IDACORP, Inc.

Welcome to IDACOR First Quarter 2025 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 IDACOR 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 Amy Shaw, Vice President of Finance, Compliance, and Risk.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining our call. The slides we'll 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, financing plans, regulatory actions and plans, and estimates and assumptions that reflect our current views on what the future holds, all of which 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. 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 Goh, President and CEO, Brian Buckham, SEP, CFO and Treasurer, and John Wunderlich, Investor Relations Manager, presenting today. We also have other members of our management team available for a Q&A session following our prepared remarks. Slide 4 shows a summary of our first quarter results. IdaCorp's diluted earnings per share were $1.10 compared with $0.95 for last year's first quarter. Our key operating metrics and guidance are unchanged, except for our hydropower generation forecast, which has improved. We're reaffirming our full-year IdaCorp diluted earnings per share guidance range of $565 to $585. This includes our expectation that Idaho Power will use between $60 and $77 million of additional tax credit amortization. These estimates assume historically normal weather conditions and normal power supply expenses for the rest of the year. Now I'll turn the call over to Lisa.

Thanks, Amy, and thanks to everyone for joining us on the call today. I'll start with a look at the continued customer growth and economic expansion happening across Idaho Power's service area, as you can see on slide five. Our customer base has grown 2.6% since last year's first quarter, including 2.9% for residential customers. The first quarter featured several significant new customer investments in the food processing and warehousing sectors. Our existing customer, Chobani, announced a $500 million expansion of its facility in southern Idaho, increasing production by 50% and adding 500,000 square feet to its plant. The expanded plant will total 1.6 million square feet with 24 production lines, making it the largest natural food production facility in the country. In addition, the tractor supply company broke ground on a new distribution center in Nampa. The 865,000 square foot facility represents an investment of nearly $225 million. Many of our large customers are far along in their projects, as you can see the magnitude of two of those projects on slide six. Recall we have another large customer that made a financial commitment and whose load ramp is expected to start in 2029. So you can see interest remains high from businesses looking to locate and expand within Idaho Power's service area. As a reminder, prospective customers would be incremental to both our existing anticipated load growth rates and our capital plans. Turning to slide seven, the five-year forecast for retail sales growth is 8.3% annually. This forecasted growth continues to drive our need for additional system investments and power purchases to help meet projected load deficits. Like our customers, we're very much in execution mode. We're making great progress on the projects being built to support our customers. Our 80 megawatt 2025 battery project is on track to be operational later this spring, along with a 150 megawatt storage agreement. In addition, our Boise Bench battery storage project was recently permitted. Our agreements on the 600 megawatt Jackalope wind project, 300 megawatts of which will become our first company-owned wind resource, are pending approval from the Idaho Commission. A solar PPA project associated with our Clean Energy Your Way program also came online. Our update on the ongoing RFP process for 2028 is on slide eight. On March 31st, the OPUC acknowledged the 2028 final shortlist, which includes both owned resources and third-party projects. We're currently working through negotiating and contracting process We anticipate providing an update later this year. Transmission is also vital to meeting demand, and our three major projects are highlighted on slide nine. We're working towards breaking ground on the Boardman to Hemingway project this year with an anticipated in-service date as early as 2027. As I mentioned on the year-end call, we've also entered into an agreement to become a partial owner of the Swift North project We expect construction to begin as early as this year and take approximately two years to complete. The Gateway West transmission line also remains in our plans. We've initiated permitting and preliminary design activities and are coordinating with Pacificor on the timing to best meet customer and system needs. We're pressing full speed ahead on bringing these important projects online to help meet customer demands. As we work to put steel in the ground on new infrastructure projects, we've had a lot of questions about tariffs and executive orders. Idaho Power is actively monitoring the situation as we remain focused on affordability for our customers. We've reviewed countries of origin for our supplies, the potential impacts, and alternative plans to mitigate those impacts. Tariffs on battery storage assets in particular are something we're monitoring because we have several projects in progress. At the same time, we're committed to meeting customer demand and must have the energy and capacity available when and where our customers need it. And switching resources for in-process projects is almost impossible given the demands on our system. Turning to regulatory matters, we submitted to the Idaho Commission a notice of intent to file a general rate case in Idaho as early as the end of May. We expect the process for this full general rate case to take approximately seven months. with rates effective no earlier than January 2026. We expect this comprehensive filing will be similar to the full general wage case we filed in 2023. This filing is necessary to recover on the substantial capital investments we've been making to keep our system safe and reliable. We shared some good news with our customers this spring. The combination of the annual power cost and fixed cost adjustments along with a filing related to additional collection of AFUDC, resulted in Idaho Power requesting a substantial rate decrease for all Idaho customers. It would be a net 8.3% decrease for residential customers. The power cost adjustment rate decrease was largely due to completing the final year of collection of the 2023 PCA. The AFUDC filing requests recovery of an additional $30 million of financing costs annually related to the investments we've made in relicensing the Health Canyon complex. The intent of this filing is to provide incremental cash collection and mitigate future rate impact once the license is received. We've also requested a price decrease for Oregon customers in our annual spring power cost adjustment. Shifting our attention to slide 10, We received good news from this year's legislative session in Idaho with Governor Little signing the Wildfire Standard of Care Act. Under this new law, commission-approved wildfire mitigation plans will establish the standard of care and facilitate access to land for wildfire mitigation work. Some additional details on the legislation are in the 10-Q. Idaho Power has had a wildfire mitigation plan, which includes PSPS, in place for several years. and we continue to actively enhance our plan as we pilot new technologies and approaches. I'll close with a look at hydro conditions. We had a great winter with heavy snow in the mountain ranges that helped fuel our 17 hydroelectric projects on the Snake River and its tributaries. Our snowpack currently sits at 108% of normal, which bodes well for another year of solid reservoir storage and ability for us to generate reliable, affordable hydropower. And with that, I will hand the presentation over to Brian for an overview of our financial results.