NiSource Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
February 12, 2025

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

you for standing by. My name is Janine. I will be your conference operator for today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Q4 twenty twenty four NISource Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.

Operator

After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. I will now turn the call over to Chris Turner, Head of Investor Relations. Sir, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Good morning and welcome to the NiSource fourth quarter twenty twenty four investor call. Joining me today are President and Chief Executive Officer, Lloyd Gates Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Sohwan Anderson Executive Vice President of Strategy and Risk and Chief Commercial Officer, Michael Lures and Executive Vice President and Group President, NiSource Utilities, Melody Birmingham. The purpose of this presentation is to review NiSource's financial performance for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four, as well as provide an update on our operations and growth drivers. Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call to your questions. Slides for today's call are available in the Investor Relations section of our website.

Speaker 1

We would like to remind you that some of the statements made during this presentation will be forward looking. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the statements. Information concerning such risks and uncertainties is included in the Risk Factors and MD and A sections of our periodic SEC filings. Additionally, some of the statements made on this call relate to non GAAP measures. Please refer to the supplemental slides, segment information and full financial schedules for information on the most directly comparable GAAP measure and a reconciliation of these measures.

Speaker 1

I'd now like to turn the call over to Lloyd.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin on Slide three. The NiSource investment thesis is simple. We serve our customers by delivering safe and reliable energy at an affordable value. Affordable energy requires efficient capital deployment, safe asset operations and constructive regulatory recovery mechanisms.

Speaker 2

These fundamentals generate competitive returns while enhancing our balance sheet position. Importantly, these are the foundation of the NiSource business plan, which continues to offer compelling value to stakeholders, driven by regulated utility operations across six highly constructed jurisdictions, offering diversification across fuel type and regulatory location. Before we cover our standard business updates, I wanted to begin this call by recapping a tremendously successful year for the NiSource team. We often talk about the key principles to our success, namely building a constructive regulatory foundation, operating with excellence across our six jurisdictions, executing and delivering on the financial commitments we make and growing our investment proposition by investing in capital expenditures, which enhance value for our communities. As I look back across 2024, I'm proud to share that the NiSource team has delivered on its business plan with these principles top of mind as we focus on enhancing our value proposition for customers and shareholders alike.

Speaker 2

Being a trusted energy partner is a priority and we believe differentiates us from our peer regulated utilities. We remain engaged with stakeholders in our communities to recover costs associated with capital expenditures deployed to deliver safe and reliable energy services to our region. We build credibility through rate case and tracker filings by utilizing a stakeholder focused mindset as we approach these processes. Over the last twenty four months, the NiSource team has invested $6,900,000,000 in CapEx across the six state region to support reliability of its systems and maintain alignment with compliance expectations of our regulators. Our regulatory processes approved recovery of $340,000,000 in revenue in 2024 to return the capital associated with these investments.

Speaker 2

But critically, the stakeholder outreach to match the recovery of these revenues with the investments being made were developed years prior as our teams are active with stakeholders to detail the changes to the energy landscape and underpin the investment thesis for these capital plans. Melody will touch on some key highlights to these plans from fourth quarter. However, for our team at NiSource, this never stops in our relentless pursuit of delivering safe and reliable energy to our customers. Speaking of reliability, throughout 2024, we advanced our operational excellence mission by intentionally focused on risk reduction and value enhancing activity across the organization. Our safety metrics continue to improve through our industry recognized safety management system framework.

Speaker 2

A new initiative utilizing artificial intelligence launched by our data analytics team is producing early wins to drive efficiency and enhance the way we work to support our customers. Supporting our regulatory and stakeholder relationships and operating with excellence for our communities paves the way for the NiSource team to deliver on the financial results we have committed to our shareholders. I am proud to report our adjusted EPS result of $1.75 per share for 2024, exceeding the top end of both our original and updated guideline ranges. This results in a year over year increase in adjusted EPS for 2024 of 9.4% versus 2023. Further, the nature of our business plan enables these returns to flow through all subsequent years as we base each year of a 6% to 8% annual growth rate.

Speaker 2

This results in a raise of our 2025 adjusted EPS guidance to $1.85 to $1.89 per share consistent with the 6% to 8% growth outlook off of the actual results achieved. But as I said, these results are not sustainable if we are not focused on business development well into the future. Our teams are hard at work at developing new prospects for investment to deliver greater value to our customers for the energy they consume. Our twenty twenty five to twenty twenty nine base capital plan is $19,400,000,000 increasing nominally due to increased economic development across our gas businesses in Virginia and Indiana, which Melody will highlight in a moment. These investments drive 8% to 10% rate base growth over the twenty twenty five to twenty twenty nine period, which fuels our ability to continue to increase our adjusted earnings per share growth rate by 6% to 8% annually.

Speaker 2

Our work does not stop with the base capital plan. We are fortunate to have a robust portfolio of valuable customer investments, which could be added to and extend far beyond our five year plan horizon, which Sean will detail later. Our teams remain active in developing this portfolio of projects to meet our standards necessary to be included in our base plan. This includes our near term visible investments in the upside plan, which is now $2,200,000,000 an increase of $400,000,000 since our third quarter call. But none of these plans include the important development work our team is engaged in upon to support economic development efforts by the state of Indiana to locate data center operations in the region.

Speaker 2

I previously highlighted the compelling fundamentals of Northern Indiana, which are attractive to potential data center customers. Access to critical infrastructure, including a robust transmission system and proximity to critical fiber connections predictable climate and weather with low natural catastrophe risk and a constructive business climate, including favorable tax structures, available land and a supportive state government are all favorable factors in advancing development of data centers in the region. Our team remains actively engaged in working with potential customers to develop data center solutions, which is guided by four main principles. One, protect existing system customers. Two, serve new customers with speed and flexibility.

Speaker 2

Three, maintain Niftsco's financial integrity through thoughtful capital allocation and a reasonable return proposition. And four, preserve flexibility in our business. In January, NISSCO filed a declination petition with the IURC related to the ownership and operation of energy facilities. This administrative filing will set up NIPSCO GENCO as a regulated entity and as a step in NIPSCO's effort to set a framework to serve large load customers. The application requests the IURC to establish NIPSCO GENCO as a regulated energy utility, but to decline to exercise some of the IURC's jurisdiction because NIPSCO Genco will not have retail customers and will instead enter into contracts to provide energy and capacity to NIPSCO who will then directly serve large load customers.

Speaker 2

Our teams are working to evaluate this build out, which could provide benefits to our existing system customers, enhance our communities and local tax base and provide compelling investment opportunities for our shareholders. Northern Indiana is the premier location for data centers to locate. Simply put, there is potential for substantial value creation for all stakeholders and checking all these boxes is important to NiSource. Slide five provides more detail on our operational excellence vision. Our data and analytics team began implementing early use cases in 2023 and have improved data transparency and democratized actionable insights throughout the organization.

Speaker 2

Our work management intelligence process is one example. It is an ensemble of advanced AI models that include forecasting shift availability and work volume, a job duration predictive model and schedule optimizer to automatically generate more accurate weekly schedules. Since implementing this process in the middle of the year in Ohio, work productivity has increased 16% versus the same period in 2023 measured through work hours achieved, less idle time, less rework and an overall better plan and schedule. The Apollo Continuous Improvement Program closed out its second year with really strong results. The team exceeded internal expectations with $77,000,000 in O and M savings along with many efficiency initiatives to reduce waste and workforce constraints.

Speaker 2

For example, the locating risk model initiative originally implemented in 2023 safely reduced spend by $13,000,000 through enhancing risk model marking and turn back processes. The job site scouting initiative and standardized scheduling process eliminated unnecessary truck rolls in the field and improved efficiency, allowing for an additional $6,000,000 of field work across both 2023 and 2024. In 2024, we once again significantly improved occupational safety performance with an 8% year over year reduction in OSHA recordable incident rate and a nearly 10% year over year reduction in preventable vehicle collision rate. Our electric system was hardened through the replacement of over 50 miles of poor performing underground cable, over 70,000 structure life extensions that would de risk our operations through many factors outside our control impact our business. State policy and regulation has been impactful and stability and at the federal level, we have thrived through many cycles and our five year plan is insulated from evolving policy mandates.

Speaker 2

AGA and EEI leadership and Nisource all over. I want to thank all our employees and contractors for their dedication to the Nisource values, doing things safer, better, more efficient and for less from every day. I'll now turn things over to Melody.

Speaker 3

All right. Thank you, Lloyd. I'll begin on Slide six. We remain active on the regulatory front electric rate case is driven by nearly $2,500,000,000 of incremental investment for our customers and communities in Northern Indiana. Last week, we were pleased to file a settled business.

Speaker 3

The case incorporates the planned twenty twenty five retirement of Units 17 And 18 at the Schaeffer Generating Station, as well as the addition of four new solar and storage vans for customers. During the fourth quarter, we received rate case settlement approvals from the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and the Kentucky Public Service Commission, incremental investment in these states since our last rate cases. In Virginia, we reached a universal settlement with parties to our case in December and are awaiting a final 11% on a total bill basis. Affordability remains a key priority for both NIPSCO and the Columbia family of companies, and we continue to be thoughtful in reliability work as necessary for us to deliver safe and reliable energy to our customers. Our existing communities continue to benefit from economic development efforts at the state level.

Speaker 3

Early last quarter, a new food product cold storage facility was announced to be developed in Crown Point, Indiana, just outside of Chicago. NIFCO will provide electric service expected to be in service in 2026. NIFCO will serve two other new projects with various in service dates this year as well. A new concrete and EV battery plant in New Carlisle, Indiana will require additional NIPSCO gas investment. Also on the gas side of our business, one of our largest industrial boilers to natural gas from coal.

Speaker 3

This project will provide significant energy cost savings for the customers and reduce carbon emissions from the facility. The economic development enhances our local tax base, offers new job opportunities, as well as mitigate the cost of our existing customer base and remains a priority corporate priority. And our nearly 4,000,000 customers benefit from our operational excellence vision and capital investment plan. In December, both our NIPSCO Communications and Customer Care. We are very, very proud of these results.

Speaker 3

Also in December, NiSource was named to the 20 strategy extends beyond delivering energy. It also purposefully includes a sustainability framework that allows NYSource to help drive economic entities that we are very happy and privileged to serve. I'll now turn things over to Shah.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Melody. Let's start on slide seven. I'll begin with an update on the progress achieved Enbedi achieved in January. The Duns Bridge 2 solar project reached substantial completion. Meanwhile, Fairbanks and Gibson are far down the path to operations and are expected to deliver generating stations now providing renewable power to customers in the Northern Indiana region.

Speaker 4

Leveraging the power of this generating fleet, we look ahead through the changing energy landscape. NISCO submitted its IRP to the IURC. The triennial plan was the product of extensive stakeholder collaboration over nine months and five public meetings, details generation required to meet both new demand in the region and maintain compliance with federal and MISO regulatory requirements. All sources of generation technology were battery and long duration storage and small modular nuclear. Included in the analysis were updates to the capacity construct, including MISO's shift to a fourth greatest by utilizing historical and forward looking risk assessments.

Speaker 4

The preferred portfolio highlights new generation additions to the NIPSCO fleet required to mainly required by twenty twenty eight to meet energy and capacity needs in all scenarios developed before considering potential data center growth. Our team is underway about $400,000,000 to reflect the likely need for new generation capacity to remain in compliance with these regional reliability regulations as shown on Slide nine. We were Indiana and Virginia businesses. This moves our five year base CapEx plan up to $19,400,000,000 On shoring and manufacturing expansion continues in our mid weatherization and new leak detection technology. We began our work to install advanced metering infrastructure in 2024 with $36,000,000 of NIPSCO gas investment that helped minimize lag and recovery and reduce carrying charges.

Speaker 4

81% of the investments made in our base five year plan expect to begin recovery inside twelve months of investment. The most recent developments here relate to MISO's long range transmission planning process and the development of TRONCH two projects recently awarded to NIPSCO. MISO released the transmission backbone and related projects to ensure future system reliability in the 2030s and beyond. As Lloyd mentioned, we are evaluating these results and will incorporate necessary to support data center development across our six states and in particular at NIPSCO. We continue to make excellent progress advancing data center strategies across our region.

Speaker 4

Additional development of these strategies is required to meet our threshold to include in either the base of the upside CapEx plan. With that said, the company is strongly positioned to advance these strategies and strengthen the financial profile of the company, including its balance sheet positioning, which enables NiSource to be opportunistic in capital allocation decisions. The constructive regulatory advances complexity for customers and regulators, while providing flexibility around cash flow recovery. NiSource has deep access to capital markets and maintains flexibility to develop value for all stakeholders. Let's move into the financial results shared on Slide 11.

Speaker 4

As Lloyd already highlighted, 2024 was a strong investments drove $367,000,000 in incremental revenue. This was partly offset by increased O and M, depreciation and non controlling interest. In the fourth quarter, zero point zero '1 dollars per share versus last year. The decline was driven by non controlling interest, increased depreciation and other taxes and partly offset by increased rate base investment. Today, we are raising twenty twenty five adjusted EPS guidance to $1.85 to $1.89 up $0.01 versus prior guidance introduced at third quarter earnings.

Speaker 4

This is consistent with our practice of guiding off of actual results achieved and reflects 6% to 8% growth of the 1.75 achieved in 2024. This is the third year in a row we have announced an increase to our annual adjusted EPS guidance on our fourth quarter earnings call after establishing initial guidance on our third quarter call. Our financial commitments are fueled by a nineteen point four billion dollars base five year CapEx plan, which drives rate base growth across 2025 through 2029 of 8% to 10% and delivers an annual adjusted EPS growth of 6% to 8%. This does not include any impacts from the upside CapEx plan or incremental investment opportunities. Assumptions around key externalities in our plan continue to be derisked.

Speaker 4

For example, customer growth continues to be strong. However, our plan only assumes 0% to 1.5% growth per year across all customer classes. Additionally, our plan continues to assume realistic interest rate assumptions through 2029 despite the recent rise in rates and the previous Fed activity to cut short term rates. We remain confident in achieving our long term growth rate in all years of the plan. In particular, continued execution on the regulatory front has increased visibility into 2025 results with substantively all regulated revenue increases in rates or settled based on our activities in 2024 and 2025.

Speaker 4

Our forecasts incorporate continued use of long established our customer base. Cost savings initiatives like Project Apollo detailed by Lloyd and efficiencies resulting from capital investments moderate the impact on customers. Our revised plan projects less than 5% average annual bill increases across NiSource. Moving to Slide 14, let's focus on the balance sheet strength of the business. In the fourth quarter, we executed the last $100,000,000 of our forward ATM program, completing the pricing and execution of the full $600,000,000 guided for the year.

Speaker 4

Along with the issuance of $1,000,000,000 of junior subordinated notes during 2024, we've continued to strengthen the balance sheet positioning of the company. FFO to debt for 2024 was 14.6%, up from 14.1% in 2023. Reflected in these results for both years is approximately 50 basis points reduction from unfavorable weather versus normal. Our balance sheet has moved steadily in the right direction since 2022. We are well within our FFO to debt range.

Speaker 4

We continue to target 14% to 16% in all years of our plan using a balanced mix of cash from operations, new long term debt and $200,000,000 to $300,000,000 of annual maintenance equity to maintain our capital structure through the use of our at the market program. In January, the annualized dividend target was increased from $1.06 to $1.12 per share. This continues each year that the NiSource dividend has increased since the separation with Columbia Pipeline Group and represents a payout ratio of approximately 60%, which is at the low end of our 60% to 70% payout ratio guidance. We will continue to be thoughtful about capital allocation in the high cost of capital environment, while also prioritizing infrastructure investments for our customers. As we share on Slide 15, consistent execution of the business plan drives sustainable growth and financial results.

Speaker 4

In each year of the plan, Nisource has achieved the upper half of guidance range or better. Each time we've executed this, we've rebased future adjusted EPS guidance upwards of these actual results. This represents differentiated value creation for our shareholders. We've accomplished this now four years in a row. The value of this compounds as future years grow and reflect the outperformance achieved.

Speaker 4

For example, twenty twenty five's implied midpoint is now 6% higher than originally forecasted in 2022, reflecting one full fiscal year of increased earnings power since our strategic business review in 2022. This is differentiated in our sector, which has delivered 5.9% at the median in adjusted EPS since 2021 compared to the 8.5 achieved by NiSource. The underlying business plan supported by strong regulatory constructs and NiSource jurisdictions coupled with responsible investments in identifiable regulatory programs enable a reasonable return on and of investment over our plan. The confidence in these investments enables the rebasing of annual growth rate, which supports this higher adjusted EPS range as we execute the plan. I'll conclude with highlights of our growing track record on Slide 16.

Speaker 4

Our financial commitments have been achieved for 2024 and are on track for 2025. We remain confident our near term and long term guidance remains resilient to market conditions and other forces outside our control and are based on realistic and executable assumptions. We continue to execute the recovery of critical investments necessary to ensure safety and reliability of our systems. Regulatory progress made over the last quarter across Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia and at NIPSCO provide a foundation for thoughtful capital allocation to enhance service to our customers and deliver predictable financial results and return capital to our shareholders. The financing plan continues to be reasonable and highly executable.

Speaker 4

2024 activity was completed as projected and ATM execution coupled with the diversification utilized in the junior subordinated debt marketplace demonstrate our balance accelerated investment opportunities for customers and investors. To reiterate, our rate base and adjusted EPS guidance do not include upside CapEx or incremental investment opportunities such as data center investments or load growth and are built upon the known and socialized regulatory programs, which have contributed to the 8.5% adjusted EPS growth rate we've executed since 2021. The value proposition NiSource continues to offer investors is diversified and regulated utility assets with the opportunity to invest in both programmatic gas infrastructure and the long term energy transition story of a fully integrated and regulated electric business. These elements have been core to our story for some time, but the emerging opportunity to support economic development, on shoring and new data center development truly differentiate our value proposition relative to many alternatives in the market today. I'd now like to turn the call over to the operator for Q and A.

Operator

Thank Our first question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin Smith from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, good morning, team. Thank you guys very much for the time and congratulations on your continued successes here. Good morning. Good morning. So maybe just to kick things off, I mean, this Genco filing has gotten a good degree of attention here as sort of a novel concept in the sector.

Speaker 4

Can you speak to how you imagine and potentially negotiated some of these risk sharing considerations here? As you think about this being potentially somewhat adjacent to NISCO, how do you think about the traditional concepts of rate base that otherwise are implicit in most investments? Are those effectively replicated as you foresee these commercial arrangements? And then maybe while we're at it just for good form, can you speak to the timing of some of these commercial arrangements, which I know you all are working diligently on in the interim?

Speaker 2

So let me start and I'll turn this over to Michael for some details. I've mentioned several times that data centers and all the thousands we're making with respect to data centers is a 2025 event for us. And I think I'm optimistic about our path in terms of and I'll use our methodical path in terms of pursuit of this opportunity. If you remember, if you go back to our four pillars, now we said we want to protect our existing customers, our existing customers. We want to be able to serve these new customers with speed, agility and flexibility as we thought that speed to market would be an advantage for us.

Speaker 2

We want to maintain NISCO's financial integrity and preserve our flexibility in the business. And we think we have a great base business and we want to make sure that we continue to focus on that base business and have this be total upside. So with that, this Genco this declination filing with the IURC was I'd say an important step in terms of how we pursue this opportunity. And I'll turn it over to Michael to talk about the details of that.

Speaker 5

Good morning, Julian. So Lloyd hit on the primary points. Really what the declination filing allows us to do, it is a regulated entity. Think of it just like you would as a regulated utility, but it allows us to encapsulate what we're doing for these large load customers to protect the existing customer base and maintain that cost within it to segregate to truly protect existing customers with it. And at the same time, negotiate the provisions in the agreements to be able to provide the benefits to our shareholders, protect those customers, and I would say benefit those customers and maintain the flexibility that we need in order to meet their needs in a very timely and expeditious fashion.

Speaker 5

So it is a mechanism that is simply to Lloyd's point, it protects the existing system customers, it helps us serve those new customers with speed and flexibility, it maintains Zysco's financial integrity and it helps us ensure that our base plan, the strong base plan that we have is not impacted by the ability to bring in large load customers. And Sean, may you want to speak a

Speaker 4

little bit to the financial aspects of that? Yes. And Julien, I think the other part of your question was as we think about whether it's traditional rate making or otherwise, what are the advantages potentially that are coming from this? And a couple of things I'd highlight. Number one, as you think about the potential development for power generation solutions to serve these customers, the declination filing or the project we're making progress we're making there can allow us to move through rate making at the speed necessary to serve that customer based on the capital projects when those are being deployed and as those projects start to power and generalize when they're going to start to create cash flows coming back in for our shareholders.

Speaker 4

That may be a different time horizon than the traditional rate case model that NIPSCO has been following, which inherently has been just about every other year filing a rate case. So this allows us to better line those cash flows up as well as to get a return a reasonable return through a time period that we can continue to afford to advance the construction. So I think that's one key point to highlight. The second piece, I think, we've done a lot to progress the balance sheet strength. I just covered a lot of that in my prepared remarks.

Speaker 4

But over $2,000,000,000 of balance sheet improvement equity positioning in 2023, over $1,000,000,000 net in 2024, coupled with growing cash from operations that are producing outperformance relative to the base financing plan. Just from a sheer finance ability standpoint, that's positioned NiSource to have much more flexibility to be able to address and afford construction to support these potential larger consumers.

Speaker 6

Awesome. And just

Speaker 4

a quick follow-up there. Can you speak to just your latest updated load forecast around data center prospects, right? Whether that's expansion of phases that folks are initially talking to you about? I mean, obviously, you've made these regulatory filings over the course of the last eight months that have been incrementally updated. But where do you stand today in terms of the scope of the total opportunity in front of you?

Speaker 4

Obviously, I'm just saying that's on a protracted basis,

Speaker 2

maybe over the period.

Speaker 5

Sure. So we haven't updated anything beyond our IRP at this point. As we include in the IRP, we have the reference case of 2,600 megawatts and then an upside case that was 8,000 megawatts. I would say that the discussions have been extremely positive and beneficial and they continue to be accretive to what our objectives are. And as we proceed through time, we will definitely give updates and include those in the plans as they pass certain thresholds as was mentioned earlier.

Speaker 5

But I will comment that the negotiations and the discussions have been very positive.

Speaker 6

Wonderful guys. Thank you. Speak to you soon.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Shahriar Pourreza from Guggenheim Partners. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey guys. Hey Lloyd. Hey Shawn.

Speaker 2

Good morning. Hey Shawn.

Speaker 4

Good morning. Just let me follow-up on Julian's question on sort of the data center stuff. I mean obviously the Governor talked about four of them coming. Media reports have talked about several coming as well to Northern Indiana. Lloyd in your prepared remarks, you talked about still '25 as an opportunity.

Speaker 4

Can we just fine tune just get a sense on timing there? Where in the discussions you're at? How soon can a deal be signed? Is this a 1H opportunity? Is it 2H opportunity?

Speaker 4

Thanks.

Speaker 2

So, I'm not willing to narrow that down. And I hear you about timing. And that will I said, I'm going to stick to my it's a twenty five opportunity issue. What I'll say is, we're optimistic. The conversations are progressing very well.

Speaker 2

And as soon as we have something signed, we're going to get it out to you guys, but not before that.

Speaker 4

Got it. That's helpful. I just wanted to get a sense, Lloyd, if you reiterated 25%, you still feel comfortable. Just on financing, obviously, there's a higher CapEx opportunity. You have an ATM in place.

Speaker 4

But can you just talk a little about other potential avenues you can lean on to fund the incremental CapEx, especially as you roll more spending into the base plan from the upside opportunity bucket, which can be obviously fairly material, especially if these discussions with data centers transpire. You guys did really well with that minority sale or is kind of the ATM enough to fund the incremental CapEx beyond today's update? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Sean? Yes.

Speaker 4

Well, I think the most efficient form of financing is outperformance on cash from operations and that's where we'll look first. That's helped fuel the ability for us to move into incremental CapEx without having to issue new equity to do so. And that's where we'll go first. We'll also look thoughtfully around the capital allocation and try and shorten regulatory lag that inherently does that to increase that cash from operations. So that's kind of position A.

Speaker 4

And then again we're successful we believe in the junior subordinated note marketplace in 2024. Our plan does not count on or need junior subordinated notes to achieve the 14% to 16% in all years of the plan. Therefore, that's another avenue for us as well. So we've got a lot of options to be able to achieve incremental financing without the need for equity directly in the plan to access the upside plan. Got it.

Speaker 4

So you're comfortable with the current ATM program internal cash flow as junior subordinated notes. In this scenario even if the higher CapEx comes into plan beyond what you just disclosed today? Absolutely. Fantastic. Thank you guys.

Speaker 4

Congrats to you.

Speaker 2

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Richard Sederland from JPMorgan. Please go ahead, sir.

Speaker 6

Hey, good morning. Thanks for the time today. And maybe to hit a couple more of these data center questions first. You've laid out a lot of the drivers behind the Genco filing. Do you need IURC approval of that before you can announce a deal?

Speaker 6

And then I guess I'm also curious how you think about the coal generation amid all this interest in generation both on the large load side and on the BISO changes? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Michael, go ahead.

Speaker 6

So to answer

Speaker 5

your question, we do not need IURC approval in order to be able to announce the deal, but we do need IURC approval of the Genco declination and setting up that entity. But as speaking to the key point of speed and flexibility, that's one of the benefits of working through this entity is being able to do that in a concurrent path with it. For large load customers and talking about the opportunities associated with them, they continue to progress well. And when we look at those opportunities, they would be included within that framework. And that's what gives us the benefits of being able to do that on their timelines.

Speaker 6

Got it. Understood. And then just a housekeeping question. And if I missed this in the script, apologies, but it looks like some of the NIPSCO and Columbia spend shifted across buckets in your current base plan versus the three-two plan. Can you walk through what the drivers of those changes were?

Speaker 4

There were no material shifts in those allocations. We can walk you through if you'd like Rick and Rich in setting up, but there were no material changes there.

Speaker 6

Great. Thank you. I'll leave it there.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Travis Miller for Morningstar. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Good morning, everyone. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Good morning.

Speaker 6

I was wondering if you could give an update on the La Porte facility, the Microsoft. Is there still going on the ground, so to speak? Or are you still in some kind of contract negotiations or financing? Wonder what the status is of that project?

Speaker 5

So with Lafora, as with all the customers, we continue to work through the specific timelines and activities that would be necessary to meet their objectives. We do not have steel going into the ground in La Porte right now. As we mentioned, we're finishing up the framework and the construct that we've laid out. But the negotiations and the discussions with multiple counterparties continue to progress well.

Speaker 6

Okay, great. And then one more. We've seen a couple of announcements, not necessarily in your region, but other places in The U. S. About data centers and developers taking gas directly from particularly midstream companies.

Speaker 6

But do you see an opportunity there to serve behind the meter or on the flight generation through your gas system rather than through the electric system?

Speaker 5

Yes. We absolutely see a benefit in being able to serve the customers from our gas system and we have seen increased demand across our gas system in serving those customers. There is a need for them to be able to access the energy markets in whatever way they can. And the gas system is a very robust and reliable mechanism to do that and it is beneficial and that has benefited all of our benefited multiple of our Columbia companies.

Speaker 2

We've seen upside in some of our capital opportunities in mostly Virginia and possibly in Ohio serving data center customers off of our gas infrastructure as another opportunity for the company. So we're excited about that also.

Speaker 6

Okay. And you mentioned the CapEx. So there is CapEx involved as well as potentially just flow demand? Right. That's correct.

Speaker 6

Okay. Very good. Thanks so much.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Javed Chopra from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hey, Tim, good morning. Thanks for giving me time. Just I want to go back to the Genco entity. I think you guys mentioned cash flow to shareholders. One thing you can clarify, I mean, I think you're putting in your commentary to regulated entity.

Speaker 6

As we think about returns, this should look like regulated returns, right? Or could this be high returns? First question. And second, maybe just the timing of that cash flow is that do you expect earnings cash flow benefit from this entity in the twenty twenty five to '20 '20 '9 period? Or is it beyond that?

Speaker 6

Those were my two questions. Thank you.

Speaker 2

So, I think as we talk about the NIPSCO GENCO, I think you would think about this in a way that we would have maybe other than regulated returns. I think this allows us to operate in an area as we negotiate with our counterparties to get returns above and beyond what our potential regulated returns are.

Speaker 6

Got it. Okay. So about on Deane, clear. And then what about the timing? Like when should we see earnings from these kind of opportunities start accumulating as it relates to the financial plan?

Speaker 6

Is it in the twenty five to twenty nine period or could it go really end of the decade and then beyond?

Speaker 2

As I said earlier, at the beginning, this will be a 2025 event and when we have signed contracts with counterparties and have definitive information, we will get that out to you guys as soon as possible.

Speaker 6

Okay. Thanks Lloyd. Appreciate the time.

Operator

Thank you. Our last question comes from the line of Steve Leachman from Wolfe Research. Sir, please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Yes. Hi. Good morning.

Speaker 4

Congrats on

Speaker 2

the results.

Speaker 6

So, apologizing for hitting some of the same topics here. But just on the declination filing, do we have do you know do we know where other parties are on this yet? Is there any kind of schedule? Is that just any color on that?

Speaker 5

Yes. Happy to provide some additional perspective on that. We do have information as to what different parties are asking questions on and thinking about that. We are working through that process now to make sure that we're providing feedback and answering those questions. We would expect that that would be by Q3, in Q3 that we would have the ruling associated with the declination.

Speaker 5

The key component I'll add to it is again remembering that it is a regulated entity and we see it as beneficial not only to large load customers, not only to NIPSCO, not only to our existing customer base, but also in enabling what we have done and continue to do, which is work in developing projects that we can bring in. And this allows us to do that in a timely fashion. So we see it as good for the communities, for developers of projects, for our existing customer base and for what we're doing associated with NIPSCO.

Speaker 6

Okay. And just since it's a bit of a unique filing, is there going to be kind of a recommendations by parties? Like is there a process or you just are you in like talks, like settlement talks or I'm just trying to understand like the process of this case.

Speaker 5

Yes. It will proceed through the normal IURC process. It will go through the standard work of the Dean review, people intervening associated with us answering questions from what we're getting on the declination and then working with those individuals and groups to be able to proceed that through the normal IURC process. It is not materially different in process than what we would do with our other filings.

Speaker 3

No, I would just add on to what Michael said. It's a standard procedural filing. And so, we expect an order in ruling around Q3 of twenty twenty five, Just like any other standard order or standard filing, at any time you could have individuals who choose to intervene. But our team did a lot of work upfront working with our stakeholders to make sure they understood what it was and socializing the benefit of the Genco. So, we feel fairly confident that the declination application and the strategy are consistent with Indiana law.

Speaker 6

Okay. And I just wanted to clarify just is this if you did set this structure up, would there be anything needed from kind of FERC to approve this or can it all be done with just state approvals?

Speaker 5

So we need the IURC approval first. And then at some point in the future, we will likely request some different approvals associated with FERC. But the primary approval that we need is with the IURC. The FERC approvals don't need to be stopped on the beginning of the application or on what we're doing right now through the process. Okay.

Speaker 6

But to actually set it up and sign a contract, do you need FERC?

Speaker 5

You do not. It is more of I don't want to use the word administrative filings, but it is more of filings that we need to do to ensure that we are dotting all i's and crossing all t's, but it is not necessary in order to set up the entity, be able to move forward with data centers to be able to sign contracts and be able to progress work. Got

Speaker 6

it. And then lastly, you kind of answered this, but just maybe more specifically since you've been very active with these customers. Subsequent to the DeepSeq, any change in tone from the customers on desire to move forward or changes in their We

Speaker 5

have not seen any change in tone. Tone. Yes, sorry. We have not seen any change in tone from customers. I would say, if anything, we continue to see increased demand and increased opportunity.

Speaker 5

And I would say the opportunity has not impacted demand in any way.

Operator

Thank you. That concludes our Q and A session. I will now turn the call back to our CEO, Lloyd Gates for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you for your questions. Thank you for your interest and investment in iSource. Have a great day.

Operator

That concludes our conference call for today. You may now

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Earnings Conference Call
NiSource Q4 2024
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