Welcome to IDACORP's First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded, and our webcast is live. A replay will be available later today and for the next 12 months on the IDACORP website. [Operator Instructions]. I will now turn the call over to Amy Shah, Vice President of Finance, and Compliance and Risk.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining our call. The slides we'll reference during today's call are available on IDACORP's website. As noted on Slide 2, our discussion today includes forward-looking statements, including earnings guidance, spending forecast, financing plans, regulatory actions and plans, and estimates and assumptions that reflect our current views almost the future holds, all of which are subject to risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from statements made today, and we caution against placing undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Our cautionary note on forward-looking statements and various risk factors are included in more detail for your review in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As shown on Slide 3, we have Lisa Go, President and CEO; Brian Buckham, SVP, CFO and Treasurer; and John Wunderlich, Investor Relations Manager presenting today. We also have other members of our management team available for a Q&A session following our prepared remarks. Slide 4 shows a summary of our first quarter results. IDACORP's diluted earnings per share were $1.10 compared with $0.95 for last year's first quarter. Our key operating metrics and guidance are unchanged, except for our hydropower generation forecast, which has improved. We're reaffirming our full year IDACORP diluted earnings per share guidance range of $5.65 to $5.85, this includes our expectation that Idaho Power will use between $60 million and $77 million of additional tax credit amortization. These estimates assume historically normal weather conditions and normal power supply expenses for the rest of the year. Now I'll turn the call over to Lisa.

Thanks, Amy, and thanks to everyone for joining us on the call today. I'll start with a look at the continued customer growth and economic expansion happening across Idaho Power's service area, as you can see on Slide 5. Our customer base has grown 2.6% since last year's first quarter, including 2.9% for residential customers. The first quarter featured several significant new customer investments in the food processing and warehousing sectors. Our existing customer, Chobani, announced a $500 million expansion of its facility in Southern Idaho, increasing production by 50% and adding 500,000 square feet to its plan. The expanded plant will total 1.6 million square feet with 24 production lines, making it the largest natural food production facility in the country. In addition, the Tractor Supply Company broke ground on a new distribution center in Nampa, the 865,000 square foot facility represents an investment of nearly $225 million. Many of our large customers are far along in their projects, as you can see the magnitude of 2 of those projects on Slide 6. We recall we have another large customer that made a financial commitment and whose load ramp is expected to start in 2029. So, you can see interest remains high from businesses looking to locate and expand within Idaho Power's service area. As a reminder, prospective customers would be incremental to both our existing anticipated growth rates and our capital plans. Turning to Slide 7. The 5-year forecast for retail sales growth is 8.3% annually. This forecasted growth continues to drive our need for additional system investments and power purchases to help meet projected low deficits. Like our customers, we're very much in execution mode. We're making great progress on the projects being built to support our customers. Our 80-megawatt 2025 battery project is on track to…

Thanks, Lisa, everyone. I'm going to start on Slide 11, which has our reconciliation of first quarter results. As you can see, Corp's net income increased $11.4 million for the first quarter this year when compared with the first quarter last year. And to summarize the quarter, the increase was mainly driven by Idaho Power's higher retail revenues from the January 1 rate case increase from customer growth and from recording incremental tax credits this year under the Idaho regulatory mechanism. Those benefits, though, were partially offset by higher depreciation and interest expense from our infrastructure projects, and I'd expect to see those trends continue throughout the year. Getting into specifics, and net increase in retail revenues per megawatt hour, which is net of power cost adjustment mechanisms, increased operating income by $11.3 million on a relative basis. This benefit was mostly from the increase in Idaho base rates from the limited issue rate case side of a Power filed last year. Customer growth increased operating income by $7.3 million, with no slowdown in customer growth during the past year. Usage for retail customers was relatively consistent quarter-over-quarter. Residential usage per customer increased because lower temperatures in the first quarter of this year resulted in residential customers using more energy for heating purposes. But that increase was offset by a slight decrease in industrial usage per customer and the effects of customer mix changes, with some customers moving between rate classes with different rate structures. Last, on the revenue side, an increase in the deferral of revenues through the fixed cost adjustment mechanism reduced retail revenues slightly. Other O&M expenses in the first quarter this year were $7.2 million higher -- this was partially related to a roughly $3 million increase in wildfire mitigation program and related insurance expenses. They…

Thanks, Brian. Moving to Slide 16. You can see our 2025 full year earnings guidance and key operating metrics, not a lot of change from our Q4 2024 conference call. This guidance assumes normal weather and normal power supply expenses for the rest of the year. We continue to expect IDACORP's diluted earnings per share this year to be in the range of $5.65 to $5.85. With the assumption that Idaho Power will use $60 million to $77 million of additional investment tax credit amortization. That $77 million top end is what we currently have remaining in the mechanism. We have the ability to request that the Idaho PUC allow Idaho Power to add additional credits to the mechanism, either from legacy credits on our balance sheet or credits from our current battery projects. And we'll consider that option in the context of our broader regulatory strategy going forward. Our expectation for full-year O&M expense continues to be in the range of $465 million to $475 million. We still anticipate spending between $1 billion and $1.1 billion on CapEx in 2025. Although we have not adjusted our forecast for new tariffs as we continue to evaluate and monitor the situation. Finally, we expect good hydropower generation in 2025 and ranging from 7 million to 8.5 million megawatt hours for the year. We have solid carryover from the prior year, and snowpack has been favorable this year as well as noted by Lisa. With that, we're happy to address any questions you might have.

[Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Maybe on let's see. On the wildfire legislation, I was just curious, do you expect any changes to your wildfire mitigation plans on the back of that legislation or just generally any changes to programs that you would anticipate?

We don't anticipate any changes in the program. We are hard at work at deploying that now. We are taking a look at the plan as it's written today and may make some modifications, but it would not necessarily be changing any of the actual activities. So, more to come on that, but we feel really confident in what our plan has us doing now and will continue to evolve over time.

Got it. Okay. That's helpful. And then looking ahead to the rate case, I was just wondering if you'd be able to share thoughts on what kind of mechanisms or trackers you might be contemplating filing for, whether it's capital trackers or otherwise, just efforts to improve earned ROEs from here?

I'm going to have Tim Tatham answer that. He's our VP of Regulatory Affairs.

Yes. Thanks for the question, David. We're right in the middle of preparing our case right now. We're considering a number of different options. I can say that we will take some action in the case to request that the commission help us to reduce regulatory lag going forward with the negative effects of regulatory lag. The details on exactly what we're doing at this point are still sort of in flux, and certainly more to come in the next month or so.

Yes. David, this is Brian. One thing I'd also point to is the Health Canyon filing that we made on AFUDC that we've talked about in terms of helping to reduce regulatory lag. That's more of an earnings-neutral item, but it does help from a cash flow perspective. So that helps on cash lag outside of the general rate case.

Your next question comes from Chris Ellinghaus with Sabre Williams Shank & Co. please go ahead.

So, Lisa, you talked about some of the business development. Obviously, you still have a lot of interest and expansion and moving into your service territory. But have you noticed anything through sort of this chaotic period? Any effects on, say, the agricultural community and what kind of crops there working on, given their expectations on their ability to export or say, discretionary in migration or tourism or any of those kinds of things?

Yes. So, I think, like us, it's a little bit too early to tell. A lot of the agricultural customers, they've made the decision what they're going to plant last season. So, what they might do in the next season, I think, remains to be seen. But I would say there's concerns just given how uncertain things are. But I can't really say that there has been anything very measurable at this point in time. We are still getting a lot of interest in what is the inquiries we get -- and as far as tourism goes, I think that still remains to be seen, how that shapes up. a state that people that love the outdoors come to, and we haven't seen, I guess, we'll just have to let the season sort of play out. But I think, Adam, what would you add to what you're seeing out there?

Chris. Yes, I actually spoke with our irrigation customer representatives a couple of weeks ago. And from a planting perspective, they said it appear to be a relatively normal season. I think commodity prices aren't great. And certainly, at some point, the tariffs could have an impact, but the boots on ground, the Idaho Power employees that are out there, they did not believe it would impact this year. And then I might also add in terms on the irrigation side of things, the water conditions are positive as well. So that should provide some help to the farmers.

Given the filing coming up on the rate case, does -- can you give us any thoughts on, I guess, some of the mitigation efforts that you might put into the filing might give us better insights into this later. But should we sort of be thinking about this as the normal cadence of what you would expect, unless there is some kind of breakthrough on trackers or some other kind of mitigating mechanisms?

Well, certainly, I think that's fair to say, given the amount of capital in our near-term plans. But of course, as these customers come on and start generating revenue, that may delay some of future rate cases. And then, of course, if there are any sort of mechanisms that come through this rate case, yes, it certainly could change the cadence. But based on what we know, we need to spend to meet our customers' needs, so we will continue to be filing rate cases more frequently than we certainly have in the past. Anything you want to...

Have expressed some -- I don't know what word to use, this May is maybe too strong, but have expressed some issues with the -- their workload. So, do you have any capacity to propose anything along the lines of a multi-year mechanism?

As far as the PUCs go?

Yes.

Yes, we're willing to talk with them about any sort of creative solutions -- and we do know that they -- like our regulatory group, it is a lot of work to process these filings. So, we'd certainly be open to anything that would help with that. But I don't know what else would you add, Tim.

Yes. It's certainly an option that we'll consider, and we want to be mindful of the impact of the volume of filings might have on our commission staff. And at this point, I don't think that, that's a tool that we're looking at currently, but certainly may be something going forward that might work.

Okay. In light of the success of SB 1183 that sort of one level of wildfire liability mitigation or alleviation. Would you be wanting to pursue or would be hopeful for another step at the legislature to sort of codify more direct limitations legally on what potential litigants can pursue other than just sort of this type of legislation, which says we have followed the plan type of legislation?

Well, I think it's important to remember that in Idaho, we have had to outperform -- so I don't know that we have anything imminent that we would be pursuing. But we -- and we do feel like this has been a good step to define what a standard of care plan looks like, just so that it isn't decided after the fact. So, we feel like we're in a pretty good spot. Anything you would add, Julia?

This is Jae Hilton. I'm the company's General Counsel. And Idaho has really favorable damage caps for both punitive damages and noneconomic damages. In the wildfire litigation, what we have seen is that the noneconomic damages are the ones that tend to really run away. So, having those statewide damage caps on noneconomic damages is very favorable in Idaho.

Okay. Yes, that's what I'm getting at. Lastly, you continue to have some pretty sizable development in your area. Have you revised at all your thinking on when you need your next dispatchable resource at all?

That's absolutely taken into consideration when we do our IRP. So, we're in the process of doing that right now. And dispatchable resources are showing up in the portfolio for sure.

Okay. Can you tell us what that time frame is at this point that they're showing up?

Adam, I'm not sure what we have shared publicly yet if it's in a place yet where we're ready to.

We have shared two of the time frames 2029 shows a dispatchable resource in 2030 as well. And then it was kind of a question of whether we might see something in the next couple of years after that as well. So, we'll know more as we work through the IRP process certainly, as of right now, it's showing at least 2029 and 2030 and could be more over the next couple of years after that?

Okay. That helps. And are you seeing additional or incremental large load customers coming to you, say, over the last couple of quarters seeking interconnection. I don't want to say at a brisker pace. But are you still seeing interconnection requests continue to build in the queue?

As far as interconnection requests, that's a little further down in the process. We are still seeing, I would say, the same inquiries, which would then start a process that involves construction, studies, et cetera. And I think those are on a pretty similar pace as we've seen in the past, Adam, what would you say about the interconnection request that seems like a sort of end of the large load process.

I agree, it's been a steady flow of inquiries and requests from large loads. And what we're seeing in our Q2 is a lot of generation resources showing up across our service territory to help meet that potential load growth. So, it's been -- Chris, it's been pretty strong and continues to be strong.

Okay. That's helpful. That's exactly what I was trying to get at. Appreciate and thanks for the details.

Thanks, Chris.

Your next question comes from the line of Julian Jamul Smith with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

It's Brian on for Julian. Just curious about the 28 and 29 RFPs. If there are new large load customers would that be captured in those RFPs? Or would you need subsequent RFPs to meet any incremental demand above what's embedded in that 8.3% low growth rate in the RFP?

Yes. So, when we -- when new loads would come on -- or if they come into the -- making a request to us, it would depend on what year they would start for sure. But it's possible that if we have a number of projects that would meet the need as the need changes, we could certainly contract with those as well. So -- but if the customer needs are beyond that in time or amount, we would -- we may have to do some other kind of RFP. Yes, it's just sort of a -- we have to wait and see what is real before we would make that kind of commitment.

Okay. Got it. And I think on the last call, you discussed the contract negotiations were ongoing with another data center is -- is that still the updated status? Or is there anything that's transpired since then?

Yes, that is still ongoing.

Okay. And then it looks like as you -- you highlighted three transmission projects, right, and you can look forecast and there are some incremental investments there. How should we think about the timely recovery of those types of projects? Would that be separate filings from your traditional base rate filings or how confident are you for time on recovery of some of this kind of larger projects?

Sorry about that, working other...

Yes. So, I think at this point, we are looking -- Mr. Tim Tam regulatory affairs. Looking at the rate case and other potential mechanisms to help provide more timely cost recovery of these investments. As I mentioned earlier, those methods are still in the process of being developed and evaluated internally. But our efforts to reduce regulatory lag provide more timely cost recovery are certainly underway, and we're hopeful for success in that area.

And Brian, what I would add, this is Brian. We haven't shied away from one-off cases in the past. You've seen us do quite a few of them. But to the extent the in-service date of a transmission line lined up well with a general rate case or some form of tracking mechanism that's another avenue that we have. So, I'd say all options are on the table for those larger transmission projects at this point.

Okay. Great. And lastly, could you just remind us how many -- how much capacity is in the short list that was acknowledged by the OPUC for the 2028 RFP?

Adam, do you have that number?

I don't have that exact number. I mean it was -- it's several hundred megawatts, maybe even more than that. And just as a reminder, there was an Idaho Power project on that list as well for 2028. It was a fair amount of projects.

Thank you, very much.

Your next question comes from the line of Anthony Crowdell with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, team. Sorry, I think those guys asked all of my questions. Just I guess a quick follow-up was just on the wildfire legislation. Just anything in the legislation, you guys were hoping to get, or the utilities in the state were hoping to get that were not -- that was not included in what past?

Well, I feel like we're really happy that it passed it all to be quite honest. So, I can't think of anything off hand that we wanted that we ultimately didn't get. We knew that this is a first step at trying to define the standard of care, and that's essentially what this bill did. Is there anything you would add, Julia?

I think that this Bill does a really great job of establishing a first step and establishing that standard of care, like Lisa mentioned. There was an earlier run on a bill that did not go through. I think that the bill that ultimately has contained the majority of the protections that we were seeking to achieve. So, I do think that it's a great result, and we able to get different industry groups. I'm comfortable with the final version of the past.

Do you see the company in the future looking at push for a fund? It seems that I know every state has their own issues with respect to wildfire, but it seems investors I think in another state, you were trying to get a fun going it didn't happen or it's not moving the legislature. Is that something that's on the radar in Idowu you don't believe so?

It was certainly something that we discussed. The hard part is that Idaho is very small. And so, the amount of money that would be needed to create a fund would fall on a few people, so when you have the state of California that can put billions of dollars into a fund is not really something that Idaho could do. And then it was, well, if you look at a multi-seat sort of arrangement. But then that's always the sort of, well, who pays and who gets the benefit. And so, it wasn't 1 that really, we thought was something we could do now, but it's something we could certainly think about, but it's also important to remember we do have insurance. And there might be other strategies like a captive insurance product or something along those lines.

Great. Thanks for that. Thanks for taking my question.

[Operator Instructions]. That concludes the question-and-answer session for today. Ms. Grow, I will turn the conference back to you.

Well, thank you again for everyone joining us today, and we really appreciate your continued interest in IDACORP, and we hope you have a great evening. Thank you.