Alliant Energy Corporation (NASDAQ:LNT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Excellent guys. Thank you. Good luck, alright. Thank you for the time.

John Larsen: Yeah. Thanks, Julien.

Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Nicholas Campanella from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Nicholas Campanella: Hey, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Happy Friday. So can you just — I just wanted to tie off the calendar here. Can you just give us a sense of how long the judicial process lasts before the advanced ratemaking docket will resume, essentially?

Robert Durian: Yes. Nick, this is Robert. So there’s no definitive time frame regarding the judicial process, but we have asked for expedited review is how I’d characterize it. Largely because as we continue to move forward with these projects, like a lot of the other utilities, we are seeing costs continue to increase. So we have a desire to try and get these in, as soon as possible to make them as cost effective as possible for our customers. But there is no definitive time frame, but we’ll be continuing to work closely with both the IUB as well as the judicial process to try and get these done as quickly as possible.

Nicholas Campanella: Got it. And obviously, you have a long history of these RPUs providing solid returns for your renewables investments. I guess just if you were to kind of pursue a plan where you’re moving some of these new investments more into that retail base rate in a traditional — in a more kind of traditional rate filing. Is the midpoint of your long-term guidance for 6% still achievable on that strategy? Just trying to understand if it’s a headwind or not. Thank you.

John Larsen: Yeah Nick, John here. And we’re still very confident in our 5% to 7% in midpoint.

Nicholas Campanella: Great. And then just one last one for me, is just with all the attention on deferred fuel and as we kind of progress through recovery, have you quantified how much of a drag that is on your credit currently and what the improvement could be?

Robert Durian: Yes. Nick, when we look at, I’ll say, AEC as an entire company, specifically at the FFO to debt metric, we are slightly below the targeted level for AEC, largely because of the timing of those fuel cost recoveries, as well as some additional solar construction costs. We incurred financing on, in 2022 as a result of pivoting away from a tax equity partnership to full ownership. . We expect those credit metrics to improve materially when you look out about 12 months. As we begin to recover those fuel costs as well as we get to the next rate case in Wisconsin where we’ll start recovering those additional solar costs as well. So we feel very confident about the ability, like I said, within the next 12 month window to be able to improve those metrics.

We’re also cautiously optimistic that as early as 2023, we might be able to start realizing the benefits of our tax credits that have available to be sold now into the market as a result of the IRA. So a lot of positive developments we see over the next 12 months when it comes to those credit metrics.

Nicholas Campanella: Thanks for the time today.

Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Weisel from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Andrew Weisel: Hey, good morning, everybody.

John Larsen: Hey, Andrew.

Andrew Weisel: you can see then rate-making process is done. If so, can the ROE be modified during or after construction or will the construction not begin until that’s resolved?