CMS Energy Corporation (NYSE:CMS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Garrick Rochow: And let me just conclude there. So there’s — that upside is not in the plan, just to be really clear about that. And to the degree there is upside I want to make sure everyone’s clear, there’s no sugar highs, right? We deliver 6% to 8%, and we have confidence toward the high end. So I just want to be clear on expectations going forward.

Jeremy Tonet: That’s very helpful there. And I just want to continue, I guess, with kind of bleed or element to the point here. And looking at the back half of the planned growth drivers outside of rate base. Can you walk us through time line for clarity on the pieces there? Just wondering if there’s conservatism on those items as we look at kind of outside of rate base growth later date?

Rejji Hayes: And just — thank you for the question, Jeremy. And just for everyone’s reference, this is the content we have on Slide 6 of the deck. And so we’ve always talked about the additional growth drivers beyond the rate base as a result of the very constructive legislation. We have in Michigan. And so there’s the energy waste reduction opportunities that we have, and we earn economic incentives on that. There’s a financial compensation mechanism that we get on PPAs that has been solidified now in two integrated resource plans. And then there is the 10.7% ROE that we get on renewable projects associated with the renewable portfolio standard of Michigan, which we’re still executing on. And then there’s additional contribution from North Star.

And so all of those offer growth to our earnings profile above and beyond what we get in the rate base. And so that 7% or so you’re seeing for rate base growth. These would be additive to that. And I would say you get steady contribution for the majority of these. Jeremy, to get to your question. And so with respect to energy waste reduction, we do expect that to increase gradually over the course of the plan. The PPAs. Those will actually ramp up as we do more solar on the contracted side attributable to the IRP. And then we’ll see probably more front-end loaded the wind opportunity and then just steady growth at North Star. And so that’s really how you should think about the economic opportunity for those non-rate-base opportunities over the course of the plan.

Jeremy Tonet: Got it. That’s very helpful. Thanks.

Rejji Hayes: Thank you.

Garrick Rochow: Thank you, Jeremy.

Operator: The next question comes from Julien Dumoulin-Smith from Bank of America. Julien, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi, Good morning. This is on for Julien. My first question is to just to elaborate on the DIG economics and the opportunity there, how do you see the move from a seasonal auction in MISO or two seasonal option MISO from an annual auction kind of impacting that opportunity, if at all? And how should we think about that there?

Rejji Hayes: Yes. So we are assessing MISO’s new rules around sort of the seasonal auction. I still think when you cut through it, whether it’s a historical process of the new process, you’re still going to see a continued tightening of Zone 7. It’s still a peninsula. You still have limited transmission importation access to the southern border, and you still have Covert retirements. And so when you have those sort of construct, you’re going to see just an imbalance between supply and demand and DIG will start to open up in those outer years. And so we anticipate, as I said before, that we’ll potentially see more attractive economics as energy and capacity starts to free up in the outages of the plan. The degree to which it’s more attractive, we’ll see.

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