Black Hills Q4 2024 Earnings Report

Black Hills EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.37
• Consensus EPS: $1.20
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.17
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Black Hills Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: $944.00 million
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Black Hills Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 2/5/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, February 6, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 11:00AM ET

Black Hills (NYSE:BKH), through its subsidiaries, operates as an electric and natural gas utility company in the United States. The company operates in two segments: Electric Utilities and Gas Utilities. The Electric Utilities segment generates, transmits, and distributes electricity to approximately 222,000 electric utility customers in Colorado, Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming; and owns and operates 1,394 megawatts of generation capacity and 9,106 miles of electric transmission and distribution lines. The Gas Utilities segment distributes natural gas to approximately 1,116,000 natural gas utility customers in Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming; owns and operates 4,663 miles of intrastate gas transmission pipelines; 42,514 miles of gas distribution mains and service lines; seven natural gas storage sites; and approximately 50,000 horsepower of compression and 516 miles of gathering lines. It also constructs and maintains customer owned gas infrastructure facilities for gas transportation customers; and provides appliance repair services to residential utility customers, as well as electrical system construction services to large industrial customers. In addition, the company produces electric power through wind, natural gas, and coal-fired generating plants; and coal at its coal mine located near Gillette, Wyoming. Black Hills Corporation was incorporated in 1941 and is headquartered in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Black Hills Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Black Hills Corporation Q4 and Full Year twenty twenty four Earnings Webcast and Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session.

[Operator]

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Sal Diaz, Director of Investor Relations.

[Salvador Diaz, Director of Investor Relations at Black Hills]

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to Black Hills Corporation's fourth quarter and full year twenty twenty four earnings conference call. You can find our earnings release and materials for our call this morning on our website at www.blackhillscorp.com under the Investor Relations heading. Leading our quarterly earnings call are Lynn Evans, President and Chief Executive Officer Kimberly Nooney, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Marnie Jones, Senior Vice President, Utilities. During our earnings discussion today, comments we make may contain forward looking statements as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and there are a number of uncertainties inherent in such comments.

[Salvador Diaz, Director of Investor Relations at Black Hills]

Although we believe that our expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, actual results may differ materially. We direct you to our earnings release, Slide two of the investor presentation on our website and our most recent Form 10 K and Form 10 Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a list of some of the factors that could cause future results to differ materially from our expectations. With that, I will now turn the call over to Lynn Evans. Lynn?

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

Thank you, Sal. Good morning and thank you all for joining us today. I'll begin my comments with a brief overview of our successful 2024 and long term outlook, Kimberly will provide our financial update, and Marnie will provide more detail on our team's operational performance and our strategic progress. Diving in on Slide three. We delivered on our key objectives in 2024, advancing our customer focused strategy.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

I'm very proud of our team who delivered excellent service to our customers, delivered on our financial commitments and advanced our regulatory and growth initiatives. In 2024, we made strong progress on our strategic growth plan with industry leading reliability, while successfully serving the nineteenth consecutive year of increasing peak loads for Wyoming Electric, recently recording a new peak demand of three eighteen megawatts. We also invested over $800,000,000 for the core energy needs of our customers and the communities across our growing footprint. We delivered on our earnings guidance and we are well positioned to achieve our long term EPS growth target. Even through challenges from mild weather and unplanned generation outages, our team's relentless focus on expense management put us right down the middle of the fairway with our guidance range.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

EPS growth was 4.3% in 2024, off our 2023 guidance midpoint of $3.75 and we expect to deliver approximately 5% EPS growth in 2025 off of 2024 as reflected in our earnings guidance for the year. Our financial position remains solid. During the year, we achieved our capitalization target, successfully completed our financing plan and maintained our solid investment grade credit ratings. Our team has also demonstrated notable progress managing our diversified multi state service territory, continuing our cadence of approximately three rate reviews annually as we recover investments for our customers and the inflationary impacts in our cost to serve. In 2024, we implemented constructive settlements for Arkansas Gas and Iowa Gas.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

We also continue to make solid progress in our growth initiatives. In 2024, we added further clarity to our data center growth plan and announced our service to support Meta's new AI data center beginning to ramp in 2026. And as we look to serve the growing needs of our customers, we obtained final approval for our clean energy plan for Colorado Electric, and we're finalizing plans for our new electric generation for South Dakota Electric. In Wyoming, we energized the initial phase of our Ready Wyoming electric transmission expansion, a remarkable achievement in only two years after receiving approval for the project. We're excited about this project as it enhances our ability to cost effectively deliver energy for our customers.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

It also opens up additional opportunities for strategic growth in Wyoming. And as we announced a couple of weeks ago, we increased our dividend by 4%, representing 55 of dividend increases. Our updated financial outlook is provided on Slide four. In 2025, we are guiding to earnings in a range of $4 to $4.2 per share. Looking ahead, we are confident in our strong capital forecast, incremental investment potential and growth opportunities highlighted by increasing demand from our industry leading data center customers.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

Building on our solid financial position and our growing data center demand, we have confidence in our long term EPS growth target of 4% to 6%. Slide five displays our updated five year capital investment plan for 2025 to 2029. Over our five year plan period, we expect to invest $4,700,000,000 an increase of approximately 10% or more than $400,000,000 compared to the prior five year plan. The increase is driven by clarity of timing and cost of projects, including various other customer focused opportunities throughout the planned period. As a reminder, our previous and current forecasts include our Ready Wyoming transmission project, dispatchable generation resources in South Dakota and renewable generation investments for our clean energy plant in Colorado.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

Our capital plan is designed to incorporate investments to support customer needs for safe, reliable and cost effective service and support long term growth. As our team continues to identify and develop project opportunities, we fully expect to incorporate incremental investments into our plan. Moving to Slide six. In addition to our capital plan, we are delivering earnings contribution through our data center demand and we are optimistic about the upside potential. We have successfully served data centers and similar customers such as supercomputers in Cheyenne, Wyoming for more than a decade.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

Customers like Microsoft and soon to be Meta are served through our innovative tariff and service model that requires minimal capital investment. Through this unique tariff, our customers are served efficiently through market energy, providing us utility like earnings in lieu of new generation investment. This is a triple win. First, it provides us earnings that are comparable to that of building generation to serve growing data center demand. Second, it protects our broader customer base from the risk of stranded assets.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

And third, the communities we serve benefit from local economic support and infrastructure enhancements that help grow the community and improve overall reliability and resiliency. Based upon our customers' consistent execution on load forecasts for more than a decade and given future demand forecasts, we have a pipeline of over one gigawatt of data center demand within the next ten years from existing customers. We expect to serve approximately 500 megawatts of this one gigawatt demand by the end of twenty twenty nine minimal capital investment. We expect EPS contribution from data centers to more than double to 10% or more of total EPS by 2029, giving us further confidence in our EPS growth target. Data center demand above and beyond what we have included in our current five year plan may drive additional infrastructure expansion in a more traditional utility service model, which would be incremental to our current capital plan.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

We also continue to evaluate opportunities in Colorado and South Dakota, which could bring future upside. Slide seven illustrates our ongoing strong customer growth. Over the last five years, customer count in our service jurisdictions has grown more than 1% annually on average, which is more than double the national average population growth of 0.4%. This organic growth is led by our Arkansas and Colorado service territories, which are nearly triple the average population growth for their respective states. We're also witnessing strong growth in our Western South Dakota service territory well above the national average.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

With that, I'll turn it over to Kimberly for our financial update. Kimberly?

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

Thank you, Lynn, and good morning, everyone. I want to start by thanking our team for their agility and resiliency in delivering strong financial results despite some unexpected challenges we experienced during the year. From a financial perspective, through our team's hard work, we delivered on our earnings guidance and financial targets for 2024 and we remain on track to deliver on our long term strategic growth and financial objectives. Slide nine illustrates our success in 2024 displaying year over year earnings drivers as compared to 2023. Results were in line with our expectations, including new margins, which more than offset capital investment costs reflected in financing and depreciation.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

We overcame mild weather, two unplanned generation outages and higher insurance costs through significant expense management, including reduced spending on outside services and managing headcount, which helped us achieve our financial targets for the full year. In 2024, we delivered 0.74 per share of new margins, driven by the successful execution of our regulatory strategy and $0.08 per share driven by customer growth. This margin growth was partially offset by lower off system sales, unplanned generation outages and an insurance recovery payment received in 2023. During 2024, exceptionally mild weather reduced EPS by $0.2 compared to normal and $0.15 compared to 2023. Mark to market adjustments provided a gain of $0.01 per share for the year and $0.06 compared to 2023.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

Moving to O and M, I'm extremely proud of our team's success in managing our expenses well below our projected 3.5% year over year increase. Our actions assisted in offsetting the $0.15 of mild weather discussed earlier, $0.09 due to rising insurance costs, $0.05 associated with unplanned generation outages and $0.13 related to one time gains from sales of assets and land completed in 2023. Overall, our O and M management efforts substantially reduced the year over year O and M increase to less than 1% or $0.06 per share. Execution of our $800,000,000 capital investment plan for customers resulted in higher financing and depreciation costs in 2024 compared to 2023. This included a $0.16 increase in interest expense attributable to higher interest rates, a $0.17 impact from new shares issued and $0.15 of additional depreciation expense due to new assets placed in service.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

Income tax was higher due to a Nebraska state income tax rate decrease, which occurred in 2023. In summary, our strong margin growth and O and M management efforts offset depreciation and financing costs, mild weather, unplanned outages, and increasing insurance costs. Further details on year over year changes can be found in our earnings release and 10 ks to be filed with the SEC next week. Slide 10 illustrates our commitment to execute our strategic plan and deliver on the financial targets we set in 2023. This includes growing our long term EPS growth by 4% to 6% off the midpoint of our 2023 earnings guidance range or $3.75 We made it clear that we are committed to holding ourselves accountable and delivering on those financial commitments.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

We did just that in 2024 by delivering on our earnings guidance, meeting our growth expectations, and maintaining credit quality. Looking ahead to 2025, we have established an earnings guidance range of $4 to $4.2 per share, which reflects approximately 5% growth over 2024. Our earnings guidance assumes normal weather, no unplanned generation outages, constructive and timely outcomes of regulatory dockets and excludes mark to market adjustments. We project O and M expense to be in line with a compounded annual growth rate of approximately 3.5% of twenty twenty three's expense, which was $552,000,000 We also expect to issue between $215,000,000 and $235,000,000 of additional equity to finance our $1,000,000,000 capital investment plan for 2025. Finally, we estimate an effective tax rate of 13% for the full year.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

Please see the appendix and forward looking statements in this presentation for our full list of earnings guidance assumptions and risks. Slide 11 depicts our solid financial position through the lens of credit quality, capital structure and liquidity. During 2024, we achieved our net debt to capitalization ratio and maintained other key credit metrics in our commitment to maintain our solid investment grade credit ratings. The chart on the lower left illustrates the success of our multi year effort to strengthen our balance sheet. We reached our net debt to total capitalization target of 55% in 2024 and are close to achieving our 14% to 15% FFO to debt target.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

Looking forward, new equity issued will be in support of capital investments made on behalf of our customers as we continue to maintain our credit metrics and liquidity. Consistent with our recent history of efficient issuance of new shares, we expect to utilize our at the market equity program and will consider other available equity financing instruments. Our liquidity remains strong at year end with over $600,000,000 of availability under our revolving credit facility and short term borrowings of approximately $130,000,000 We are evaluating timing and refinancing options for our next debt maturity of $300,000,000 in early twenty twenty six. Slide 12 illustrates our industry leading dividend track record of fifty five consecutive years. We continue to target a 55% to 65% payout ratio.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

A dependable and increasing dividend is an important component of our strategy to deliver long term value for our shareholders. I will now turn the call over to Marnie for a business update.

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

Thank you, Kimberly, and good morning, everyone. Starting on Slide 14, I'm proud of our operational execution in 2024 as we delivered excellent electric and natural gas service to our 1,350,000 customers across our eight states. We delivered on key operational objectives, including providing top quartile reliability. Lynn mentioned earlier that our customer count is growing at a robust pace across our service territories. In Wyoming, we have served nearly two decades of consecutive annual increases in our electric system peak load.

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

As we serve this increasing demand, the expectations of our customers are also expanding. We are listening and working to be ready for the future by advancing our strategic initiatives, which in the near term includes our Ready Wyoming electric transmission project, our Colorado Clean Energy Plan renewable generation addition and our LANG2 project which will add 99 megawatts of dispatchable generation for South Dakota Electric. I will also provide an update on our regulatory progress and wildfire management and mitigation plans. Slide 15 highlights our success in managing over a decade of growth in data center load. Our anchor customers are respected leaders in the technology industry and have recognized Cheyenne Wyoming's ideal attributes for data center operations and future expansion opportunities.

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

Collectively, our existing data center customers project a total load exceeding one gigawatt. We take pride in our track record as a trusted energy partner delivering customized and innovative solutions to meet our customers' unique needs. Our distinctive market energy procurement model provides utility like returns without the need for material capital investment, while providing benefits for our other customers. Consequently, our current service model generally requires minimal capital investment as compared to traditional utility rate based projects. It's important to note that our data center customers are served through approved tariffs with the earnings separated from our retail customers for rent making purposes.

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

This model also provides access to market energy, including renewables and speed to market to support their expansion plan. Based on current projected market conditions, we're positioned to serve approximately 500 megawatts of data center demand by the end of twenty twenty nine. As Lynn mentioned, meeting demand beyond this forecast will drive incremental infrastructure investment opportunities and new generation and expanded transmission. Moving to Slide 16, which describes our two sixty mile, dollars $350,000,000 Ready Wyoming electric transmission project. The project will reduce dependence on third party transmission systems and enhance system resiliency through increased market access, including renewables.

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

A more interconnected and expanded electric system helps maintain long term price stability for our customers while also enabling ongoing growth in energy demand. Construction is progressing well and the initial phase representing approximately $40,000,000 was placed in service and included in our 2024 Wyoming Electric Transmission Rider filing. When placed in service, the remainder of the project costs will be recovered in our 2025 annual filing in Q4 of this year. Our Colorado Clean Energy Plan update is on Slide 17. During the fourth quarter, we received final approval for three fifty megawatts of renewable resources to reduce emissions for our Colorado customers by 80%.

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

The approved portfolio includes a utility owned 100 megawatt solar project, a utility owned 50 megawatt battery storage project and a 200 megawatt solar power purchase agreement. We are in contract negotiations and when finalized will determine project costs and timing. Our refreshed capital plan includes updated assumptions for these projects with timing anticipated between 2026 and 2028. As final contracts are signed, we will update our capital plan for material shifts in timing or costs. Slide 18 outlines our South Dakota electric resource plan.

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

We continue to pursue our LANG2 project, a 99 megawatt utility owned natural gas fire generation facility that will cost effectively and reliably serve our customers. With an in service date targeted in the second half of twenty twenty six, we plan to file a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity with the Wyoming Public Service Commission during the first quarter. Slide 19 summarizes our regulatory progress on rate reviews during the year. We continue to focus on maintaining proactive, constructive relationships with our regulators. We are pleased to have obtained commission approved settlements in two of our rate reviews in 2024.

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

In Arkansas, we received approval for new rates effective in October. In Iowa, our rate review settlement was approved allowing for $15,000,000 of new annual revenues with new rates effective in January, replacing interim rates from last May. Our Colorado electric rate review was filed in June. With the hearing completed in December, we expect commission deliberations, a final decision and new rates in late Q1. Earlier this week, we filed a request for new rates for Kansas Gas.

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

The application requests new annual revenue of $17,200,000 based on a 10.5% ROE and a 50.4% equity capital structure. We are seeking new rates in the second half of this year, which will also allow for the renewal of our five year capital reliability rider. Slide 20 outlines our wildfire management and risk mitigation plan. We have been successful in reducing operational risk with our multi layered approach through asset programs, integrity programs and operational response which is detailed in our wildfire mitigation plan available on our website. We continue to engage stakeholders including community and local agencies, regulators, legislative bodies

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

and our

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

industry peers to define, review and advance our wildfire management and mitigation plans. This includes our Public Safety Power Shutoff Program or PSPS which we expect to formalize in mid-twenty twenty five. To further mitigate our wildfire exposure, we are actively engaged in the legislative process across our three electric states. In South Dakota and Wyoming, we are strongly supporting newly introduced wildfire liability legislation and we are working with legislators and stakeholders on a similar bill in Colorado. With that, I will now turn the call back to Lynn.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

Thank you, Marnie. We had an excellent year delivering on our strategy. We continue to cost effectively serve customers with industry leading reliability. We demonstrated success in constructive rate reviews. We achieved our financial objectives, including earnings guidance, our long term EPS growth target and a strengthened balance sheet.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

We have confidence in our earnings growth potential given a 10% increase in our capital plan to $4,700,000,000 and over one gigawatt of total data center demand from existing customers. Our team's focus continues to be to provide safe, reliable and cost effective energy for our customers. And finally, I want to express my sincere appreciation to the Black Hills team for safely, effectively and efficiently serving our customers while managing through unexpected challenges throughout the year. And with that, we're happy to take your questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our first question comes from Anthony Crudell with Mizuho. You may proceed.

[Anthony Crowdell, Managing Director at Mizuho Financial Group]

Hey, good morning, team. Hope all is well. Appreciate the disclosures. If I could just two hopefully quick ones on Slide five, the company gives the CapEx forecast. When I compare that to the CapEx forecast on the third quarter call, there was previously a spike in CapEx in 2026 that has since come down.

[Anthony Crowdell, Managing Director at Mizuho Financial Group]

Just want to know if you could give some clarity on the changing of the CapEx spread?

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

Yes. This is Kimberly. Good morning, Anthony. A few different things going on here. Originally, when we set our previous capital forecast last year, we had some significant projects that were assumed to go into service in 2026.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

Since then, we've had some updated outcomes that have redistributed those costs within the plan. And so that's why you'll see maybe higher capital expense or capital investments in 2025 versus some of the other years. The other comment I'd like to make is we have added $400,000,000 to the overall plan from last year. There is a combination of things going on there. We continue to see a lot of really good organic growth within our service territories.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

We're continuing to invest in safety and reliability investments on behalf of our customers. And then some of the large projects that we have going on, specifically, we have Ready Wyoming, we're focused on the LANG2 that Marnie mentioned. We've seen increases in inflation and financing costs related to those projects. So those are components that help drive the additional $400,000,000 of capital investments that you're seeing in the plan.

[Anthony Crowdell, Managing Director at Mizuho Financial Group]

Great. And then I don't mean to just maybe I'm looking too deep into it. I'm curious. On Slide six, you guys talk about the expect no more than, I guess, 10% plus of contribution from the data center load to capital out opportunities. In this updated slide deck, you say that 10% plus by 2029, in your previous disclosures, we actually were getting 10% plus by 2028.

[Anthony Crowdell, Managing Director at Mizuho Financial Group]

Is there a delay in the plan or I'm just reading too far into the plus sign there?

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

No, Anthony, great question. So maybe just a couple of thoughts around that. We have a compounded annual growth rate of 4% to 6%. What we've said is we're extremely confident in that growth rate and we expect to grow to the higher end of that range in the latter part of the plan. When you think about that growth rate and then you specifically think about our 10 plus percent related to the data centers, we still have great organic growth within our business model.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

So it's not a static or linear calculation. So as you think about our EPS continuing to grow over the long term, the component of the data center growth based on our current customers and their projected growth will be that 10 plus percent. So I think it's a combination of both our continued organic growth combined with our data center growth that still gets you to that relative 10 plus percent. But just think about that as an increasing percentage over the long term and getting us to the higher end of that 4% to 6% growth rate.

[Anthony Crowdell, Managing Director at Mizuho Financial Group]

Got it. And I just want to make sure I'm on the same track. So when I think about the growth rate really hasn't changed or is there a material change between 2028 and 2029? And if it's taking up to which I might pick it up offline?

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

No, Anthony, it's a great question. I think others may have it. So thank you for asking. We set our base year as off of 2023. So that's how we think about that 4% to 6% growth.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

We think about it long term. So, we've always said at the front end of the plan that was in 2023 that we were going to grow a little bit slower just because of some things going on. We've also indicated that the back end of the plan, we'd be growing faster and at the higher end of that rate. And so as you think about 2028 and 2029, with the addition of the 2029 year, you can think about us growing at the higher end, if not exceeding that rate on an annual year over year basis. That's how we think about it.

[Anthony Crowdell, Managing Director at Mizuho Financial Group]

Great. Thanks for taking my questions.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

Thank you, Anthony.

[Operator]

Thank

[Operator]

you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Andrew Weisel with Scotiabank. You may proceed.

[Andrew Weisel, Director at Scotiabank]

Hi, good morning everyone.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

Good morning, Anthony.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

Good morning.

[Andrew Weisel, Director at Scotiabank]

First, I just want to clarify one, you removed the comment in the slides that you're committed to BBB plus equivalent credit ratings. Can I just clarify, are you trying to indicate any change in messaging there?

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

Absolutely not. We are very focused on solid investment credit ratings. Our targets have not changed. You heard Lynn mention that we achieved our debt to total cap of 55%, which was our target. We are very close to maintaining our 14% to 15% FFO to debt.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

So nothing has changed. It's still part of our core assumptions as we devise our financial objectives.

[Andrew Weisel, Director at Scotiabank]

Very good. I thought that would be the case. Just wanted to clarify. And Mitch, one thing forgive me if I missed this, but in 2024, your actual CapEx was a hair under $800,000,000 I think you were targeting $840,000,000 Can you explain the shortfall? Was it just timing or was there something else going on there?

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

Hi, Andrew. This is Marnie. Yes, thanks for the question. You're spot on. It's just a little bit of timing in major projects between the two years.

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

So nothing changed materially besides some timing.

[Andrew Weisel, Director at Scotiabank]

Would it be fair to assume that just spilled into early twenty twenty five then?

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

That's correct. Those dollars will be spent in 2025.

[Andrew Weisel, Director at Scotiabank]

Okay. So that's part of the roll forward then into the new 2025 to 2029 plan?

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

Correct.

[Andrew Weisel, Director at Scotiabank]

Okay, got it. Then lastly, just maybe I'm being too looking for something that's not there, but the clean energy plan in Colorado, the timing of new resources entering service now looks like 2027 to 2028. It was previously '26 to 2028. And I believe the key is to have them in service by 02/1930. But is there anything to look into as far as the slight slippage in timing there?

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

So Andrew, this is Marnie again. So when we initiated the Clean Energy Plan, really unknown on what we would get for bids and associated timing. As we talked over the course of 2024 and those bids have come through and we're now negotiating contracts, We have deeper insight into that timing and that's really what's driven that change in movement. When we initially talked about 2026, we knew that likely was not going to be the case, but that's kind of the best information we had at the time. And as again, as we've worked through those through the process and through the bids, that's where we're seeing some change in that timing.

[Andrew Weisel, Director at Scotiabank]

Understood. Thank you very much.

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

Yes. Thanks, Andrew.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

Thanks, Andrew.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Julien Dumoulin Smith with Jefferies.

[Brian Russo, Analyst at Jefferies]

Yes. Hi. It's Brian Rousseau on for Julien.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

Hi, Brian.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

Hi, Brian.

[Brian Russo, Analyst at Jefferies]

Hey, I'm just curious, how actively are you involved in Colorado wildfire risk mitigation legislation? What would you characterize as the top priorities? Have there been any bills proposed yet?

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

Brian, yes, we are working through wildfire legislation in each of our electric utilities. Specific to your question on Colorado, we have not yet had a bill taken up by the legislation. We are working with our peers in the state, obviously focused on how do we mitigate risk on the back end at the utility level, how do we mitigate non economic damages? Also focused on, you know, can we create standard of care? So those are all of the conversations that are ongoing.

[Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities at Black Hills]

At this time, unfortunately, we don't have anything introduced, but continue to work that, educate our stakeholders and legislators, and we'll continue working through that and progressing through the system. I will say though, however, in South Dakota and Wyoming, we have had legislation introduced and it is stepping through the process most aggressively in Wyoming. So feel really good about where we're headed there.

[Brian Russo, Analyst at Jefferies]

Okay, great. And then the one gigawatts of data center load with your two existing customers, Are you what states is that in? I mean, is there a way to specify that?

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

Right now, most of that is in Wyoming, Brian. We're talking to other potential customers in South Dakota and Colorado, but we feel very good about the one gigawatt forecast we have in Wyoming alone.

[Brian Russo, Analyst at Jefferies]

Got it. Understood. Thank you very much.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

Welcome. Thank you.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

Thanks, Brian.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Ellinghaus with Seabor William Schenk. You may proceed. Chris Ellinghaus, your line is now open.

[Christopher Ellinghaus, Managing Director at Siebert Williams Shank]

Sorry, guys. The data center growth sort of post 2029 where you talked about needing some incremental resources or CapEx there. Have you got any sense of what kind of magnitude that might be? And are you talking about dispatchable resources there?

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

Good question, Chris. This is Lynn. Yes, we're talking potentially dispatchable resources and transmission assets as well. We're constantly evaluating what capacity is out there for these customers to take advantage of through the energy market program that we have with them. We believe as we get closer to 2029, these loads continue to grow.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

There could be opportunity for us to serve them in different ways beyond our excuse me, the tariff that we have in place today and be more of a traditional model, if you will.

[Christopher Ellinghaus, Managing Director at Siebert Williams Shank]

Sure.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

Hey, Chris. This is Kimberly. The other thing I'd add to that is, you mentioned that it's beyond 2029. Some of the efforts that we're looking at could also potentially positively impact the capital investments that we have within the five year plan. Those are not incorporated in there today.

[Christopher Ellinghaus, Managing Director at Siebert Williams Shank]

Got you. Given that these might be dispatchable resources, does that also maybe suggest some clean energy to sort of balance the portfolio might also be required?

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

This is Chris. Good question again. This is Lynn. I'd say very much so. These customers are highly interested in renewables and clean energy.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

And so yes, I think that's the beauty of how we've been able to work with these customers. They have certain needs and we've been able as an agile organization to find ways to serve them effectively. And I think that's why they continue to grow.

[Christopher Ellinghaus, Managing Director at Siebert Williams Shank]

Okay. That's helpful.

[Christopher Ellinghaus, Managing Director at Siebert Williams Shank]

So this could really be something rather consequential from a capital perspective in that twenty nine plus time period?

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

It may be, yes.

[Christopher Ellinghaus, Managing Director at Siebert Williams Shank]

Okay. Vis a vis your sort of state conversation about the wildfire mitigation legislation, given the changes in Washington, it would seem like this is maybe a fortuitous time for some national legislation. Do you guys foresee any potential there?

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

Chris, again, yes, good question. This is Lynn again. The short answer is yes. In fact, some legislation has been introduced at the House of Representatives at the federal level. We that's coming primarily through partnerships, I would say, through EEI, Edison Electric Institute.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

And so, yes, we believe we can have some success at the federal level as well.

[Christopher Ellinghaus, Managing Director at Siebert Williams Shank]

Okay. And lastly, also given the executive orders that we've seen so far, there's sort of some positives and negatives in terms of thinking about new infrastructure, one being helpful in terms of dispatchable permitting and things like that, somewhat nebulous details at this point. But do you feel like there's anything material from the federal side that would help you on permitting there? And also, like say, the Colorado Clean Energy Plan, there's some roadblocks for clean energy at this point also. So does that give you some concern about the timelines you have for your capital there?

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

Good questions, Chris. A lot to unpack there again. This is Lynn. I would start by suggesting we're very early into the administration as you indicated in your question. We'll see where these executive orders actually take us.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

I would suggest that in the prior Trump administration, we thrived as an organization and I would believe in this administration we could as well. With respect to permitting, I think it can be very helpful to us, especially around transmission building. Here in the West, so much of our land is owned by the feds, if you will. It's federal land and therefore any kind of permitting that allow us to be more efficient and streamline on federal land would be very helpful. You mentioned the clean energy plan in Colorado.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

We'll watch that closely. Right now, Colorado is very clear about the plan they want to take. They've been on this road for a decade or more. I don't think there'll be huge changes there. However, there could be something that happens to some of the bids we might receive as an example, things of that nature based on tax credits, etcetera.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

So that's why we're continuing to negotiate those contracts. We'll see where they take us, but I think it's a little too early to tell for sure.

[Christopher Ellinghaus, Managing Director at Siebert Williams Shank]

Okay, great. Thanks for the details. Appreciate

[Christopher Ellinghaus, Managing Director at Siebert Williams Shank]

it.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

Thank you, Chris.

[Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO at Black Hills]

Thanks, Chris.

[Operator]

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Lynn Evans for any closing remarks.

[Linden Evans, President & CEO at Black Hills]

Well, thank you everyone for joining us today. Thank you very much for your interest in Black Hills. Once again, I want to thank our team for a fantastic year and what they delivered for 2024 on behalf of customers and for shareholders. We appreciate your interest in our company and encourage you to have a Black Hills Synergy Safe day.

[Operator]

Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Salvador Diaz, Director of Investor Relations
• Linden Evans, President & CEO
• Kimberly Nooney, Senior VP & CFO
• Marne Jones, Senior Vice President of Utilities

Analysts

• Anthony Crowdell, Managing Director at Mizuho Financial Group
• Andrew Weisel, Director at Scotiabank
• Brian Russo, Analyst at Jefferies
• Christopher Ellinghaus, Managing Director at Siebert Williams Shank