn't use any accumulated deferred investment tax credits in 2023, preserving the full balance of credits in the Idaho regulatory stipulation for future earnings support. I want to thank our entire team for all the efforts that have contributed to this success. As we turn to 2024, we remain focused on keeping our employees safe, building for the future to keep pace with growing customer demand, keeping prices affordable, working toward our clean energy goal, and seeking innovative ways to serve our customers. Our ability to deliver strong results while meeting the challenges of growth and the ever-shifting energy industry is a testament to our culture and Idaho Power's hardworking employees. Many of the topics I will touch on today will continue to drive our efforts and business strategy throughout 2024 and beyond. Turning to slide six, you'll see that strong growth continues across Idaho Power Service Area. Our customer base grew 2.4% in 2023, and we now serve more than 630,000 customers. With that growth earlier this year, we also set a new winter peak load of 2,719 megawatts, an increase of over 4% from our prior winter peak in 2022. Moody's most recent GDP calculations for our region remain robust, forecasting growth at 3.6% in 2024 and 3.7% in 2025. We believe the reliable, affordable energy Idaho Power provides continues to be a driver for growth across our service area, and our local economy continues to outperform national trends. Idaho Power projects annual peak load growth of 3.7% from 2024 to 2028, based on our 2023 Integrated Resource Plan. This growth includes several new and expanding large load customers, including Meta and Micron. Both of their sites are under construction, and both are participating in our Clean Energy Your Way program, which received commission approval last year and is garnering interest from other large customers, including the City of Boise. The Micron site helped push Idaho to number five in a recent site selector magazine ranking of states with the highest dollar value megaprojects breaking ground across the country. Overall, economic development continues at a rapid pace, particularly in the manufacturing space. In 2023, we brought online the Stowe Company in Nampa and True West Beef in Jerome. We also continue to have a robust pipeline of potential large commercial and industrial customers, including data centers, inquiring about service. With so many finding our service area increasingly attractive, there's likely some upside in our load forecast that we haven't accounted for at this point, and we are considering what additional infrastructure would be needed to serve this potential load. Even with this growth, we continue to provide strong reliability for our customers. In 2023, we had our second best year for reliability with fewer customer outages, which resulted in less O&M costs related to outages. Turning to slide 7, the Idaho Commission approved the settlement agreement in our Idaho general rate case in December. The settlement, which resulted in new rates effective on January 1 of this year, resulted in an overall rate increase of $54.7 million, or an average of 4.25% for Idaho customers. This was a positive outcome for our company and our customers and underscores our constructive regulatory environment. It helps us recover some of the significant infrastructure investments we've made to serve our growing customer base since our last general rate case in 2011. This outcome also benefits our cash flows as we continue to develop additional infrastructure and maintain the reliability of our system. As noted on slide eight, Idaho Power filed its Oregon general rate case in December 2023, and that case will be processed throughout much of 2024. We asked for a total annual rate increase of $10.7 million in Oregon. We expect to make additional rate filings as we experience significant growth in our service area. For example, earlier this week, we provided notice to the Idaho Commission of our intent to file a general rate case or a limited issue rate proceeding as soon as June 1st of this year. We're still working to determine what type of case we might file, which will include conversations with Idaho staff and other key stakeholders. We continue to plan for and add new resources that will meet our growing demand. Turning to slide 9, in 2023, Idaho Power installed a total of 131 megawatts of energy storage capacity, the first utility scale batteries in Idaho. The table on slide nine doesn't account for an additional 11 megawatts of batteries installed at several distribution substations in 2023. These systems are already helping to maintain reliability and affordability during periods of high use. The 100 megawatt Franklin Solar Project in southern Idaho is scheduled to come online in 2024 and will include an additional 60 megawatts of company-owned battery storage. These resources will be instrumental as we move away from coal-fired generation and integrate additional intermittent renewable energy resources. As highlighted on slide 10, we published our 2023 integrated resource plan in September. The plan shows Idaho Power expects to be completely out of coal-fired generation by 2030. We're planning to convert our remaining coal-fired units to natural gas. which will reduce the carbon emissions of those units by about half and help keep our system reliable and affordable. We expect two of those units to be ready by this summer. Evaluations on RFPs for 2026 and 2027 resource needs are ongoing. You may recall Idaho Power has self-bills included in that process. At this point, the separate evaluation team has a shortlist of projects, and they've initiated contract negotiations with the shortlist bidders. We expect to execute contracts in the coming months. As shown on slide 11, 2023 was a big year for our high voltage transmission project, especially Boardman to Hemingway. We obtained certificates of public convenience and necessity for B2H in Oregon and Idaho. We also finalized an agreement with the Bonneville Power Administration and Pacific Corps that transfers BPA share of B2H to Idaho Power. We expect to break ground this year and finish the project no earlier than 2026. Idaho Power and Pacificor are also working together on the 1,000-mile Gateway West transmission line, which will help both companies meet rising customer demand and improve reliability. We're currently discussing with Pacificor the timing of construction for the segments most important to Idaho Power and the specific ownership allocation of those segments. In addition, we continue to look at other transmission projects that will be key to supplying reliable, affordable, clean energy in the future. As I close my remarks, I want to reiterate my thanks to our employees and the leadership team for all the great work they did to drive our success in 2023. As I reflect on the year, it's incredible how much we accomplished. The challenges of growth, rising costs, and the increasing demand for clean energy while maintaining safety, reliability, and affordability are real. But it's clear to me we have the right team in place to thrive in this fast-moving energy landscape. With that, I'll hand the presentation over to Brian for an overview of financial results and outlook. Brian.