Portland General Electric Co Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Aditya Darshan Gandhi - Wolfe Research, LLC - Analyst : So just on the rate case. Could you please clarify -- so when you go in for a rate case and as it relates to your equity ratio, just given the forward test, would you -- again, this is assuming that you do an equity forward and you have to draw on it. Would you have to draw on your forward sort of before you file or at the time you file? Or just given your forward test year, can you sort of file later in the year? Could you please clarify that?

Question: Aditya Darshan Gandhi - Wolfe Research, LLC - Analyst : Got it. That's helpful. And then just going to your 5% to 7% growth rate. So you have a higher capital plan now and you're pointing to more sales growth in the out years. But you have some equity needs for our base business, which is at present underequitized, and also some equity needs related to your RFP. And then you've also pointed to a higher capital plan. So maybe there's some equity needs related to that increased CapEx? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. OCTOBER 25, 2022 / 3:00PM, POR.N - Q3 2022 Portland General Electric Co Earnings Call Maybe not. But just because we don't have sort of like a full picture of what your financing refresh looks like, how should we think about the shape of your 5% to 7%, especially sort of beyond 2023? James A. Ajello - Portland General Electric Company - Senior VP of Finance, CFO, Treasurer & Corporate Compliance Officer Yes, I'll take that one. So I do think the CapEx guidance that we disclosed today is as best as we could see it right now. We're not even finished with the current RFP cycle. And as I said, we're hopeful that by the end of the year or into the first quarter, we'll see more results that are beneficial. So I'm not revised upward the guidance that we just gave you, but I would say to you that there's opportunity in that CapEx plan as well. So it's a little hard, therefore, to size what that capital plan will be. We know and we've discussed many times the need to return over time. And on average, as Maria just said, literally, the cap structure for the company per regulation. And I would assume also that once that is, if you will, taken care of, what you'll see is incremental capital investments like Clearwater out of the box funded on a 50-50 basis in order to maintain the overall. So we'll size this and be ready for the opportunity as it comes. I'll just tell you that these markets are extremely volatile and difficult to project, given the hawkish nature of the Fed and the way the equity markets are performing. So it's a question that we -- your question is what we wrestle with all the time.