Pinnacle West Capital Corporation

The floor is yours.

Thank you, Matt. I would like to thank everyone for participating in this conference call and webcast to review our fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings, recent developments, and operating performance. Our speakers today will be our Chairman and CEO, Jeff Goldner, and our CFO, Andrew Cooper. Ted Geisler, APS President. Jacob Tetlow, Executive Vice President of Operations. And Jose Esparza, Senior Vice President of Policy, are also here with us. First, I need to cover a few details with you. The slides that we are using are available on our investor relations website along with our early release and related information. Today's comments and our slides contain forward-looking statements based on current expectations and actual results may differ materially from expectations. Our annual 2022 Form 10-K was filed this morning. Please refer to that document for forward-looking statements, cautionary language, as well as the risk factors and MD&A sections. which identify risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our disclosures. A replay of this call will be available shortly on our website for the next 30 days. It will also be available by telephone through March 6, 2023. Now I'll turn the call over to Jeff.

Thanks, Amanda, and thank you all for joining us today. Good morning. In looking back on 2022, it was no doubt one of our most challenging years in recent memory as we faced major financial headwinds, and a financial reset resulting from the outcome of our last rate case. I'm going to provide several updates today and share the successes we were able to achieve despite the challenges we faced. Coming out of the last rate case, we laid out a comprehensive plan and strategy, and we met or exceeded nearly every target we set for ourselves, including delivering strong service reliability to our customers. We made significant progress in the last year, but we're not done, and we look forward to continuing to execute our plan. Turning now to regulatory, we came out of the last rate case fully committed to improving our regulatory relationships, and we've seen progress as a result of our focus in that area. We received constructive decisions for all key items heard by the previous bench during 2022, including our financing application last December. We started 2023 with two new commissioners and a new chair. Commissioner Thompson and Commissioner Myers joined the bench in January, and Commissioner O'Connor was elected chairman. We've already seen constructive actions and decisions by the new bench, including the creation of a docket to examine ways to reduce regulatory lag. We believe that these conversations are important, and we look forward to working with the Commission on thoughtful solutions. For our pending race days, the Administrative Law Judge issued a procedural order in December outlining the schedule. The first round of staff and intervener testimony is due in May, with the hearing set to commence in early August. We look forward to working with the parties and the Commission through the rate case process and in gaining additional regulatory clarity. Our number one goal continues to be doing what's right for the people and prosperity of Arizona, which includes working collaboratively with the Commission and building a more constructive relationship. Turning to the operations side, I want to start by recognizing our field team's exceptional execution in 2022. I'm especially proud of our employees for prioritizing safety and ending the year with significantly lower employee injuries. Three low energy SIFs and our lowest number of OSHA recordable injuries on record. We had one of the most hazardous and damaging summer storm seasons in recent history, where we saw a record number of poles damaged. And for context, we replaced over 800 poles, which is about 500 more than an average summer. In addition, while parts of the Southwest region experienced capacity shortages again in 2022, our careful long-term planning and resource adequacy allowed us to serve our customers reliably. Additionally, we remain engaged in the Western wholesale market, which allowed us to make off-system sales and to create savings for APS customers. Importantly, those off-system sales directly benefit APS customers by lowering our overall costs while helping maintain regional grid stability. And finally, our generation units performed extremely well, with our non-nuclear fleet recording a summertime equivalent availability factor, EAF, of 95%. and we achieved a capacity factor of 100.2% at the Palo Verde Generating Station. We recognize the importance of creating customer value and remain focused on improving our customer experience. Our employees are committed to putting customers first and working towards our goal of achieving an industry-leading, best-in-class customer experience. As a result of this commitment, we made extraordinary progress on that front in 2022, with APS earning ratings from its customers, making it among the most improved utilities in the nation for both residential and business customer satisfaction measured by J.D. Power. Compared to 2021, APS achieved quartile gains in every single driver of residential and business customer satisfaction. firmly lifting the company into the second quartile nationally for residential customers and the first quartile nationally for business customers. Consequently, overall satisfaction is now well above industry benchmarks when compared to the company's large investor-owned peers. We also continue to make progress on our resource procurement and clean energy commitment. Since announcing our goal to reach 100% clean carbon-free energy by 2050 three years ago, We've procured over 2,100 megawatts of clean and affordable energy resources. Additionally, as previously discussed, we issued an all-source RFP last year for another 1,000 to 1,500 megawatts of new resources to be in service from 2025 to 2027. And we continue to work through finalizing procurement decisions from that RFP. These substantial investments are essential resources designed to help us keep pace with Arizona's tremendous growth at the same time electricity capacity markets are tightening across the entire West. Looking forward, our goals for 2023 include continuously improving our customer communication and engagement, achieving a constructive outcome in our pending rate case, and reliably serving customers through the tremendous growth in our service territory. And I want to once again recognize the near-term headwinds that are created by the unfavorable outcome of our previous rate case and how it will continue to make 2023 challenging. However, we believe in our ability to provide long-term value to both customers and shareholders, and we look forward to executing our plan and continuing our proven cost management efforts, all against the backdrop of Arizona's extraordinary economic expansion. So I want to thank you for your time today, and I'm going to turn the call over to Andrew who will talk about our fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings and our forward-looking financial expectations. Andrew.