Rebecca Kujawa
Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please go ahead
Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everyone. Let’s now turn to the detailed results beginning with FPL. For the fourth quarter of 2020, FPL reported net income of $502 million or $0.25 per share, up $0.05 per share year-over-year. For the full year 2020, FPL reported net income of $2.65 billion or $1.35 per share, an increase of $0.15 per share versus 2019. Regulatory capital employed increased by approximately 11% for 2020 and was the principal driver of FPL’s net income growth of more than 13% for the year. FPL’s capital expenditures were approximately $2.2 billion in the fourth quarter bringing its full year capital investments to a total of roughly $6.7 billion. FPL’s reported ROE for regulatory purposes was 11.6% for the twelve months ended December 31, 2020, which is at the upper-end of the allowed band of 9.6% to 11.6% under our current rate agreement. During the fourth quarter, we utilized approximately $100 million of reserve amortization, leaving FPL with a year 2020 balance of $894 million. Approximately, $206 million of reserve amortization was used to offset the restoration costs associated with hurricanes Isaias and Tropical Storm Eta which FPL elected not to recover from customers through a surcharge. FPL’s reserve amortization mechanism under its current settlement agreement, combined with our aggressive cost-cutting measures and the benefits of tax reform provided significant customer benefits including avoided surcharges for approximately $1.7 billion in storm restoration cost since 2017. Our overall capital program at FPL is progressing well. We continue to advance one of the nation’s largest ever solar expansions. During the year, the Florida Public Service Commission approved FPL’s Solar Together program, which is the nation’s largest community solar program that is expected to generate $249 million in total net cost savings for participating and non-participating customers over the program’s life. After commissioning over 1100 megawatts or more than 3.5 times the amount of solar capacity in 2020 versus the prior year, FPL expects to commission roughly 670 megawatts of additional Solar Together capacity in 2021 and the customer demand for this innovative program across all customer classes remains strong. Beyond solar, construction of the highly efficient, roughly 1200-megawatt Dania Beach Clean Energy Center remains on schedule and on budget as it continues to advance towards its projected commercial operations date in 2022. It should be noted that all of these significant accomplishments including the deployment of nearly $7 billion in capital, we are in the midst of not only a global pandemic, but also during the most active hurricane season in the Atlantic basin on record. We’ve delivered our best ever reliability results when our customers needed us the most. And we remain committed to supporting customers experiencing economic hardship as a result of the challenges caused by the pandemic. To-date, FPL has provided customers with approximately $75 million in relief through various programs and initiatives. As Florida recovers, we will continue to help our customers navigate this difficult time, while maintaining our best-in-class customer value proposition. Let me now turn to Gulf Power, which as a reminder was legally merged into FPL on January 1st 2021, but will continue to be reported as a separate regulated segment during 2021. Gulf Power reported fourth quarter 2020 GAAP earnings of $53 million or $0.03 per share, up $0.02 per share year-over-year. For the full year, Gulf Power reported net income of $238 million or $0.12 per share, an increase of $0.02 per share year-over-year on an adjusted basis. Base O&M reductions were the primary driver of Gulf Power’s 19% year-over-year growth and adjusted earnings. Gulf Power’s reported ROE for regulatory purposes is expected to be approximately 11.1% for the 12 months ending December 2020, which is near the upper end of the allowed band of 9.25% to 11.25% under its current rate agreement. For the full year 2021, we expect that regulatory ROE to be in the upper half of this allowed band assuming normal weather and operating conditions. All of our major capital initiatives at Gulf Power are progressing well. Gulf Power’s first solar development project, the roughly 75-Megawatt Blue Indigo Solar Energy Center went into service in 2020 and is expected to generate significant customer savings over its lifetime. Gulf Power anticipates bringing another 150-Megawatts of cost-effective zero emission solar capacity online later this year. The North Florida resiliency connection, which among other things will allow customers to benefit from greater diversity in solar output across two different time zones is expected to be in service in mid-2022. Continued smart capital investments such as these renewables and core infrastructure are expected to drive customer benefits for many years to come. The Florida economy continues to recover from the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. A number of current economic indicators including retail taxable sales, new building permits and consumer confidence have meaningfully improved since the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Additionally, Florida’s most recent seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 6.4% is below the national average. While it is unclear at this point how the economy will be impacted by the current wave of COVID-19 cases, we continue to believe that Florida offers a unique proposition in terms of housing affordability, great weather, low taxes and a pro-business economy, all of which should support ongoing FPL customer growth and economic rebound once the worst of the pandemic is behind us. We remain deeply engaged in helping Florida return from this stronger than ever and we will continue to do our part to support that outcome including pursuing our smart capital investment program and economic development efforts, which help create jobs, provide investment in local communities and further enhance our best-in-class customer value proposition. During the quarter, FPL’s average customer growth was strong increasing by nearly 76,000 from the comparable prior year quarter. FPL’s fourth quarter retail sales were up 0.9% versus the prior year period, largely driven by a 2.3% year-over-year growth and underlying usage per customer. For 2020, FPL’s retail sales increased 1.5% versus the prior year, driven primarily by ongoing strong growth in customers and a favorable weather comparison. On a weather-normalized basis, FPL’s retail sales increased by 0.7% for the full year 2020. The overall impacts of the pandemic on last year’s retail sales were relatively muted and FPL’s underlying usage per customer was flat year-over-year. For Gulf Power, the average number of customers increased approximately 0.9% versus the comparable prior year quarter. For 2020, Gulf Power’s retail sales declined 3.3% primarily as a result of a more favorable weather in the prior year, as well as lower usage per customer, which we attribute in part to the ongoing impacts of the pandemic on our commercial and industrial customers. As Jim mentioned, FPL is preparing to file a base rate adjustment proposal that would cover the next four years, 2022, through 2025 and provide customers longer term visibility to the future cost of electricity. While the details are still being finalized, we expect the proposal to include base rate adjustments of approximately $1.1 billion starting in January of 2022 and $615 million starting in January of 2023. We also expect the proposal to request support for continued deployment of cost-effective solar with the continuation of our solar base rate adjustment or silver mechanism to recover the revenue requirements associated with up to 900-megawatts of cost-effective solar projects in each of 2024 and 2025, which we currently estimate to be approximately $140 million each year. For the period 2019 through the end of 2022, FPL is planning to have invested approximately $29 billion with additional significant investments expected in 2023 and beyond to meet the growing needs of Florida’s economy and to continue delivering outstanding value for Florida customers by keeping reliability high and fuel and other costs low. While the benefits of building a stronger, smarter, and cleaner grid, more efficient generation fleet are passed along regularly to customers through higher service reliability and lower bills. We must periodically seek recovery for these long-term investments supported by base rates. As we’ve previously indicated, we plan to request the commission authorized unified rates and capital structure for both FPL and Gulf Power customers. We believe the combination of the two businesses will result in approximately $2.8 billion of savings for customers through those operational savings and overall system benefits. FPL expects to request an 11.5% ROE inclusive of a 50 basis point incentive for superior performance. Compared with peer utilities in the southeastern U.S., FPL has the most efficient – most cost-efficient operations, the highest reliability, the lowest customer bills, all while remaining one of the cleanest utilities in the country and is widely regarded as the top overall performer in the industry bringing exceptional value to customers. We believe that the performance adder would reflect FPL’s current superior value proposition and encourage strong – continued strong performance. In addition, we continue to believe that a strong balance sheet, including strong credit ratings remains critical to ensure FPL maintains uninterrupted access to the capital markets even in times of significant market disruptions in the aftermath of hurricanes, as well to attract capital to support the investments FPL is making to further improve the value we offer our customers. The total of these base rate increase requests over the four year period from 2022 to 2025 would result in an estimated average increase in total revenues of about 3.7% per year. Today, FPL’s typical residential bill is about 30% lower than the national average, if the full amount of the requests were granted under our proposal and assuming other utilities experience bill increases only at their historical rate of increase, FPL’s typical customer bills would remain significantly lower than the national average through 2025. To put this proposal in context, the proposal would result in a typical customer bill in January 2022, that is nearly 22% less than it was in real terms fifteen years ago, even with our proposed base rate increases. Even in nominal terms, FPL bills would be only about 3.5% higher in 2022 than in 2006, a fraction that the nominal increases of 25% to 75% in the cost of groceries, medical care, health insurance and housing over the past 15 years. Moreover, through the consolidation of FPL and Gulf Power, the typical 1000-kilowatt hour residential customer bill in Northwest Florida is projected to be lower in 2025 than it was in 2019. We look forward to the opportunity to present the details of our case and expect to make our formal filing with testimony and required detailed data in March. The timing for the proceeding will ultimately be determined by the commission. But we currently expect that we will have hearings in the third quarter and a final commission decision in the fourth quarter and time for new rates to go into effect in January of 2022. As always, we are open to the possibility of resolving our rate request through a fair settlement agreement. During the course of the past 22 years, FPL has entered into six multi-year settlement agreements, that has provided customers with a high degree of rate stability and certainty and helped FPL execute to deliver its best-in-class customer value proposition. Our core focus will be to pursue a fair and objective review of our case that supports continued execution of our successful strategy for customers. And we will continue to provide updates throughout the process. Energy Resources reported fourth quarter 2020 GAAP loss of $644 million or $0.33 per share. Adjusted earnings for the fourth quarter was $342 million or $0.17 per share. Energy Resources contribution to adjusted earnings per share in the fourth quarter is flat versus the prior year comparable period as favorable results from the continued growth and performance in our renewables portfolio were roughly offset by a number of items none of which are particularly noteworthy. For the full year, Energy Resources reported GAAP earnings of $531 million or $0.27 per share and adjusted earnings of $1.95 billion or $0.99 per share. Energy Resources full year adjusted earnings per share contribution increased $0.12 or approximately 14% versus 2019. For the full year growth was driven by continued new additions to our renewables portfolio as contributions from new investments increased by $0.07 per share. Contributions from existing generation assets increased $0.03 versus 2019, due primarily to increased production tax credit volume from our repowered wind projects and an improvement in wind resource, which were partially offset by the planned nuclear outages and retirement of our Duane Arnold nuclear facility. Also contributing favorably was NextEra Energy Transmission, which increased results by $0.02 year-over-year, primarily as a result of full year contributions from Trans Bay Cable acquisition that closed in the middle of 2019. Contributions from all other impacts were flat year-over-year. Amid the disruption of the pandemic, Energy Resources had one of its best years ever including successfully executing on the largest construction program in our history, as well as delivering our best year ever for originations, adding a net nearly 7000-Megawatts of new renewables projects to our backlog. In 2020, we commissioned about 5750-Megawatts of wind, solar and storage projects on schedule and on budget. In addition, since the last call, we have added approximately 2000-Megawatts of renewables projects to our backlog including approximately 1030-Megawatts of new wind and wind repowerings, 670-Megawatts of solar, and 300-Megawatts of battery storage including 75 additional megawatts of capacity on Desert Peak storage, which is now expected to total 400-Megawatts and remains the world’s largest standalone storage project. Following the terrific origination year in 2020, our renewables backlog now stands at approximately 13,500-Megawatts. Despite a record year of megawatts placed in service, Energy Resources grew its yearend backlog by approximately 1500-Megawatts year-over-year providing terrific visibility to the strong growth that lies ahead. Since 2017, our backlog additions have grown at a roughly 25% compound annual growth rate. As a result of our tremendous progress in 2020 and our strong continued origination success, we are raising our 2021 to 2022 renewables development expectations to a range of 10,525-Megawatts to 12,700-Megawatts, which at the midpoint is approximately 3500-Megawatts above our previous expectations. Our expectations for 2021 and 2022 are now up more than 50% at the midpoint relative to the expectations that we laid out at the 2019 investor conference reflecting the significant acceleration of renewables activity over the past year-and-a-half. We are also introducing our 2023 to 2024 renewables development expectations of 12,150-Megawatts to 17,300-Megawatts. This is by far the largest expected two year development program in our history and reflects our high level of confidence in Energy Resources’ ongoing leadership position and renewables energy development. The accompanying slide provide some additional details. As we’ve previously discussed, we are optimistic about the we are optimistic about the expanded investment opportunities that the broad decarbonization of the U.S. economy presents for Energy Resources, and we are pursuing a number of pilot projects to rapidly develop our capabilities across this potential investment opportunity set. Today, we are announcing a new innovative green hydrogen project at Energy Resources that includes a 12-Megawatt solar array, onsite hydrogen production and storage, and a hydrogen fuel cell. This emissions-free project will utilize solar energy to create green hydrogen to power the fuel cell, which will be able to provide electricity to the local grid during periods of peak demands. Subject to final terms and regulatory approvals, this approximately $20 million innovative green hydrogen project is expected to begin construction in 2022 with commercial operations in mid-2023. Energy Resources is also in advanced discussions with a number of potential customers across the industrial landscape, including food processing, specialty chemicals and refineries to continue to develop clean energy solutions for a more efficient green production processes. One potential project includes a solar tracker combined with an electrolyzer at a large industrial plant. The project would deliver green hydrogen as an industrial feedstock to the facility and we are not producing hydrogen, the solar power would offset a portion of the plant's energy consumption further decarbonizing the facility's operations. In addition, today, Energy Resources announced a planned partnership to preserve – pursue large school bus fleet conversions to electric and hydrogen with the nation's largest school bus owner and operator and transportation services provider. With its partner, Energy Resources anticipates investing in bus electrification upgrades and charging stations, as well as providing energy management services. This transaction is consistent with our toe in the water approach, as we explore potential opportunities in the electrification of the transportation sector. We are excited about all of these opportunities, as well as the previously announced hydrogen pilot project, we plan to propose at FPL's Okeechobee Clean Energy Center, which highlight the significant opportunities that the broad decarbonization of the U.S. economy presents. Consistent with our long-term track record, NextEra Energy will remain disciplined as we take steps to be at the forefront of these developing markets while taking a leadership role in the clean energy transition. Beyond renewables and storage, since the last earnings call, Mountain Valley Pipeline made progress with its outstanding permitting issues, including receiving the Bureau of Land Management Right-of-Way Grants, which authorizes MVP to cross the Jefferson National Forest once the stream and wetland permitting is complete. While the Fourth Circuit denied the stay request on MVP's new biological opinion, the court did grant a stay on the Nationwide 12 Permit, and the project is now pursuing an alternate path forward to permit and complete stream and wetland crossings. Due to these continued legal and regulatory issues, as well as the substantial delays in commercial operation and increased costs associated with those delays, the carrying value for our investment in MVP now exceeds its fair market value and as a result, we have reflected a 1 to – $1.2 billion after-tax impairment in our GAAP financial statements, which we have excluded from adjusted earnings. While we are disappointed with the extended development and construction timeline due to the legal challenges that the project has faced, we intend to continue pursuing completing the project with our partners. Finally, during 2020, NextEra Energy Transmission furthered its efforts to grow America's leading competitive transmission company and had its best year ever. During the year, the business delivered record earnings contribution and realized constructive rate case outcomes at Trans Bay Cable and Lone Star Transmission, as well as entered into an agreement to acquire GridLiance, which owns three FERC-regulated transmission utilities spanning six states. We continue to expect to obtain all necessary regulatory approvals and close on the GridLiance acquisition in the first half of this year. Turning now to the consolidated results for NextEra Energy. For the fourth quarter of 2020, GAAP net losses attributable to NextEra Energy were $5 million or $0.00 per share. NextEra Energy's 2020 fourth quarter adjusted earnings and adjusted EPS were $785 million or $0.40 per share respectively. For the full year 2020, GAAP net income attributable to NextEra Energy was $2.92 billion or $1.48 per share. Adjusted earnings were $4.55 billion or $2.31 per share. As a reminder, all of our financial results have been adjusted to account for the four-for-one stock split, which became effective in the fourth quarter. For the Corporate and Other segments, adjusted earnings for the full year decreased $0.07 per share compared to the 2019 prior comparable period, primarily as a result of higher interest in refinancing costs associated with certain liability management initiatives completed during the fourth quarter to take advantage of the low interest rate environment. In total, for NextEra Energy, our refinancing activities reduced nominal adjusted net income by roughly $103 million during the fourth quarter, inclusive of approximately $39 million associated with Energy Resources' share of refinancing cost at NextEra Energy Partners. We expect these initiatives to translate into favorable net income contributions in future years and an overall improvement in net present value for our shareholders. Long-term financial expectations, which we increased and extended late last year through 2023 remain unchanged. For 2021, NextEra Energy expects adjusted earnings per share to be in a range of $2.40 to $2.54. For 2022 and 2023, NextEra Energy expects to grow 6% to 8% of the expected 2021 adjusted earnings per share, and we will be disappointed if we are not able to deliver financial results at or near the top end of these ranges. From 2018 to 2023, we continue to expect that operating cash flow will grow roughly in line with our adjusted EPS compound annual growth rate range. We also continue to expect to grow our dividends per share at a roughly 10% per year rate through at least 2022 off of a 2020 base. As always, our expectations assume normal weather and operating conditions. Let me now turn to NextEra Energy Partners, which also had a strong year of operational and financial performance in 2020. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was $308 million and cash available for distribution was $106 million, an increase of 10% and 8% from the prior year period respectively. EBITDA growth was driven primarily by favorable resource across the portfolio and the full contributions from new projects acquired in late 2019, and it was slightly offset by a planned outage at our Genesis project late in the fourth quarter. For the full year 2020, adjusted EBITDA was $1.263 billion, up 14% year-over-year. Cash available for distribution was $570 million, an increase of 40% from the prior year. Similar to the quarterly results, full year growth in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by full year contributions from acquisitions in the prior year and favorable wind resource. For the full year, wind resource was 100% of the long-term average versus 97% in 2019. The benefit to cash available for distribution from lower project-level debt service was partially offset by higher corporate level interest expense. As a reminder, these results include the impact of IDR fees, which we treat as an operating expense. Additional details are shown on the accompanying slide. Yesterday, the NextEra Energy Partners Board declared a quarterly distribution of $0.615 per common unit or $2.46 per unit on an annualized basis, up 15% from the comparable quarterly distribution a year earlier and at the top-end of the range we discussed going into 2020. During 2020, NextEra Energy Partners executed several financings to support its ongoing growth investments and optimize its capital structure for the benefit of LP unitholders. As Jim mentioned, during the quarter, we closed on an acquisition from Energy Resources of interest in an approximately 1100-Megawatt portfolio of long-term contracted renewables projects. As part of this transaction, NextEra Energy Partners raised a 10-year, approximately $1.1 billion convertible equity portfolio financing, that includes the acquired assets, plus four existing NextEra Energy Partners' wind and solar projects. Combining this acquisition with the recapitalization of four existing NextEra Energy Partners' assets through the longest dated and lowest cost convertible equity portfolio financing in the partnership's history is expected to provide significant benefits for unitholders. By leveraging the strong demand for high quality clean energy assets, NextEra Energy Partners was able to secure financing for both the current transaction and future growth, while enhancing returns for L.P. unitholders and limiting downside risk. NextEra Energy Partners expects to further strengthen its balance sheet and have access to approximately $2.4 billion in available financing capacity, including capacity under its corporate revolving credit facility and commitments from investors to potential future convertible equity portfolio financings, which further supports the Partnership's long-term growth. During the second half of the year, NextEra Energy Partners completed the successful conversion of approximately $300 million of convertible debt and the remaining balance of the convertible preferred securities that were issued in 2017 into approximately 5.7 million units and 4.7 million units - common units respectively. These conversions help NextEra Energy Partners achieve its goal of using low-cost financing products to efficiently issue equity over time. Finally, NextEra Energy Partners raised approximately $600 million in new 0% coupon convertible notes during the quarter and used the net proceeds from this offering to redeem a portion of its outstanding 4.25% senior notes due in 2024. Coincident with the issuance of the convertible notes, NextEra Energy Partners entered into a capped call structure that will result in NextEra Energy Partners retaining up to 90% of the upside in its unit price associated with the convertible notes over the next five years. NextEra Energy Partners' runrate expectations for adjusted EBITDA and CAFD at December 31st 2021 remain unchanged. Year-end 2021 runrate adjusted EBITDA expectations are $1.44 billion to $1.62 billion and CAFD in the range of $600 million to $680 million. As a reminder, all of our expectations are subject to our normal caveats and include the impact of anticipated IDR fees, as we treat these as an operating expense. From an updated base of our fourth quarter 2020 distribution per common unit at an annualized rate of $2.46, we continue to see 12% to 15% growth per year in LP distributions as being a reasonable range of expectations through at least 2024. We expect the annualized rate of the fourth quarter 2021 distribution that is payable in February of 2022 to be in a range of $2.76 to $2.83 per common unit. In summary, we continue to believe that both NextEra Energy and NextEra Energy Partners have excellent prospects for growth both in the near and longer-term. FPL, Energy Resources and NextEra Energy Partners each have outstanding set of opportunities across the board. The progress we’ve made in 2020 reinforces our longer-term growth prospects and while we have a lot to execute on in 2021, we believe that we have the building blocks in place for another excellent year. \ That concludes our prepared remarks. And with that, we'll open up the line for your questions.