Portland General Electric Co

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Portland General Electric Company's first quarter 2021 earnings results conference call. Today is Friday, April 30, 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's Senior Director of Investor Relations. Mr. Jordan Jaramillo. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Renz. 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've 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 Marcia.

Thank you, Jordan, and thank you all for joining us today. Our financial results this quarter were strong. We reported net income of $96 million, or $1.07 per share, compared to net income of $81 million, or $0.91 per share, in the first quarter of last year. In light of the strong quarter and positive outlook, we are reaffirming our 2021 earnings guidance of $2.55 to $2.70 per share, as well as our long-term earnings and dividend growth rates. Jim will cover first quarter results in more detail, provide regulatory and capital updates, as well as discuss the outlook for the rest of the year. This quarter, again, presented significant weather-driven operational challenges. And I'm proud of how our teams came together, responding to the most severe ice, wind, and snowstorms in our history, improving our operations, and achieving important customer-focused results. In February, we restored over 750,000 customer outages, as nearly half of our customers were without power, many of whom experienced multiple outages over more than a two-and-a-half-week period. I want to recognize the hard work of our coworkers, mutual aid crews, and assistance from as far away as Southern California, Utah, Montana to Alberta, British Columbia, all of whom in the midst of a pandemic went above and beyond to restore power quickly and most importantly, safely. Even as we speak, crews continue to repair equipment and clear downed trees. as damage is still extensive. As of March 31st, the costs of the February storm were $87 million, which Jim will discuss in detail. The recent storms and wildfires last fall, on top of the pandemic, with so many people living, working, and learning remotely, underscore the importance of our ongoing system hardening and reinvestment programs, combined with deployment of digital capabilities AI, and smart grid technologies. Today versus a year ago, customers are experiencing about 16% less planned outages, average outage restoration times are about 7% faster, and outage text notifications and digital payment options are making a difference in customer satisfaction. And equally important to note is what did not happen during those February weather events. Our generation plants as well as wind and hydro facilities operated seamlessly, and power was generated across the region throughout the harsh conditions. Turning to load growth and the economy. For the last couple of years, we have discussed the strength of our service territory. Overall, year over year, customer count increased more than 1%, and load growth was up 1.2% on a weather-adjusted basis, and 2.3% after accounting for the harsh winter conditions. Residential usage was up 3%, weather adjusted, offsetting commercial declines of 5%. Industrial usage grew an impressive 8%, powered by the strength of the tech and digital sectors. Expansion within our region of several digital companies and the global semiconductor shortage are expected to continue and solidify our positive outlook. Overall, Oregon's economy is recovering, with nearly two-thirds of the state's pandemic-driven job loss recovered. Unemployment currently stands at 5.7% across our service territory. ESG. Portland General has long been an ESG leader, and this quarter we joined the Amazon Climate Pledge in keeping with our commitment to reduce carbon by 80% by 2030 over 2010 levels. and our aspirational goal of net zero by 2040. We also know that to make real progress on climate, we need to partner in addressing the admissions from transportation and other sectors. Last week, in partnership with Daimler Trucks North America, we celebrated the opening of the first of its kind heavy-duty electric truck charging site. This site, aligned with the West Coast Clean Transit Corridor Initiative, to electrify along the I-5 corridor from the borders with British Columbia to Mexico. And finally, I'd like to address the ongoing social unrest and importance of our diversity, equity, inclusion work. In these tumultuous times, corporations have an opportunity for change. At Portland General, our DE&I priorities are focused on recruiting, retaining, training, and promoting from our front lines to our board of directors. We are committed to transparency and have published for three years running our workforce and pay equity statistics. We've made good progress, but we know that there is still much work to do. As we look to the year ahead, we're excited to lead a clean energy transformation and humbled by the challenges as we work seamlessly to integrate ever-increasing amounts of renewable and distributed energy resources into a growing, reliant, and resilient grid, meeting customers' needs for safe, affordable, clean energy. I'll now turn it over to Jim.