DTE Energy Company (NYSE:DTE) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Unidentified Analyst: Understood. That’s helpful. And then just kind of switching gears a bit here. I know we’ve seen some recent headlines detailing, for example, plans for large-scale battery manufacturing facilities in Michigan to service electric vehicles. So — just kind of wondering what you’re seeing in terms of new industrial load and if any of that will kind of accrue favorably to DTE in terms of higher electric load.

Gerardo Norcia: Certainly, last year, General Motors announced the battery plant and battery operation — assembly operations in our service territory. And certainly, we’re really excited about that. In the past year, we also saw One Energy announced a new battery plant in our service territory. In addition to that, the University of Michigan announced a multibillion-dollar investment program right next door to our headquarters for an innovation center, which will drive economic growth and development in the city of Detroit. And most recently, the Henry Ford Hospital system is rebuilding their hospital campus in downtown Detroit with a multibillion dollar investment as well, which will create new jobs, new economic development activity.

And those are some of the big ones that I mentioned, but there are so many others. In my time at DTE, this has probably been the most active economic development period that I’ve seen. So we’re pretty excited about growth both in the industrial and commercial sector, which ultimately, as you know, will drive growth in residential investment as well and commercial investment to support those industries.

Operator: Your next question is from the line of Angie Storozynski with Seaport.

Agnieszka Storozynski: So just going back to the rate case strategy. And I know that we are maybe over analyzing this. But I’m just — I mean, you have another rate case filing, a big one, this time. Are there any lessons learned from the previous case then that you’ve embedded in this filing? So any changes in the strategy? Some, I don’t know, outreach to the commission and the staff ahead of it? So that’s one. Number 2 is, how are the residential sales trending vis-a-vis the past rate case and the current rate case? I mean, are you seeing any deterioration in sales versus what you had expected? And then lastly, you mentioned, I think, as far as the gas rate cases that you might elongate the time in between the rate cases. And I’m just debating with myself if that’s the right strategy given that, that maybe increases the amount of the ask in the next rate case, if you stay out.

Again, just trying to have some lessons learned from the outcome of the last rate case on the electric side.

Gerardo Norcia: Sure. So let me start with, Angie, the lessons learned, and I’ll have Dave talk about sales. And then we can talk about the gas freight case strategy as well. So as we reflect on the outcome, certainly, the major issue there was sales volume forecast. And again, it’s — and Dave will talk about how our sales are tracking, but they’re essentially tracking as we had expected. And — but I this will be resolved in the next rate case. Sales will not be a mystery. So that’s point number one. That was the biggest fundamental deviation, if you will, in this last rate case. But again, we dug deeper than that, Angie, and said, how can we improve, what we file. So we’ve taken another really deep inspection and review of all of our filings to make sure that they’re well supported, well understood, continue to be well understood in order to get a better understanding with the staff and the commission and other interveners as to what is it that we’re trying to accomplish with this significant investment profile that we have with directed at our grid as well as our renewable assets.