Portland General Electric Company (NYSE:POR) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And I’ll honestly take that into a calculus here, but make sure at the end of the day, that’s our trajectory towards 50-50 and we continue to move towards that. So truly as we work into 2024 and those items come into clarity really start to define how it is that we move that path forward towards 50-50.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Got it. Maybe if I press a little bit, just a time line to get to 50-50, and also, Maria, just to clarify this. I know you’ve been very fixated. It seems like a late on transmission opportunities as well. Some commentary in your remarks here, very curious to hear, I mean, how meaningful could that be when we think about the future of the company, obviously, you’ve articulated a good number of renewables here, but it sounds as if the transmission angle is actually probably the incremental piece to really be watching here as you do your planning, particularly in the back half of the decade here?

Maria Pope: As we think about transmission, it also is how we think about the entire grid. And as you know, Julien, we are looking at 25% of our resources by the end of the decade coming from distributed energy resources. And clearly, as I articulated in my prepared comments, we’re focused on federal dollars through the IRA and IIJA coming into company projects along with partners, but we also expect to have substantial amount of IRA dollars in particular going to customers, whether that’s rooftop solar, battery storage, electric vehicles. And so we look at this as sort of a continuum of mix. It will certainly — we will have more procurement from the resource side, but it doesn’t necessarily going to necessarily mean the traditional kinds of projects that we’ve seen in the past. It will be a mix and the transmission will be part of that.

Joe Trpik: And Julien, just to answer your timing question to refresh a little bit, we clearly will have significant opportunities as these major projects come along to line ourselves up to 50-50 here. We want to — I want to be thoughtful here, but just clearly lay out a path that will really be tied to RFP results in the future, as well as some of our incremental investments. But I mean, my real point here is a trajectory in a clear and direct movement, which will really align to the availability of what I’ll call the incremental project.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Yeah. Absolutely. Best of luck guys, and again, Joe, congrats speaking here too [ph].

Joe Trpik: Thanks.

Maria Pope: Thanks, Julien.

Operator: And thank you. And one moment for our next question, please. And our next question comes from Shahriar Pourreza from Guggenheim Partners. Your line is now open.

Maria Pope: Hi, Shahriar.

Shahriar Pourreza: Hey, guys. How are you? Good morning. If you could start with the case. Obviously, I appreciate all the color you guys provided on the settlement discussions. But can we get a little bit more on the prospects for the Faraday recovery? What do you see as the pathway forward from here for that spend? And then, secondarily, can you speak maybe at a high level to the discussions around your proposed PCAM modifications, have the parties at least been receptive to some of the items you put forward?

Maria Pope: Sure. So, first of all, we’re really pleased with the progress to-date. Our team and parties have met several times and they’ve settled a number of items as I outlined. Faraday is no different than any of the other capital projects that we have put forward. I would say that, whether you’re in the northern parts of British Columbia to the southernmost parts of South America and other projects in the United States, there’s nothing easy about hydro projects. The replacement that we did was a facility that had been operating and generating power for our customers for over 100 years, and I would estimate that with, the refurbished Faraday facilities, it will operate for another 100 years and this consistent low cost power, it’s clean and reliable as we move forward.