Portland General Electric Co

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Portland General Electric Company's fourth quarter 2020 earnings results conference call. Today is Friday, February 19, 2021. 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 Senior Director of Investor Relations, Jordan Jaramillo. You please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Shalon. 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 Agello, 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. Thank you.

Thanks, Jordan, and thank you all for joining us today. I'd like to take a moment to formally introduce Jim Agello, our new CFO, who many of you already know. Please join me in extending a warm welcome to Jim. As many of you know, and many of you may also be experiencing yourself firsthand, millions of Americans have been impacted by severe winter storms this past week. In Oregon, we have had a historic storm system move through over a four and a half day period. It brought punishing wind, ice, and snow through three separate storm systems and left hundreds of thousands of PG customers, over a third of our customer base, without power. The significant ice late in the storm system was particularly punishing to trees and power lines. In less than a week, we have restored over 600,000 customers, and we still have about 68,000 customers to go. Many customers have experienced multiple outages. As restoration continues, we appreciate the fatigue and deep frustration of customers who have been without power for extended periods. Our deepest gratitude to everyone who was working 24-7 to restore power. In addition to our PGE coworkers, hundreds of line workers from neighboring utilities and contractors are working tirelessly alongside our crews in very challenging conditions. As we look back over 2020 and into the new year, we are proud of how we have responded to significant challenges that tested us like never before. From the pandemic, civil unrest, trading losses, and historic wildfires to these recent winter storms, our team has remained focused on delivering for customers, supporting the communities we serve. We take very seriously our role as an essential service provider. Given the trading losses, our financial results were disappointing, but we delivered solid operational performance and improved throughout the past year and through the pandemic. We also have consistent momentum that is in line with our long-term growth strategy. We took actions beginning early in the pandemic to control customer prices with an appreciation for the economic hardships of many of our customers. Today, we are more efficient with improved reliability and getting more work done. We are also seeing the positive impact of investments in our distribution system, including investments in substation upgrades, new wood and steel poles, distribution automation, and other resiliency investments. We improved operational efficiency by leveraging technology, improving overall workflow and operations, We deployed solutions to better serve customers with innovative and clean energy solutions. We are enabling our employees to work more efficiently. 2020 was an important year for us in our journey towards a clean energy future. We announced significant decarbonization goals of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, including at least 80% reduction in the power supplied to customers by 2030 relative to 2010 levels. This ambitious company-wide goal will touch every aspect of our business, from the power we serve customers, to the vehicles we drive, to how we operate our buildings and operations. In the fourth quarter, we closed the Boardman Coal Plant and opened the Wheat Ridge Energy Facility. one of the nation's first facilities to integrate solar and wind generation with battery storage at scale in one location. We are also working to serve many municipal and industrial customers with 100% renewable energy under our green tariff programs, building on their number one decade-long residential clean energy programs. Partnership and support for our community's employees is also central to who we are. To that end, PGE, along with employees, retirees, and the PGE Foundation, donated $5.6 million and volunteered over 18,000 hours to more than 400 nonprofits across Oregon. Diversity, equity, and inclusion has long been a core value, and we measure and publish progress as well as pay equity and other key metrics publicly. Inclusion in the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index and a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Corporate Equality Index reflects our years of focus and work in this area. However, we know that there is still much work to do. As we reflect on 2020 and look to the year ahead, The responsibility we have as an essential service provider, a leader within Oregon's economy, and a crucial partner to customers and communities we serve has never been more important. I want to give a special thanks to our teams who have spent considerable time and energy operating a more efficient, customer-focused utility, executing on our strategy to deliver clean energy to Oregonians. Through these historic storms and record outages, many are working 24-7 to restore power. I'm humbled by the strength, dedication, and resilience of our teams. We will not stop working hard until every customer is back online. Now let me turn the call over to Jim. Thank you.