Xcel Energy Inc. — 2023 Q3

Yes. So we met with the credit rating agencies in September. And as we are sitting right now, we've included tax credit transferability in our financing plan, and we expect that they will include it in the way they look at our credit metrics. And for us, we use the income tax election method, so it will flow through our cash from operations in our financial statements. So all of that is included in our baseline as we think about it.

Yeah. Hey, Julien, it's Bob. We're really excited about the Colorado Energy Plan. It's great to see it sort of nearing conclusion and approval milestones. We've been working on this for two years. We've actually been working with the counterparties on the bids for over six months. I recognize that it might be quick timing for the external world, but we've been working with these people for a while and we're really excited about what we've done here. We've been working with stakeholders very collaboratively and the PUC over the past two years to bring this plan to life for our Colorado customers. Obviously a great wrinkle, right in the middle of it with the IRA, right? And so we've basically been able to double the renewable portfolio, have the fossil portfolio, increase our storage component dramatically.

And Julien, a couple of the other pieces in that steel for Fuel 2.0 plan is the SPS Solar plus Storage, we should get the decision in Q2 of next year. And then we just launched in a sort of 1200 megawatt wind RFP. Bids are due in December, should get a short list in Q2 of next year on that.

Yes, Julien, I mean, certainly we'll wait until we get through the commission approvals. But if that timing aligns, then yes, it would be fair to think through that.

So a couple for me. I guess on Colorado, as you kind of layer in that to the next financing plan, and obviously, you had the 40% rule. Is equity continuing to be programmatic across the 5 years? Or does that drive more -- a larger need in the near years of the plan?

The way we look at it, the base capital plan pretty programmatic as we think about it, most likely in ATM with the base capital plan. When you look at the -- not just in Colorado, but the $10 billion of the Steel for Fuel 2.0 opportunities, this is really kind of the '25, '26, '27 time frame or the heavy spend. So I would look at it as that's in the time frame that would align with the spend for that incremental and additional opportunities.

Got it. And then one more on the Colorado plan. I just -- I know the commission is exploring some type of risk-sharing mechanism for the renewable assets. But can you just help us understand if that type of proposal is something that would tweak the plan in any way? Is it something that you're working with the commission actively on? And how could that kind of transpire through the remaining course of the year here?

Yes. Consistent with past practice, Nick, we would expect some forms of customer protection, capital costs or energy cost providers. We've submitted some proposals to the commission that they -- so they are purview. It will go along with their overall decision. And on the portfolio side, of course, there's always a chance to look at it, but we've looked at this sideways, back ways, front ways. I think we've put together a great plan that complements the geographic diversity in the state where the wind and solar physically come into the grid to provide high resilience and reliability from the renewable resources. And so always a chance to move it around a little bit, but we'll think the substantial changes coming from the plan.

And if I could just squeeze one more in. You talked about the data centers in your prepared remarks, your weather-normalized load for '24 is 2% to 3%, and that's higher than last year by 100 basis points. So just -- what are you seeing that's changing the demand profile? How are you thinking about the longer-term forecast and whether that's pressure higher in your 5% to 7%?

Thanks, Nick. I'll take that one. The way I think about it is -- yes. So we're starting to see a number of things in our long-term sales forecast. We updated our sales forecast for 2024, 2% to 3%. But we think over the 5 years at that 2% to 3% CAGR to hold, if not, call it conservative, given what we're seeing on the potential load from data centers. Data centers represent less than 1% of our sales right now. We see some potential where that could grow to 5% over this next 5 years.

Nick, just to add on to that, this is Bob. When I think about some of the comments I made in the opening remarks, about the ability to deliver clean energy more cost effectively in our regions of the country than other parts. I think over the long term, that should absolutely accrue to our state's benefits in terms of economic development. Energy and energy-intensive resources are going to come back in onshore in the United States. We should be a very attractive destination for them as we can deliver renewable energy and clean energy much more cost effectively. We serve customers where the wind blows and the sun shines and that translates to high capacity factors and lower energy cost to our customers, which should lead to long-term economic development in our states.

You guys have been sort of the leader in transferability. I mean you were kind of one of the first ones to introduce the concept and start working on it. It seems like you're making great strides here. The target for the year, if I recall this, if I have this correctly, it was increased from $200 million to $300 million to $400 million. I just wanted to see if I'm thinking about that correctly. And then what does that do to the prior point had $1.8 billion in total amount raised from transferability? What does that number look like in the current plan?

Yes. So you're actually thinking about it correctly. When we went into this year before the market has even fully set up, we're a little bit conservative in saying around $200 million. We've already executed 2 contracts for $250 million and working on another. So we feel very good about our $300 million to $400 million in total for the balance of the year.

That's really helpful. And then maybe just -- I didn't see this in your prepared remarks on slide deck and maybe I missed it, but just any update on the gas price risk management plan that you have to file in Colorado? I believe that's due next month.

Yes. So we'll file it by November 1, absolutely right. So due next week, working with the stakeholders are working on the plan, and we've seen compounded in a couple of different veins. One is this idea of the smoothing mechanism where we can reduce volatility by using our balance sheet. And so if commodity prices spike to a certain level, we would take that on our balance sheet and spread over 1, 2, 3, 4 years and get a carrying cost on it or really reduce that volatility that our customers experienced last year. So that's important because we need to maintain a good balance sheet, strong product quality to be able to use our balance sheet to help our customers out.

Durgesh just to add on to that, one of the best things we've done for our customers is our renewables portfolio. We have lowered our reliability on fossil fuels dramatically over the past five years and the customers have accrued over $4 billion of fuel savings and tax benefits from that since 2017.

And just to clarify, we meant that we've reduced our reliance on fossil fuels, not the reliability of our fossil fuels.

Maybe just a quick follow-up on your comments just then on tax credit transferability, the color that you've done already kind of $250 million of contracts. Can you just talk a bit about kind of how the market's been evolving relative to your initial expectations and how you kind of think about the competitiveness of that space?

Carly, thanks for the question. So it's evolved pretty close to how we expected it to this year, bilateral transactions in kind of the pricing we anticipated. There has been significant amount of demand. The demand is much, much greater than our supply of PTCs. Now we're still waiting for a little -- for the treasury staying up their portal and additional administrative requirements. So we feel comfortable executing contracts.

Got it. That's super helpful. And then maybe to follow up just on the Hydrogen Hub process now that that's been awarded, I guess, how should we be thinking about timeline there? And is there any dependence on that investment cadence going forward on kind of how the tax credit structure looks for hydrogen once we get that from the treasury?

Sure. So Carly, it's Bob. We're really excited about our clean fuels program, but it is fairly long dated. We are at a place where we are invited to negotiate with the DOE on this upper Midwest Hydrogen Heartland hub. Negotiations, final engineering, those processes are going to take probably 2 years. I wouldn't say we'd start capital deployment until probably the end of our 5-year plan and runs through the end of the decade. I would think that parts of the hub could be activated by 2029 -- 2028, 2029. So it's long-dated investment cycle.

And Carly, the second part of your question, you asked about kind of the guidance around. Obviously, we're still waiting for the guidance from Treasury unless we provided our comments, industry's driver comments. One of the things important to us is on the nuclear qualifying for hydrogen PTC. So hopeful that we get guidance here, rumor sometime in November, but it could push a little bit.

Clearly, an incredible update in Colorado here and just wanted to dive in a little bit more, if I could. Just given the rate base growth as you outlined there, and how should we think about, I guess, the EPS growth relative to the rate base growth, given the higher interest rate environment here, thinking about potentially greater than 10% rate base growth, do you see the gap kind of widening at that point? Or how should we think about that at a high level?

Jeremy, good question. Obviously, we are in a higher interest rate environment, higher financing market and also have some issue equity -- equity to fund accretive growth which we're very comfortable with. It's important to maintain a strong balance sheet. And we've been very consistent about how we'll fund incremental growth. So, as you go through you do see a little bit of a divergence from rate base growth and EPS growth, but certainly, not hard to do the math, and I'm sure all of you have done that math already.

Got it. Yes. No, good math to do there. So that makes sense. And just wanted to kind of come in on the O&M side for the guidance there. And I think it's been kind of flat to down, if I recall correctly, but targeting a little bit of an uplift in '24 here. I'm just wondering, if you could provide a bit more color on the increase here and how this O&M, I guess, impacts how '24 guidance could fall out, particularly given Minnesota being a bit lighter than expected?

Yeah. We take everything that happened in this year from a regulatory perspective rate case perspective taking into account as we give 2024 guidance. When we think about O&M, we're down for this year our guidance for this year is down 1% to 2%. So as we think about next year up 1% to 2% we did some management actions in this year. And so really when I put the 2 years together it's about essentially maintaining flat O&M. It's a big focus from a long-term perspective is investing in technology to improve processes and take cost out of the business.

Got it. That makes sense. On the other side of the coin, as it relates to the sales outlook, you talked about the data center opportunity in supporting the 2% to 3% growth. Is that kind of like the right base to think about beyond '24? Do you anticipate some further acceleration over the 5-year plan? Just trying to calvary, if like the environment is just different now given some of the tailwinds as you talked about. And clearly, as well, oil and gas, a Delaware Basin really click on all cylinders here, a lot of activity that we see on the pipeline side. So just, I guess, curious for those drivers and how that could carry out over time.

Yes. And I think really next year, as you mentioned, in the Permian Basin, significant growth down in SPS as we're supporting electrification and working closely with our large customers there.

Got it. That's very helpful. Real quick last one, if I could, just kind of rounding things out here. Any updates on the ongoing Marshall wildfire litigation? Any update on whether total liabilities we go to reach the 560 insurance coverage? Or any color you could provide there.

Yeah. Hey, it's Bob. I don't think we've seen a lot of material updates in Marshall, I think in our disclosures in our Q and in our earnings release are up-to-date. We've seen 675 plaintiffs. To put it in perspective we think there are about 1,100 structures that had some amount of physical damage and estimated by the by the state of Colorado at about $2 billion worth of damage. None of that's changed or been updated. The cases into 14 complaints and has been consolidated into a single case right now.

Just hopefully, easy one, everything has been answered. Great news on Colorado, but just following up on Jeremy's question. You talked about, I think, the company is going to file a wildfire mitigation plan, I believe, in 2024 in Colorado. Is there a potential for even additional CapEx associated with wildfire mitigation like magnitude, is that similar to what we've seen in the Steel for Fuel 2.0?

Anthony, Look, we've been operating under WMP in Colorado for the past 4 years. I think that plan was around $400 million in total. We are looking at more capital investments as we roll forward. I think a lot of that's going to be built into the base plan already. I don't think it has anything of the magnitude of Steel for Fuel 2.0. Obviously, the big needle in there would be if we did something very dramatic on undergrounding. I don't see a proposal that will move the needle necessarily in capital expenditures going forward, but something worth looking at.

I was wondering, it's clearly a step change in the renewables aspirations and opportunity for Colorado. Could this also apply to Minnesota in terms of potentially seeing an acceleration and a step change in renewables there as you fully realize the benefits of IRA going forward?

Maybe -- David, it's Bob. Thanks for the question. When I think about my prepared remarks, I made the comment around 15,000 to 20,000 gigawatts of -- 15,000 megawatts of generation by the end of the decade. If you think 7 of that's in Colorado, then the balance, 8 to 13 is a combination of SPS and NSP. There's very little in our capital plan, our Steel for Fuel plan that's included for those 2 regions in our capital plan or in our Steel for Fuel 2.0 that Brian laid out.

Yes. And we have -- as we mentioned we have the 1,200 megawatts of wind RFP in flight. We actually have Wisconsin RFP, solar RFP in flight that we're working on. we think we'll file another resource plan, but also significant opportunities in Minnesota longer date is around our wind repowerings.

Got it. That all makes sense. That's helpful to frame it up. And I was curious what's the latest that you're seeing in Renewables economics in terms of LCOE? In your service territories there's been market concerns about rising PPA prices inflationary pressures in the renewable supply chain. But just curious what your experience has been in terms of latest data points how attractive have renewables projects looked?

Yes, David, look, so the great benefit of the last couple of years is obviously the Inflation Reduction Act. We've definitively seen higher capital costs in wind and in solar, the IRA and the tax benefits of 100% PTCs have been able to offset that, at least in our jurisdictions on an LCOE business. So probably I'll give you some data points. I'd say we've seen probably 30 -- from our last approved wind project, which would have been our Dakota Ridge project, we built that for around 1,200, 1,250 kW, we've probably seen capital cost increases on wind or 30% to 40% on top of that.

Just a couple of quick follow-ups to some of the earlier questions in your comments. That 1% to 2% moving the sales number to 2% to 3%, what's the approximate earnings impact there incremental, all else equal?

Just easiest rule of thumb is I'll call it a 1% change in sales, there's about a $25 million change in the revenue from our sales. So, that's a good rule of thumb for you, Travis.

Okay. After-tax, that's earnings, right?

No. That was revenue -- sorry, that's revenue. And that takes into account our true-up in decoupling mechanisms.

Okay. So, pre-tax. Okay. Got it. And then on the Heartland and some of the other projects you've mentioned in terms of new technology other hydrogen projects, is your thought for us is to put that through some of those things through the regulatory traditional regulatory process? Or do you foresee potentially coming up with another financing structure another corporate structure, is something that would house some of those projects that are say unusual in a positive way obviously?

Hey Travis, it's Bob. Good morning. Our proposed plan would certainly put the assets into regulatory rate base here in the Upper Midwest. If you think about our proposals at the DOE, we've got green hydrogen off of wind and solar. We've got pink hydrogen off of nuclear plants and the end users are going to help partners create green fertilizers, green ammonia to green urea to fertilizer, as well as some amount of blending into our gas plants and into our LDCs with some of the output. So the expectation is they would go through a regular state process around that capital investment and those ultimate uses for the fuel.

Okay. Perfect. And then real quick, Minnesota, any update on the timing of your appeal process?

Yes, so sorry, thanks. We went through a reconsideration process in mid-September. I think our appeal plan would be early November.

Okay. And then about how long does that take -- would you think?

Sometime into next year.

So Brian maybe one for you, since you guys are sort of on the leading edge of lets transferability and feel free to take us offline, if we can't do it in seven minutes. But I'm just thinking through like how do you think about the accounting? Do you record the nonmonetary assets at fair value and then book a sort of gain and loss against that when you get to cash? Or there's no FASB guideline here right if I've got it right. So how are you walking through the accounting of these source ones that you're doing? And can we get clarification from FASB or the IRS at some point about how the accounting should work?

Certainly, we work closely with our audit firm on this and the audit firm is working with the -- the Big Four are working together. The way we look at -- it's an income tax model election for us. And so what that means is we're going to run it through the gains and losses through income tax expense on the income statement. And so any discounts on the sales will run through that and then from a regulatory approval of regulatory mechanisms for that discount whether we'll be able to have deferral treatment of the discount with our regulatory approval. So really because this is a benefit of our customers to be able to have that regulatory deferral mechanism is helpful. And then it will run through our cash from operations. So I think income tax expense line item and then cash from operations.

So all my questions have been answered, except for -- and congratulations. But just on Comanche. I saw that -- can you hear me? The Comanche litigation, just was wondering with the jury [ award ] and everything, where we stand with that? Is that pretty much over? And just if you could elaborate a little bit more on that.

Yes. I mean it's -- we will appeal. We feel that we have a strong legal challenge against -- there's 2 items and the award is related to lost power. I mean the majority upon no liability in all the other allegations, including no word for diminution of plant value. So as Paul mentioned in the opening comments, we view it as a onetime charge, and we have a strong legal basis for challenging that $26 million of award.

Okay. So that was what -- that charge -- that jury award was what was reflected in the third quarter results. Is that right?

That's correct.

What's your current thought on PPAs buy-ins in light of some of the tax tenability dynamics and some of the developments that you're having?

Ryan, it's something we have nothing in our capital plans for PPA buy-ins or PPA buyouts as we think about it. It's something that can come through the RFP processes. As we think about it, and we work closely with our developers to see if there's an opportunity.

Okay. And then regarding the -- looks like $100 million DOE grant or wildfire mitigation, that's been rewarded more recently. As you go into a lot of wildfire mitigation plan and look at more spending, is there opportunities to receive digital brands? Are you pursuing any capital to automate your plan?

Ryan, it's Bob. I don't know if there's more dollars in the DOE bucket in the grid resiliency program. Obviously, we're going to take these dollars and continue to do additional work. Those were discrete projects that were approved with the DOE and are earmarked across our various states. Some of which is for wildfire. Some of it is in technology development. So we're excited about partnering with the DOE. It's about 60-40 split in terms of their funding versus our capital, and our piece is embedded within our forecast. So it's not going to be a big upside in terms of capital investment opportunities.

Yes. And I was in just taking a step back. We're proud of the 4 grants that we've received really focusing on how can we help lower the cost of our customers, others for new technology around and specifically on the form long-duration battery. And not only do we get $70 million in deal refunding for that, but we also got $20 million from Breakthrough Energy Ventures. So $90 million for those 2 pilots. So really a great story and looking forward to working with our commissions on all the DOE funding that we've received so far. And certainly, we'll look for other opportunities out there.

Thank you all for participating in our earnings call this morning. Please contact our Investor Relations team with any follow-up questions.