So yes, I think the important part about these renewable generation projects up in Indiana, I, I think it’s important to reemphasize, it represents less than 10% of our total CapEx for the company. And so it gives us a great deal of flexibility as we see the potential slowdown in, you know, operational dates for these plants, we can accelerate either in the other electric or gas portions of our business.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Congrats again guys. See you soon, right?
ChrisFoster: Thank you, Julien.
Operator: Please standby for the next question. The next question comes from Jeremy Tonet with JP Morgan Securities. Your line is open.
Jeremy Tonet: Hi, good morning.
ChrisFoster: Hi, Jeremy, good morning.
Jeremy Tonet: Congratulations again to Dave and Jason here. Great to see. And maybe just kind of picking up with this point. Obviously, Dave is a big figure in the City of Houston, very ingrained in the culture there. I was just wondering, Jason, if you could maybe speak a bit I guess, you know, having moved to Texas, how you feel your relationships with, you know, local community stakeholders, you know, have evolved over-time, you know, being somewhat newer to the City?
Jason Wells: Yes, thanks for the question, Jeremy. I appreciate it. Obviously, incredibly big shoes to fill, from the standpoint of Dave’s status in the, in the community here, but you know I’ve been working since I hit the ground here with a variety of organizations outside of Houston Electric and, and, and obviously our greater CenterPoint family. So I’m deeply involved in the community, serving a number of different interests. I would say that Houston is a very welcoming and transitory community with a strong civic focus, and I’ve been able to tap into that to build a broad network. My focus are, isn’t just on Houston alone. It’s incredibly important, and I think the activities, you know, outside of my, my day job here at CenterPoint reflect my commitment to the community, but, you know, even this week we were up in Minnesota, meeting with the Governor and other elected officials around priorities for our Minnesota gas business.
I continue to make my way around our full-service territory. And so, I think and, and hopefully you have seen – I understand the importance of being involved in our communities. Houston being obviously our home base, but we have the privilege to serve six states and want to be active in all of them.
Dave Lesar: Yes, let me just add little something to that, it’s hard. As you know Jason is a humble guy, and he finds it hard to pat himself on the back, but I think he’s done a great job in three-plus years he’s been here in the Houston community and, and the broader places that CenterPoint serves. And I think he’s doing a great job there. He is embedding themselves in the community. I’m not going anywhere. And I think it’s going to be all easily handled, and I don’t think there should be any concern at all about it.
Jeremy Tonet: Got it, that’s, that’s great to hear. Thank you for that. And then maybe just pivoting over towards Minnesota, if I could. I think you touched on the potential to change the structure of the filing to two-year forward looking rate case, instead of one years, one year, and just I was wondering, would that raise your earn return expectations in the jurisdiction, if this does come to fruition? And is this a, a benefit to CenterPoint’s outlook if the Commission approves for the, the two-year test look there.
Jason Wells: I think just the overall sort of smoothing rate increases for customers. And sort of consistent with the common theme around a lot of our regulatory update today sort of simplifying our rate case schedule. I wouldn’t really look at it as much as a, you know, earned return. Minnesota is the one state that we operate in that has a forward-looking test year. You know, historically, what I used to say was that, you know, in even years we would see a revenue increase and, and in odd years, you know, we wouldn’t see any increase until we have to overcome that regulatory lag on, on odd years. This filing for a two-year for test year begins to address that profile. And so, again, starts to reduce a little bit of regulatory lag, snooze rate increases for our customers and overall reduces the administrative burden. So we’re excited about making that filing next week.
Jeremy Tonet: Got it, that’s very helpful. I’ll leave it there. Thanks.
Jackie Richert: Operator, we have time for one more question.
Operator: The last question will come from David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. David, your line is open.
David Arcaro: Hi, good morning. Thanks so much for taking my question, and congrats to both Dave and Jason as well.
Dave Lesar: Thank you, David.
David Arcaro: You know, I was, I was wondering just on the Houston Electric rate case filing, appreciate the color there. And just wondering if you could dig a little more into, have there been any changes in your expect, expectations in terms of the size of the revenue requirement ask. Does it gives you an opportunity to capture any kind of chunkier capital projects that might have been, you know, completed in the fourth quarter this year or any O&M savings, things like that as you head into that second-quarter timing.
Jason Wells: Yes, David. I appreciate the question, and the short answer is no, I don’t think the extension was for that reason. Really with the fact we have now two, the opportunity for two DCRFs and two TCOS a year, the rate case at Houston Electric largely becomes a rate case that centers around cost-of-capital around depreciation rates at any differed regulatory assets and liabilities. You know, as I mentioned, we have the opportunity to seek recovery of capital that we’re spending now and through the fourth quarter up until the time we file that rate case through the DCRF and TCOS mechanisms. And so, I wouldn’t really look at this extension as opportunity for us to address any capital, is going to be a case that involves revolves around cost-of-capital O&M and regulatory assets.
And back to sort of the first part of your question, no, there is no fundamental change, I think we’re looking at the potential for a small revenue decline, you know, potentially flat revenue increase. When we – I’ve been clear that we’re going to advocate for a higher cost of capital, but as we forecast what that calendar year test year is going to look like, we have reduced O&M more than the increases that we would propose from a cost of capital. So I think that should put us in a standpoint of filing for a revenue requirement. Again, relatively flat, potentially modest decrease as we’ve communicated in the past.
