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| Statement |
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| We have done well in those processes in the past, and we hope to continue to be able to deliver the lowest cost, least risk clean energy resources to customers that is marketdly available |
| And it's a really terrific amount of opportunity for us |
| First, we expect continued strong industrial load growth supported by state and federal policies |
| And you'll see that moving forward with confidence as we look to 2024, which is a really solid year for us given the outcome of our rate case, customer growth and the capital plan that we just discussed |
| As such, we are well-positioned to achieve 5% to 7% long-term earnings growth |
| Our strong balance sheet, investment-grade credit ratings and stable credit outlook remain unchanged from our previous disclosures |
| This includes 500 megawatts of hydro agreements, improving our capacity portfolio and the introduction of the reliability contingency event provision as part of the PCAM |
| As I said earlier, confidence in our service territory remains strong, highlighted by continued load growth from industrial customers and modest increases in the residential and commercial classes |
| These load dynamics as well as continued regional investment in a pipeline growth guidance of incoming projects give us continued confidence in our long-run load assumptions -- expectations |
| 2024 will be a year of growth supported by three key drivers: first, continued load growth led by high-tech and digital customers; second, capital investment to enable this growth, advance our clean energy goals and strengthen reliability and resilience; and third, ongoing operational discipline across our organization |
| Our 2023 results reflect continued industrial load growth, dynamic weather and power cost conditions, execution of our capital plan and strengthening our growth foundation |
| We are excited about 2024, our continued growth in high tech digital customers |
| Healthy industrial load growth continued in 2023, increasing 5.9% |
| Our results in 2023 reflect our strong execution on cost management, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our team to streamline processes, leverage technology and improve productivity |
| We remain confident in our 5% to 7% growth rate |
| For our communities and the other customers we serve, this creates an overall strengthening of our reliability and resiliency as we invest in new infrastructure, and it provides important jobs for the region, property taxes and other significant benefits |
| This philosophy, coupled with derisking accomplishments and critical investments made in 2023 give us continued confidence in our growth plan |
| To reiterate, we are focused on three main areas to achieve growth in the coming year and beyond: first, exceptional customer growth; second, execution of our capital plan; and third, ongoing operational discipline |
| While these are lower-than-expected results, we remain confident in our long-term growth trajectory of 5% to 7% and 2024 guidance of $2.98 to $3.18 per diluted share |
| We maintain flexibility in financing options and remain confident in competitively accessing both debt and equity markets when necessary |
| One of the reasons that we have competitive RFPs for renewable generation capacity and energy is to get the very best prices for customers in competitive processes |
| Excellent |
| Power costs drove a $0.25 increase in EPS, driven by a $0.29 EPS increase due to power cost headwinds in 2022 that reversed for this comparison and a $0.04 EPS decrease from higher power costs than anticipated in the annual update tariff |
| Excellent |
| So it allows for significant growth as we move forward |
| While total loads in 2023 were below our expectations, our service territory fundamentals and our load outlook remains strong |
| Unemployment in our region of 3.4% trails a national average of 3.7% and we continue to see other positive indicators, public and private sector investment points to broader economic development and continued load growth in 2024 and beyond |
| Notwithstanding the challenges we faced, we achieved important milestones that have set the stage for 2024, including a constructive outcome in our general rate case |
| the last 5 years, we've observed a 7.5% compound annual growth rate in industrial load as high tech investments and AI expansion have driven semiconductor and data center demand growth |
| And those projects are winners, they're good for customers, and they're good for financing |
| Statement |
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| Ultimately, these dynamics were a significant headwind in achieving the level of power cost favorability expected for the year |
| To start, challenging weather impacted the quarter with mild conditions across the period in the second warmest December on record |
| PGE's wind farms generated 23% less energy in Q4 2023 than Q4 2022, requiring generation -- PGE's thermal fleet to make up much of the shortfall |
| As a result, this combination, both to our revenue and purchase power and fuel expense, performance fell short |
| Customer uses was affected by these conditions, but power costs were also challenged as renewables production was significantly impacted during these mild periods |
| The conditions to trigger the first reliability contingency event treatment under the updated power cost recovery framework for [indiscernible], as the region saw market price spikes, balancing authority alerts and resource adequacy constraints on PGE system |
| This January, a severe storm brought a powerful combination of high winds, ice and snow that led to widespread damage and high power costs |
| This resulted in very low energy usage and historically low wind and hydro production |
| 2022 residential load decreased 1.7% year-over-year or 0.5% weather-adjusted, driven by mild weather and energy efficiency, residential customer count increased 0.8% for the year |
| Commercial load decreased slightly down 0.3% or 0.2% weather-adjusted versus 2022, largely driven by energy efficiency |
| The storm came in multiple phases of severe weather and single-digit temperatures |
| Lastly, a $0.05 decrease to GAAP EPS resulting from the Boardman settlement refund, bringing us to our GAAP EPS of $2.33 per diluted share |
| Utilities across the country are dealing with increasing impacts of extreme weather |
| Weather had a meaningful impact on 2023 results, particularly in the second half of the year |
| And one of the things I want to recognize is this was truly an extraordinary event not only for the restoration efforts with regards to customer outages, but region wise, the energy markets were really in significant disarray |
| The first circle being within our service territory really directly being impacted by customer growth |
| Overall, we experienced 15% fewer heating degree days than the 15-year average |
| As I mentioned previously, there are certain items putting weight on the scale, of the batteries coming online and some other items that we would expect, needing more time to recover |
| We caution you that such statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from our expectations |
| Finally, our results also reflect higher costs associated with continued capital investment to support grid resiliency, customer growth and decarbonization |
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