Portland General Electric Co

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Portland General Electric Company's third quarter 2020 earnings results conference call. Today is Friday, October 30th, 2020. This call is being recorded, and as such, all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer period. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key on your telephone keypad. If you do intend to ask a question, please avoid the use of speaker phones. For opening remarks, I will turn the conference call over to Portland General Electric's Senior Director of Investor Relations, Chardon Jaramillo. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Jimmy. Good morning, everyone. I'm pleased that you're able to join us today. Before we begin this morning, I'd like to remind you that we have prepared a presentation to supplement our discussion, which we'll be referencing throughout the call. The slides are available on our website at investors.portlandgeneral.com. Referring to slide two, some of our remarks this morning will constitute forward-looking statements. We caution you that such statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from our expectations. For a description of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, please refer to our earnings press release and our most recent periodic reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, which are available on our website. Leading our discussion today are Maria Pope, President and CEO, and Jim Lobdell, Senior Vice President of Finance, CFO, and Treasurer. Following their prepared remarks, we will open the line for your questions. Now, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Maria.

Thanks, Sheridan, and thank you all for joining us today. I hope that you and your families are staying safe and healthy during what continues to be a very challenging time. Portland General and all of us here have been put to the test several times this quarter. Our team has tackled difficult issues head on and took swift actions. I'd like to discuss each of these two events. First, at the end of August, we announced that energy training activity in certain wholesale electricity markets would result in significant losses. Upon learning of the issue, our Board of Directors immediately formed a special committee to to review the energy trading situation. This review is ongoing. At the time, our team worked quickly and in early September, we announced that we no longer had net market exposure. I want to make two things clear. This effect of trading losses was isolated to the third quarter and the trading losses had no impact on our operations. Second, we experienced one of the most destructive wildfire seasons on record. In responding to the wildfires, the entire organization demonstrated its resilience and unwavering focus on customer safety. At the onset of a historic windstorm and high-risk wildfire conditions, we worked in partnership with local authorities and emergency responders to proactively shut off power in several high-risk areas. During the course of the week, we not only enacted public safety power shutoffs, but we also restored power to about 250,000 customers. Over the last several years, our investments in new resources, vegetation management, as well as inspection and maintenance of our equipment enabled us to act swiftly, which helps emergency responders safely fight the wildfires. We continue to invest in improving our system, including steel poles, substation upgrades, distribution automation, and other equipment. These and other initiatives build on our strong operational foundation. With growing demand in the Pacific Northwest, these needs are more important now than ever. Our vision for a clean energy future drives our strategy. There's a clear need for urgency in addressing climate change and to meet our customers' desire to be served with increasingly clean, renewable energy. We are building on our 11-year track record of having the largest renewable energy program in the United States, with over 25% of customers buying 100% green energy. Today, we have a number of projects and initiatives underway. Our agreement with Avangrad to source power from the largest solar facility in Oregon will serve an equivalent of 40,000 homes. We're furthering our investment in battery storage, testing several projects across our service territory. Between the Wheat Ridge Wind, Solar, and Battery Storage project and these other investments, we have a lot of important work underway throughout our state. With year-to-date earnings of $1.15, we're on track to finish at the upper end of our guidance range of $1.40 to $1.60 per share. Our underlying operations remain strong, and we continue to find efficiencies and reduce costs throughout our organization. Finally, I want to recognize the hard work of our coworkers and first responders who, in the middle of a pandemic, once above and beyond to protect our community. Before I turn the call over to Jim, I would like to take a moment to thank him. As I'm sure many of you have seen yesterday afternoon, we announced that after a long and successful career at PGE, Jim plans to retire at the end of the year. I can't overstate what Jim has done for PGE throughout his 36-year career at the company. He actively lives our company values, and his dedication and leadership have been instrumental in driving financial improvements and strategic initiatives. Jim is well recognized as a leader across the West and played an important role alongside other utility leaders in creating the Western wholesale financial power markets. On a personal note, his camaraderie and counsel have meant the world to me and the officer team. In connection with Jim's retirement, Jim Agello, the former executive vice president and CFO of Hawaiian Electric Industries, has been appointed senior advisor, effective November 30th. He'll step into the CFO role on January 1st. We are excited to have Jim on board. We also announced that Brett Sims, our senior director of strategy, commercial, and regulatory affairs, has been appointed vice president of strategy, planning, and energy supply effective today. A top priority for Jim and me, as well as the entire management team, is to ensure a smooth transition. Finally, I want to add that we're pleased to welcome Michael Lewis and Jim Torgerson to our Board of Directors. Both Michael and Jim bring valuable skills and extensive utility experience that will support our efforts to ensure a clean energy future for Oregonians. And now let me turn it over to Jim. Thank you.