IDACORP, Inc.

later today and for the next 12 months on the IDACorp website. If you need assistance at any time during the presentation today, please press star zero on your phone. I would now like to 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 second quarter 2024 earnings release and the Form 10-Q. The slides we will reference during today's call are available on IDACorp's website. 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, and those are all 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. Our cautionary note on forward-looking statements and various risk factors are included in more detail for your review in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As shown on slide three, we have Lisa Groh, IdaCorp's President and CEO, and Brian Buckham, IdaCorp's Senior Vice President, CFO, and Treasurer presenting today. We also have other members of our management team available for a Q&A session following our prepared remarks. Slide four shows a summary of our financial results. Idaho's second quarter 2024 diluted earnings per share were 171 compared with 135 for last year's second quarter. In the second quarter of this year, we recorded 7.5 million of additional tax credit amortization under the Idaho regulatory stipulation, compared to 3.75 million in the second quarter of last year. For the first half of the year, earnings per diluted share were 267 compared with 246 during the first half of last year. Those results include additional tax credit amortization of $20 million for the first half of 2024 compared to $7.5 million during the first half of last year. Today, we updated certain key metrics and guidance for 2024. We raised the lower end of our previously reported full-year 2024 earnings guidance by 5 cents to the range of $5.30 to $5.45 per diluted share. We also improved the top end of our expectation of additional tax credits Idaho Power will use to support earnings at the 9.12% return on equity in the Idaho jurisdiction to a range of $35 to $50 million. Previously, the top end of that range was $60 million. We're pleased to see our strong operating performance reduce our estimate on tax credit usage. These estimates assume historically normal weather conditions and normal power supply expenses for the remainder of the year. Now I'll turn the call over to Lisa.

Thank you, Amy, and thanks to everyone joining us today. I'll start off with some highlights. We had strong financial results during the second quarter, driven by continued customer growth, higher than expected customer usage, and the revenue benefits of our January 1 rate changes in our Idaho jurisdiction. We've had an exceptionally hot summer so far, especially during the last part of June and most of July, setting us up for a strong third quarter. As Amy mentioned, this allowed us to raise the lower end of our earnings guidance range and improve the top end of our ADITC guidance range for this year. I'm also excited to announce that we hit a record peak load of 3,793 megawatts on July 22nd, and in fact broke the prior record for three consecutive hours that day. Next, I want to talk about four things. Customer growth, our regulatory filings, the status of major projects, and how we're serving new record peak loads. We continue to see robust customer growth and economic expansion across Idaho Power Service Area. As shown on slide five, our customer base has grown 2.6% since last year's second quarter and 2.8% for residential customers. Moody's is forecasting robust GDP growth in our area of 4.3% in 2024 and 3.8% in 2025, outperforming national trends. We see increasing interest from projects evaluating Idaho power service area. Actual and prospective projects are coming from a variety of industries, including manufacturing, food processing, and of course data centers. And they are exploring both rural and urban sites. For energy intensive projects, Idaho Power has its potential customers invest in studies to ensure we can provide an accurate cost estimate and timeline to serve their needs. So we have a couple of those studies in process now. Serving that growing load requires infrastructure, and we continue to be ahead of our construction schedules to support two of our largest customer projects, the Meta Data Center in CUNA and the Micron expansion in Boise. Of note, the first transformer for the new 15-acre chip substation being built for Micron arrived at the end of June. We also recently joined Lamb Weston in celebrating their successful completion of a $415 million expansion at its facility in American Falls. which made it one of the largest frozen potato processing facilities in the world. As noted on slide six, our regulatory filings in Idaho and Oregon continue to move forward. In our Oregon general rate case, we reached a settlement that, if approved, would result in an overall rate increase of $6.7 million, or around 12%, effective this October. The main driver in that case is the significant investment we've made in the grid to serve our customers' growing energy needs since our last Oregon general rate case in 2011. In Idaho, we've requested an increase of $99 million, or 7.3%, through a limited scope case that focuses on recovering only the infrastructure investment and labor expenses not included in our last general rate case. The limited scope case is in the early stages and we're awaiting the procedural schedule. We suspect settlement procedures or proceedings could start in late September or early October. We're working hard to acquire new resources to meet current and future demand. Turning to slide seven, as part of our RFP process, we selected a 200 megawatt battery storage system to be owned by Idaho Power. We're also negotiating for additional resources to come online in summer 2026. For 2027 capacity and energy deficits, we're still working through the short list in negotiating with bidders. As we look beyond 2027, we've initiated an all-source RFP for resource needs in 2028 or later. We believe we'll need more dispatchable resources in the future. It continues to be an all-hands-on-deck effort. Transmission remains key to meeting demand, improving reliability, and optimizing the movement of energy in the West. As I mentioned during our last call, delays in the final stages of permitting on the Boardman to Hemingway project have likely pushed the in-service date to no earlier than 2027. We're disappointed in the delays, of course, but we're working through the process. On Gateway West, our second major transmission line project, We're continuing to work with our partner Pacificor on the timing and configuration of that line and hope to get started on our segment soon. We're also in discussions with the developer of the Southwest Intertide project, a third major transmission line, which would add capacity to the desert southwest. In addition to these transmission projects, we plan to convert our remaining coal-fired units to natural gas. which reduces the carbon emissions of those units by about half, but maintains their generating capacity. We've already successfully converted two units at the Jim Bridger plant, which have been helping us serve peak load during the summer heat waves. This is a low-cost solution that reduces carbon emissions while keeping dispatchable energy resources available, and we plan to convert our remaining coal-fired units at Bridger and Balmy over the next few years. In June, we signed an agreement with Nevada Energy, NV Energy, to convert the two units at the North Valley plant to natural gas by the end of 2025. Our hydropower outlook remains strong thanks to a good water supply. We have almost all of our hydro units available because of the multi-year efforts we've made to refurbish our hydro fleet. Another growing piece of our resource portfolio is battery storage. The 100 megawatt Franklin solar project in southern Idaho came online in June, accompanied by 60 megawatts of company-owned batteries that came online in July. We also have 36 megawatts of batteries at the Hemingway Station that are scheduled to come online in August. These batteries are instrumental in improving the reliability and resilience of our system and meeting increasing load demands. Wildfire season has been very active in the West, including within our own service area. Fires are not a new phenomenon, and for many years, we've focused on increased investments in system resiliency and mitigation efforts. We've done a lot to harden our system. However, fires can still cause outages and require infrastructure replacement. Working with first responders, we've been able to keep our community safe. I'm so impressed by our employees across our company for their dedication and ability to work through the many challenges that accompany wildfires. They've been quick to safely replace poles and restore service to our customers. In addition, I want to thank the firefighters and our public safety partners for the hard work they are doing to contain these fires. We've had a public safety power shutoff plan for several years now. We used it for the first time this year when rare 60 mile per hour winds briefly came across the Boise Front Range and a few other areas. We proactively de-energized our lines in certain areas following public communications, and patrolled them as quickly as possible after the storm passed through. Our protocols worked as planned, and most customer comments were supportive of our proactive approach. I'll close with another look at the weather, which has been some of the hottest on record for most much of Idaho Power Service area. Temperatures in and around Boise have been above 100 degrees for most of July, and they are continuing into August. Our system reliability has been strong despite the heat wave and peak loads. I again want to express how much I appreciate our amazing employees for the work they are doing to safely serve our customers in these challenging conditions. And with that, I will turn the time over to Brian.