Pat Vincent-Collawn
Analyst · Evercore ISI. Please go ahead
Thank you, Jimmie, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our first quarter earnings call. Let's begin on Slide 4 with the financial results and some company updates. Our GAAP earnings per share in the first quarter of 2019 reflect earnings of $0.23 compared to $0.19 in the first quarter of 2018. Ongoing earnings per share are $0.13 compared to $0.21 in the first quarter of last year. During the first quarter, load growth and weather in New Mexico, once again contributed to increased earnings at PNM and, as a result, we have raised the top end of our guidance range for 2019 to reflect increased expectations. Our guidance for 2019 is now $2.10 to $2.20. Chuck will provide further details on the financials in a few minutes. The key highlights for the first quarter was the New Mexico legislative session. This year's session produced a solid energy policy for the state that was led by the Governor and the legislature. The Energy Transition Act passed through the Senate and the House, and the Governors signed it into law on March 22. The new legislation is effective June 14, 2019. One of the key components of the bill was to allow for securitization, which helps make the transition to clean energy, more affordable for customers. Another key component is the renewable standard set forth. 40% renewables by 2025, 50% by 2030, and 80% by 2040 and then 100% carbon-free resources by 2045. Our previous Integrated Resource Plan brought us to over 70% emissions-free by 2032, that challenged us to solve the remaining 30% by 2045. As we've gone back to consider scenarios that would meet this requirement, we believe the changes can lend themselves to an earlier achievement date and have set a company goal to be emissions free by 2040, five years earlier than the Energy Transition Act. We are identifying different paths to achieve this goal and plan to continue the collaborative efforts that were integral in the passing of a new legislation to determine the right resource path for the next 20 years. The Energy Transition Act also contain some guidance on how to choose replacement power. For example, the bill states that preference is to be given to locating the resources in the San Juan area and replacing the property tax base in that school district. The bill also states that the utility should have the discretion to control, operate and maintain energy storage systems. We will take all the components of the bill into account as we prepare our filing for the abandonment of San Juan and replacement power alternatives, which I'll talk more about in a minute. Looking out to next year, our Integrated Resource Plan required by July 1 of 2020 will contemplate scenarios for our long-term resource plans for the next 20 years that will align with our goal of producing zero emissions by 2040. The Bill also provides needed assistance to workers in the San Juan area communities. We have been committed to supporting our employees and their families in this part of our state for many years, and our commitment will not end with the retirement of the plant. Outside of the assistance provided through the Energy Transition Act, we have made plans to work with non-profit agencies in the community to ensure that services are available to provide the training and assistance needed to move forward. Another significant piece of legislation that passed this session was a joint resolution to change the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission from its current makeup of five elected commissioners to three appointed commissioners beginning in 2023. The resolution also narrows the mandatory responsibilities of the commission to focus on utilities and other public service companies as determined by the legislature. It states that candidates for nomination would need to meet certain requirements around education or experience. The bipartisan resolution was introduced by the Senate majority and minority leaders and was passed through the Senate and House with a combined vote of 95 to 13, demonstrating strong bipartisan support for these legislative changes. Three of the five current commissioners have endorsed the changes as well. Because the change requires an amendment to the state constitution, the next step is for the resolution to go on the ballot in the 2020 General Election. A simple majority is required to pass the bill. A more recent highlight was the announcement last week of an acquisition of the Western Spirit transmission line. While New Mexico had incredible potential for solar and wind energy, the transmission system must be developed to deploy these resources and move the energy to where it is needed. This has been a goal of the New Mexico Renewable Energy Transmission Authority, or RETA, for several years, and we are happy to support their efforts along with the Governor's goal to make New Mexico a clean energy leader. RETA and Pattern Development have been developing the line, and PNM has agreed to acquire it after its completion. This acquisition fulfilled PNM's obligation to provide transmission service for the renewable generation facilities and will provide additional capacity on our grid, improving resiliency and overall reliability of our system. The acquisition also aligns with the incremental capital growth opportunities that we have presented. Of course, the transaction is subject to the necessary regulatory approvals, and this week, we will be making a filing at FERC for an incremental rate tariff by which Pattern Development will pay for the use of the line. A filing at the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission will also be made related to this acquisition. Now turning to Slide 5. I will walk through recent updates to the regulatory agenda and other filings to expect in the coming months. Regarding the San Juan compliance filings, the New Mexico Supreme Court issued a temporary stay of the commission's order for an abandonment filing on March 1 and requested that parties file responses to the appeal of the commission order by March 19. The Supreme Court has not taken further actions following these responses. We plan to file for abandonment along with securitization of undepreciated costs and CNNs for replacement power by the end of June. I mentioned on last quarter's call that we are encouraged by what we are seeing across the industry in terms of breakthroughs for energy storage and pricing for renewable resources. We are confident in our ability to maintain cost-effective, reliable and, ultimately, emissions-free energy for our customers. Our June filing will include the lease cost plans for replacing the energy needs currently served by San Juan, but we'll also consider alternatives based on the preferences included in the Energy Transition Act and resources that work towards meeting the future RPF standards. And our filing on the Western Energy Imbalance Market, the commission issued an order allowing for the creation of a regulatory asset to recover the costs necessary to participate in the markets that will be considered in a future general-rate case. We joined with other parties to ask the commission for clarification of how the benefits of market participation would be evaluated when cost recovery is considered in the future-rate case. The commission verified that quarterly reports from the California ISO may be used to quantify the benefits, providing us the confidence to invest in the market for the benefit of our customers. We are moving forward with our original plans to enter the Imbalance Market in April of 2021 and begin providing those expected savings to customers as soon as possible. We also made a filing with the commission last week to rehear the case on the BB2 Transmission Project. This filing is for a transmission networks service upgrade, and while commission's order approved the CCN to construct a line, it directly assigned certain cost to Facebook instead of across the full network of customers that received the benefit of the upgrade. The rehearing will provide commission the opportunity to reconsider their order regarding cost allocation of the project and recognize that the upgrade increases overall system reliability, supports more renewable energy additions, and most importantly, provide the financial benefit to customers without directly assigning costs to one customer. The commission has, until May 19, to act on our request. I want to point out that we will have our upcoming renewable plans filing at PNM to request an update to rate under our renewable rider. In this year's plan, we expect to request recovery for 140 megawatts purchased power agreements for wind power that is necessary to meet the requirements of our existing RPS standard, and it will rely on the BB2 line to deliver power to our customers. We will provide an update on this filing along with our June abandonment filing during our second quarter earnings call. Over at TNMP, after we implemented rates in January from our general rate case approved in December, we filed for a $14.3 million key cost increase that was approved and implemented at the end of March. This filing was larger than our typical TCOS filing because we had to delay our request for recovery at transmission-rate base during our general rate review in 2018. We now expect to follow our usual pattern of twice yearly filings, with the second TCOS filing in the fall. And with that, I will turn it over to Chuck for a detailed look at the numbers.