CenterPoint Energy : Q1 2024 Script 4.30.24

Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript -April 30, 2024

Operator:Good morning and welcome to CenterPoint Energy First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call with senior management. During the company's prepared remarks, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. There will be a question-and-answer session after management's remarks. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the call over to Jackie Richert, Senior Vice President of Corporate Planning, Investor Relations, and Treasurer. Ms. Richert, you may begin.

Jackie Richert - SVP, Investor Relations and Treasurer

Good morning and welcome to CenterPoint Energy's first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Jason Wells, our CEO; and Chris Foster, our CFO, will discuss the company's first quarter results. Management will discuss certain topics that will contain projections and other forward-looking information and statements that are based on management's beliefs, assumptions and information currently available to management. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks or uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially based upon various factors as noted in our Form 10-Q, other SEC filings and our earnings materials. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statement.

We will be discussing certain non-GAAP measures on today's call. When providing guidance, we use the non-GAAP EPS measure of diluted adjusted earnings per share on a consolidated basis, referred to as non-GAAP EPS. For information on our guidance methodology and a reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures used in providing guidance, please refer to our news release and presentation on our website. We will use our website to announce material information. This call is being recorded. Information on how to access the replay can be found on our website.

Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Jason.

Jason Wells - President, Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Jackie. And good morning, everyone. As many of you likely saw from this morning's earnings release, we were off to a strong start in 2024 despite the mild weather and the general trend of higher for longer interest rate environment our sector has experienced. This quarter is yet another illustration of why we believe we have one of the most tangible long-term growth plans in the industry, which we plan to consistently execute and thoughtfully enhance for the benefit of all of our stakeholders.

On this morning's call, I'd like to address three key areas of focus before handing the call over to Chris to discuss our financial results in more detail. First, I'll briefly

summarize the strong first quarter financial results I just alluded to. Second, I'll touch on the details of our most recent filing at Houston Electric related to our resiliency investments, including the potential for incremental CapEx. And lastly, I'll provide an update on where we stand with respect to our regulatory calendar, including an overview of our pending rate cases and an important update on the settlement of our Texas Gas rate case, where we are hopeful for an eventual constructive outcome for our stakeholders.

First, turning to our financial results for the first quarter. This morning, we announced non-GAAP EPS of $0.55 for the first quarter, which represents over a third of our full year non-GAAP earnings guidance at the midpoint. As a reminder, our full year 2024 non-GAAP EPS guidance range of $1.61 to $1.63 represents 8% growth at the midpoint from our 2023 actual results of $1.50 per share and reflects our continued focus of delivering value for our investors each and every year. Beyond 2024, we are reaffirming our guidance where we expect to grow non- GAAP EPS at the mid to high end of our 6% to 8% range annually through 2030, as well as targeting dividend per share growth in line with earnings per share growth over that same period of time. Chris will provide additional details regarding our financial results and earnings guidance shortly.

Now, I'll turn to the recent announcement we made regarding Houston Electric's resiliency plan filing. There's been a tremendous amount of collaboration by the public and private sector to align our focus on grid resiliency across the State of Texas. I want to applaud the State for its continued support for providing additional tools to help improve resiliency of the electric grid, all of which serves to support the continued economic growth here in Texas.

This legislation is a recognition of investments needed to strengthen the resiliency of the grid for the increasing risk of disruptive, extreme weather-related or security-related events, while at the same time accommodating load growth across Texas. Through these filings, we anticipate achieving a faster pace of investments to support higher levels of resiliency for our customers, while also utilizing a recovery mechanism that is expected to enable smoother and more efficient recovery of certain distribution related costs for the benefit of our customers and our investors.

Our focus on delivering a more resilient grid that serves approximately 2.8 million metered customers across the Greater Houston area has been underway for some time. The sequence of our work portfolio began with enhancing our electric transmission system and related substation, which comprise the backbone of our electric grid. This work included upgrading our transmission structures to better

withstand extreme winds, elevating our substations to mitigate flood risk, and converting our older 69 kV transmission lines to a more robust 138 kV standard. We will continue this work on the backbone of our system, and when the first three-year cycle proposed in this filing is complete in 2027, we believe we will have finished the vast majority of work associated with these programs.

With that series of measures well underway, we're now complementing these program elements by expanding our targeted investments to improve outcomes closer to the customer. Our work articulated in our resiliency filing has 24 individual resiliency measures that are focused on advancing the overall resiliency of our system. The three-year plan is expected to significantly improve customer outcomes from the most severe system events associated with extreme wind, flood, temperature changes and wildfires.

Additionally, measures are being undertaken to bolster physical and cybersecurity. Examples of some of the solutions we'll deploy include composite poles, trip saver devices and intelligent grid switching automation technology. All of these are proven to help the system respond more favorably in extreme conditions, resulting in a reduced number of sustained interruptions that our customers experience.

In fact, we've steadily deployed similar system automation in recent years, saving our customers over 300 million minutes of interruptions over the last five years.

With the investments included in our resiliency plan filing, we could more than triple that figure over the next few years. In aggregate, our filing includes a range of investments of approximately $2.2 billion to $2.7 billion over the three-year period of 2025 to 2027. The high end of our filing, if approved, would increase our total capital expenditures from $44.5 billion to $45 billion over our 10-year plan ended in 2030.

Consistent with how we have historically incorporated incremental investment opportunities in our base plan, the $500 million of additional capital will be formally included in our capital investment plan where we believe we can efficiently execute, finance and recover these investments. We will also align our execution with the feedback and final resolution of the resiliency plan proceeding, which we anticipate will be towards the end of this year.

While we have factored the majority of this resiliency investment within our updated CapEx and financing plans discussed last quarter, Chris will describe thoughts on efficiently funding the incremental $500 million of capital investment opportunity, including pursuing various state and federal incentives. We are excited to work with the Commission and other stakeholders to get feedback on a plan we proposed, and most importantly, executing this work to create a more resilient electric grid for our customers.

I now want to turn to an update on our broader regulatory calendar. I'll cover this sequentially from the dates filed. Starting with our Texas Gas rate case, where we have recently announced an all-party settlement. Although this settlement is still subject to Railroad Commission approval, we believe the settlement agreement reached with parties is a constructive outcome for our customers and all other stakeholders. In its current form, pending approval, the case will result in an annual revenue requirement increase of approximately $5 million, which results in an average increase of well under one-tenth of 1% for our Houston area residential customers. This very modest customer bill increase is a great illustration of the power of organic growth, coupled with our continued focus on reducing O&M across our businesses.

The Texas Gas rate case filing included nearly $500 million of new capital investments and an increase to its authorized cost of capital, that I'll briefly touch on in a moment, all while resulting in a very modest increase for our customers. Since the last rate case, we have invested a total of $1.4 billion in CapEx to continue to improve system safety and reliability for our customers. These investments have translated to more than 1,800 miles of pipe replacement and more than 300,000 advance meter upgrades, all helping to modernize our gas network.

As I just mentioned, our $5 million settled revenue requirement proposal includes an increase to our authorized capital structure and return on equity. The proposed settlement includes an authorized equity ratio of approximately 61% and an authorized return on equity of 9.8% across our entire Texas Gas jurisdiction. In comparison, we are currently authorized on average for a 55.5% equity layer and a 9.64% return on equity across the four historic divisions. Increasing both our authorized equity ratio and our authorized return on equity is vital to the Texas Gas business, as well as our other regulated businesses as we continue to compete for capital to make critical investments for our customers.

In addition to the minimal impact to our customer bills, the settlement combines our four historic Texas Gas jurisdictions into one jurisdiction for future capital recovery mechanisms, which will benefit all stakeholders through reduced administrative burden and the ability to spread future investments over a broader growing customer base. We appreciate the effort of various parties involved in the rate case to this point and expect Railroad Commission consideration of the settlement this summer.

Moving to the filed Minnesota gas rate case. As a reminder, we filed our rate case on November 1 of last year. We requested revenue increase of approximately $85 million and $52 million for 2024 and 2025, respectively. As discussed on the last

call, the interim rates for 2024 were approved in mid-December and went into effect on January 1 of this year. The Commission will consider interim rates for 2025 toward the end of this year, depending on how far along we are in the case. At this stage, we anticipate hearings to occur in the middle of December this year. Ahead of those hearings, we intend to engage parties to the case in settlement discussions. As you may recall, we have settled our previous three rate cases in our Minnesota gas jurisdiction.

Now, turning to the Indiana electric rate case, which we filed in December of last year with a requested revenue requirement of $190 million. As we've discussed previously, much of this revenue requirement increase is associated with our investments in connection with our electric generation transition plan as we move away from coal to more efficient and cost-effective fuel types such as renewables and natural gas. We have slightly delayed the start of the hearings in this case to determine if a settlement is possible with parties. Absent a settlement, we would expect a final decision in this case in the fourth quarter of this year.

And finally, I'll touch on our largest jurisdiction, Houston Electric. As many of you saw, we have filed our rate case last month with our requested revenue requirement increase of 2.6%, which is approximately $60 million. This revenue requirement increase results in a relatively nominal residential customer charge increase of

about $1.25 per month or less than 1%. This revenue requirement increase is premised on a filing seeking an authorized equity ratio of approximately 45% and an authorized return on equity of 10.4%. As a reminder, we've been funding the Houston Electric business with a 45% equity ratio, as we believe this is the minimum amount of equity with which this business should be capitalized even though we are currently authorized at 42.5%.

The modest revenue requirement request truly exemplifies the strong advantage we have here at CenterPoint, as it's driven by, one, our relentless focus on reducing O&M 1% to 2% per year on average; two, prior securitization charges rolling off the bill in October of this year; and three, the nearly unparalleled growth that Houston Electric and surrounding areas experience each and every year. To put these combined factors into perspective, since our last rate case in 2019, Houston Electric's rate base has nearly doubled, while the average residential charges were nearly the same amount at the beginning of 2024 as they were all the way back in 2014.

As a management team, we are acutely aware of the advantage we have to serve a growing economy like Houston, but we also understand the tremendous responsibility that accompanies it. We are tasked with serving and supporting the dynamic growth of Houston's vibrant and diverse population. One recent tangible