Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HE) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Alright. Fair enough. And then I want to come back to the procurement avenues. I know that there’s two separate avenues there. And you also alluded to in your comments that there are some wires investments potentially as well. Can you give us a sense of the scale of opportunity represented here? I mean, obviously, there’s megawatts released here as well. But as you think about – especially the T&D side of that, right, whether or not you’re awarded some of these projects, how do you think about that wire side in both Maui and Oahu. If you can speak to it. And presumably, those announcements will be made simultaneously for the wires and the generation in late October?

Scott Seu: Well, just to clarify a bit, Julien, the announcement will be for the final award group for the generation. I mean this is a renewable generation RFP. The investment – the added investment down the road in the transmission and distribution system would come about partly to support these new renewable generation projects that would be brought online but then also just continued investment in modernization as we see more distributed energy resources and the like. I think in our – I referenced our IGP plan and that’s where I made reference to this additional T&D investment. Most of that would probably come in post 2025 because that would be aligned with the timing of a lot of these new resources coming online.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Got it. Any indications on scale? I mean, obviously, you said you’d be in the top half here of the overall CapEx range for the current year and maybe call it four-ten, but any sense of what that could do as you think about scaling into that post ‘25 period? And then obviously, difficult to say necessarily early on in the RP process – but any commentary about what that’s kind of the range of opportunities that could emerge?

Paul Ito: Julian, in terms of the IGP plan, we do have the final draft of filed. And in that plan, we do put out some forecast of what that investment could be. And obviously, a lot could change until those plans are finalized. But in terms of building out the renewable energy on infrastructure, it is a pretty significant investment. I think we do have – post 2025, as Scott mentioned, some numbers in the IGP. There’s a portion of about $60 million, and then there’s a larger portion that’s very, very significant, over $1 billion, but that’s over a long period of time. So those are the sort of the numbers, again, very preliminary until we have these plans developed in more detail. That’s the guidance that we can give. It’s a long-term investment opportunity for us going forward.

Shelee Kimura: And I’ll just add to, Leon. This is Shelee Kimura. I’ll just add that those numbers that Paul provided of $60 million and over $1 billion, that would happen after 2025 through 2035. And on the generation side, because we’re in a competitive procurement process right now, we’re not going to be discussing any more details on the scale or amount of the bids that we either already put in for Oahu RFP the or the bid that we will be putting in for the Maui RFP.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Yes. No, I understand. It’s difficult to speak to you exactly today. Is it fair to assume that next quarter, we’ll get a formal update post the awards here on what that would translate to in dollars and timing?

Shelee Kimura: Yes. So for the Oahu RFP, the results will come out in October. So we would be able to talk about that at that time. for the Maui RFP, we won’t have the results at that point.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Thank you. Alright, thank you, guys.

Operator: Our next question is from Paul Patterson with Glenrock Associates. Your line is now open.