Xcel Energy Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Hello, and welcome to Xcel Energy 2023 year-end earnings conference call. My name is Melissa [Phonetic] and I will be your coordinator for today's event. [Operator Instructions] Questions will only be taken from institutional investors. Reporters can contact Media Relations with inquiries and individual investors and others can reach out to Investor Relations.

I'll now turn the call over to Paul Johnson, Vice President - Treasurer and Investor Relations. Please, go ahead.

[Paul Johnson, Vice President - Treasurer & Investor Relations at Xcel Energy]

Good morning, and welcome to Xcel Energy's 2023 Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. Joining me today are Bob Frenzel, Chairman, President, Chief Executive Officer; and Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In addition, we have other members of the management team in the room to answer your questions if needed. This morning, we will review our '23 results and highlights, share recent business and regulatory updates, and provide updates on our long-term growth plans.

Slides accompanying today's call are available on our website. As a reminder, some of the comments during today's call may contain forward-looking information. Significant factors that could cause results to differ from those anticipated are described in our earnings release and our SEC filings. Today, we will discuss certain metrics that are non-GAAP measures. Information on the comparable GAAP measures and reconciliations are included in our earnings release.

In the fourth quarter, Xcel implemented several workforce actions to streamline the organization, ensure resources are aligned with business and customer needs to ensure our long-term success. Xcel initiated a voluntary retirement program under which 400 non-bargaining employees retired. In addition, we eliminated 150 non-bargaining positions. As a result, we recorded a workforce reduction expense of $72 million, or $0.09 per share, in the fourth quarter of '23. Also in '23, we recorded a charge of $35 million, or $0.05 per share, related to a legal dispute between CORE and Xcel Energy regarding prior-year operations at the Comanche 3 coal plant. Given the nonrecurring nature of these items, both have been excluded from ongoing earnings. As a result, our GAAP earnings were $3.21 per share, while ongoing earnings, which exclude these nonrecurring charges, were $3.35 per share. All further discussion in this earnings call will focus on ongoing earnings. For more information on this, please see the disclosures in our earnings release.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Bob.

[Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Xcel Energy]

Thanks, Paul, and good morning, everybody. We had another successful year at Xcel Energy continuing to provide our customers with safe, clean, reliable, and affordable energy, while delivering an operational and financial performance. In 2023, we executed on the largest capital program in Xcel Energy history investing approximately $6 billion to improve resiliency and enabling clean energy for our customers, while delivering economic growth [Technical Issues] communities. Our investments in operations enabled ongoing earnings of $3.35 per share, representing the 19th consecutive year of meeting or exceeding our earnings guidance.

Meeting our financial commitments is critical to maintaining a competitive cost of capital, which benefits our customers as we access the capital markets to fund our operations. In December, we received approval for our groundbreaking clean energy portfolio with over 5,800 megawatts of new-generation resources. This $4.8 billion of new-generation investment, which when coupled with the necessary transmission, represents almost $8 billion worth of commitments in Colorado to deliver cleaner energy economy. I'm proud of how our team has partnered with so many stakeholders to deliver on these achievements. And as I look back on the year, we accomplished so many other great outcomes.

While the final values aren't in yet, our SAIDI scores improved, and we believe we'll be in the top quartile of U.S. utilities for delivering reliable electricity to our customers. Across our wind fleet, we continued to deliver strong net capacity performance and exceeded our corporate availability target for the third consecutive year. We navigated a very busy regulatory calendar resolving multiple rate cases and reached a pending settlement in our Texas electric rate case. We filed our Clean Heat Plan in Colorado and our Natural Gas Innovation Plan in Minnesota, providing a framework in both of those states to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions for our natural gas customers. We've approved transportation and electrification programs into Mexico and in Wisconsin, along with updated transportation plans pending commission approval in both Minnesota and Colorado.

We were partners and over $1.5 billion of awards by the Department of Energy to support the Heartland Hydrogen Hub, wildfire and extreme weather resiliency, form energy long-duration energy storage pilots, and additional transmission as part of the MISO SPPC projects. These grants will lower the cost of these clean energy and resiliency projects for our customers.

In 2023, we signed agreements for datacenters with Meta and Minnesota and QTS in Colorado. Datacenter and AI-driven demand continued to be a low driver on our system, with several gigawatts in the pipeline across our footprint. In Minnesota, we received approvals for an additional 250 megwatts of solar in our 10-megawatt 100-hour form energy battery pilot both at our retiring Sherco coal facility. We have active RFPs for over 2,000 megawatts of renewable resources across our operating companies, which we expect resolution on later this year. We also filed resource plans in our SPS company, which could add an additional 5,000 megawatts to 10,000 megawatts to our system by 2030.

In December, we retired Unit 2 at our Sherco coal facility, while continuing the trend of no personnel layoffs at our retiring coal facilities over the past 15 years. We reduced carbon emissions for the electric utility by 53% as compared to a 2005 baseline, on track with our goals for 2030 and 2050. All the while, our customer bills remain amongst the lowest in the country. Over the past five years, the average Xcel Energy residential, electric, and natural gas bills are 28% and 14% below the national average respectively. And over the last 10 years, we've kept our annual residential electric and natural gas bill increases to 1.8% and 1.1%, respectively, well below the rate of inflation. We're actively involved in our communities. That's our employees, contractors, and retirees provided more than $11 million and volunteered over 40,000 hours to support charitable organizations across our footprint. We initiated 18 economic development projects for our communities, which are projected to create more than $2.4 billion in capital investments and 1,400 jobs. For the seventh consecutive year, we received a top score from Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Corporate Equality Index, the nation's foremost benchmarking survey measuring corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ+ workplace equality. And finally, we received several other recognitions, including being named a top-military employer by multiple organizations and one of the world's most admired companies by Fortune magazine.

We're proud of these achievements which reflect operational excellence and strong policy alignment, allowing Xcel Energy to provide a valuable product with significant benefits to our customers, our communities, our employees, and our shareholders.

With that, I'll turn it over to Brian.

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Thanks, Bob, and good morning, everyone. For the full year 2023, we had ongoing earnings of $3.35 per share, compared to $3.17 per share in 2022. The most significant earnings drivers for the year include the following. Higher electric and natural gas margins increased earnings by $0.10 per share. This reflects $0.10 of unfavorable weather as compared to last year. Lower O&M expenses increased earnings by $0.06 per share, which reflects the impact of cost containment actions. Lower conservation and DSM expense increased earnings by $0.06 per share, which is largely offset in lower margins. Higher other income increased earnings by $0.05 per share, primarily due to Rabbi trust performance, which is largely offset in O&M expenses. Lower other taxes, primarily property taxes, increased earnings by $0.04 per share. And in addition, other items combined to increase earnings by $0.06 per share. Offsetting these positive drivers, higher interest charges, which decreased earnings by $0.14 per share, driven by rising interest rates and increased debt levels to fund capital investment, and higher depreciation and amortization expense, which decreased earnings by $0.05 per share, reflecting our capital investment program.

Turning to sales. Full-year weather-adjusted electric sales increased by 1%, consistent with our guidance assumptions. For 2024, we expect electric sales to increase by 2% to 3%.

Shifting to expenses. O&M expenses decreased $47 million, or approximately 2% for the year. This is consistent with our annual guidance and reflects management action to offset inflation and other challenges we face during the year.

During the fourth quarter, we also made constructive progress on several rate case proceedings. In December, we filed a settlement in our Texas electric rate case, which reflects a rate increase of $65 million, an acceleration of the Tolk depreciation life to 2028, and an ROE of 9.55% and an equity ratio of 54.5% for AFUDC purposes. The commission decision is anticipated in the first quarter of 2024.

In November, Wisconsin Commission approved an electric rate increase of $1 million and a natural gas increase of $5 million based on an ROE of 9.8% and an equity ratio of 52.5%. The decision reflects adjustments for our residential affordability program, updated fuel and purchase power costs, and other items which are earnings-neutral. Rates were effective January 2024.

In November, we filed a Minnesota natural gas rate case, requesting a $59 million rate increase based on an ROE of 10.2% and an equity ratio of 52.5% in the forward test year. In December, the commission approved our request for interim rates of $51 million, subject to refund starting this January. Final decision is expected later this year.

As far as future filings, we plan to file a Colorado natural gas case in the next week or so. In addition, we also anticipate filing a revised wildfire mitigation plan in Colorado in the first half of 2024.

Updating our progress on production tax card to transferability, we executed multiple contracts in 2023 totaling $400 million. We anticipate executing $500 million of PTC sales in 2024. Transferability reduces near-term funding needs, and most importantly, lowers the cost of our renewable energy projects for our customers.

Moving to our capital forecast. We've updated our five-year capital plan for the decision in the Colorado resource plan, which now reflects an investment of $39 billion. This base capital plan supports investment in renewable generation, transmission to deliver the clean energy, and customer-facing investments for a reliable and resilient advanced grid. The base plan results in an annual rate based growth of approximately 9%. Not included in our base plan is approximately $5 billion for renewables and firm capacity associated with RFPs at NSP and SPS and future filings in Colorado.

We've updated our base financing plan, which reflects the incremental debt and equity financing needs for these investments. Please note that the guidance assumptions in our earnings release have also been updated to reflect changes to the capital forecast for this year. As a reminder, we anticipate any incremental capital investment will be funded by approximately 4% equity.

It is important to recognize that we've always maintained a balanced financing strategy, which includes a mix of debt and equity to fund accretive growth, while maintaining a strong balance sheet and credit metrics. Maintaining solid credit metrics and favorable access to capital markets are critical to fund our clean energy transition, maintain a competitive cost of capital, and keep customer bills low, especially, in a higher interest rate environment.

Finally, we remain committed to our long-term EPS growth objective of 5% to 7%, which we believe is conservative. We now expect to deliver earnings at or above the top end of the range in 2025, starting in 2025. In addition, we will rebase future annual guidance off actual results. As a result of the significant capital investment opportunities and equity funding needs, we now expect to grow the dividend at the low end of our current 5% to 7% dividend growth range, with a target payout ratio of 50% to 60%. This will reduce our equity financing needs over time, lower financing risk, and give us even more dry powder and financial flexibility in the future.

Now we'll conclude with a brief update of the Marshall wildfire litigation. The statute of limitations ended in December, and as expected, we saw a significant increase in the number of claims. As of now, we are aware of 298 lawsuits with approximately 4,000 claims. In early February, there will be a hearing at which time a schedule may be determined. We believe a trial will likely begin in 2025.

With that, I'll wrap up with a quick summary. We're executing on an ambitious investment plan for our customers to deliver clean, reliable energy. That investment enabled Xcel Energy to deliver 2023 ongoing earnings within our guidance range for the 19th year in a row. For the 20th consecutive year, we increased our dividend to investors. We resolved multiple rate cases and filed foundational plans for our natural gas utility to reach its net-zero goals. We retired our Sherco Unit 2 coal plant early and reduced carbon emissions by 53% from 2005 levels. We received approval for our groundbreaking portfolio of clean energy resources in Colorado. We updated our base five-year capital plan to $39 billion, which reflects 9% rate based growth. We have additional capital backlog in all of our jurisdictions. We have a strong line of sight to achieving -- to achieve earnings at or above the top end of our 5% to 7% long-term EPS growth rate. And finally, our electric and natural gas customers have some of the lowest bills in the country, while continuing the safe and reliable service they expect from Xcel Energy.

This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we'll now take questions.

Questions and Answers

[Operator]

Thank you very much. Our first question comes from Julien Dumoulin-Smith from Bank of America. Please, go ahead.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Analyst at Bank of America]

Hey, guys, nicely done. Congratulations on a variety of different metrics here. But you guys had already been tracking above the midpoint of your 5% to 7%. And given the rate base growing up, say 1.5%, even with kind of incremental dilution, how do you think about that adding up, right? I mean, I'm going to put it back to you a little bit, like how do you think about doing the math there, if you will? And just setting expectations? Obviously, every year might be slightly different here.

[Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Xcel Energy]

Hey, Julien, good morning. I like the phrase, doing the math. I think I might have heard that before. Look, we're really excited about our investment profile over the next five years, across our eight states, multiple asset categories, clean generation, transmission, advanced grid, electric vehicles, everything in support of our customers. Obviously, the EPS growth rate follows the rate based growth with some amount of dilution for financing costs at the parent level. The new updated capital plan is accretive. We expect during this five-year period to be at or above the top end of our 5% to 7% range. But we think 5% to 7% is still a good long-term growth rate for the company and that's our guidance right now.

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yeah. And Julien, I'd just add, we do -- that's a conservative growth rate. And as I noted in my remarks, going forward, we will rebase off of actual earnings. So, important things to note in our script, and overall, as Bob said, we're really excited about it. We're excited about our opportunities and our Steel for Fuel and the clean energy transition. And I think we're one of the fastest transitioning utilities in the country, and our electric bills are 28% below the national average. So, I think we're in a great place for our investors and our customers.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Analyst at Bank of America]

Yeah, I appreciate being able to rebase off the actuals. That's certainly a sign of strength, as you say. Now, maybe just to come back to the timing of equity here, how do you think about that vis-a-vis the updated plan and updated needs? And perhaps just to clarify this, just for the time being at least this year, no change in that 5% to 7% at least for the current plan here.

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yeah, Julien. Yeah, no change, and our guidance assumptions for this year is still 350 to 360. No, there is an increase in capex if you look kind of plan over plan this year. But that's really back-end loaded as we work through some of the regulatory approval processes. From an equity perspective, look, we have -- we've said we've been -- we talked about doing at least $500 million annually through our ATM and expect that ratable over the five years, and then we do have some drip. The amount above the $1.5 billion above that. We'll be opportunistic and we'll look at it, but think it kind of follows with how our incremental capex follows.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Analyst at Bank of America]

Got it. Excellent. And the new Minnesota commissioner, you've experienced, what's your relationship? And maybe a little bit of a brief comment here on where we stand in Minnesota, if you will.

[Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yeah. No, Julien, we've got a long-standing relationship. The new commissioner comes out of the department and we've been working with him very proactively over years. So, we expect a continued strong relationship with the Minnesota Commission.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Analyst at Bank of America]

Excellent. All right. I'll leave it there, guys. Thank you.

[Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Xcel Energy]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you very much. Our next question is from Jeremy Tonet with J.P. Morgan. Please, go ahead.

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Morning, Jeremy.

[Richard Sunderland, Analyst at J.P. Morgan]

Hi. Good morning. It's actually Rich Sunderland on for Jeremy. Can you hear me?

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yes, we can.

[Richard Sunderland, Analyst at J.P. Morgan]

Great. Thank you. Just picking up the last point on equity. Appreciate opportunistic in terms of timing. Can you speak a little bit more in terms of format of how you might address that? I guess the gap from the ATM to the total needs. Anything on the table at this point or any guardrails to that?

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

We're a pretty plain vanilla the way we finance our company. So, kind of the base case to be to is a block issue. And so, I mean, you can obviously look at doing a forge or something, we'd look at mandatory converts, but our base case is just doing blocks above the level that we feel comfortable with on the ATM.

[Richard Sunderland, Analyst at J.P. Morgan]

Understood. Very helpful. And then looking at a high level in terms of the O&M outlook and then parsing that relative to the workforce reduction announcements, could you speak a little bit more to the savings there over the near to medium term? How that factors into your overall O&M trajectory? And how you're thinking about that O&M Outlook, I guess, over the long term as well, relative to the work you've accomplished over the past few years?

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yeah. Let me hit the workforce reduction question first and I'll transition to the longer-term O&M outlook for us. I think from a workforce reduction perspective, us, like everyone else, faced some significant cost challenges and pressures over the past few years. And so we -- as Paul said, we undertook that to streamline the organization, and ensure some of our resources aligned with our customer needs are and our growth opportunities. So, as Paul said, approximately 400 employees through the voluntary retirement program, another 150 positions are eliminated. So, as we look forward, that generates approximately 2% O&M savings on a run rate basis. But we will look to reinvest some of that, as I said, into the growth areas of the company as we look to support our customer needs. So -- but overall sets us up into '24, that is included and incorporated into our 2024 guidance. As I think about 2024, our guidance is we're up 1% to 2% relative to '23, but it's really flat to '22 when you look at what happened in 2023.

Now, longer term, you asked about kind of what our longer-term expectations are. We've been managing our O&M with a laser focus on operational efficiency. I think if you look in our IR deck from Q4, we're one of three utilities that have O&M flat or down since 2015 on the electric operation side. So, something we're really proud of. And while we look longer term, we have some tailwinds of coal plant shutdowns. We expect to be shutting down a coal plant roughly -- a coal unit, roughly a year. We spend a lot of time on technology and looking at how we can leverage technology in our operations in the corporate areas. And I think most importantly, we haven't talked about this that much, is we launched something that we call One Xcel Energy Way, which is our continuous improvement engine. We deployed it last year, so we're in year two of it, really focused on the lean principles and being a transformation engine that is looking at waste reduction and waste elimination. And so, that's something we're putting a lot of effort and focus on. That team reports directly to me, so I'm very involved in it.

So, we think longer term, our goal is to absorb inflation, absorb the, call it, areas we need to invest in from a growth perspective and maintain O&M roughly flat and ensure that we keep our customer bills low for the long term. So, we're pretty excited about it. Obviously, not easy, but something we spend a lot of time on.

So, I appreciate the question.

[Richard Sunderland, Analyst at J.P. Morgan]

Great. Thanks for the color.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Durgesh Chopra with Evercore ISI. Please, go ahead.

[Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Xcel Energy]

Hey, good morning, Durgesh.

[Durgesh Chopra, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Hey, good morning, Bob. Congrats on a solid quarter here, to you as well, Brian, and the rest of the team. Hey, just, I thought the dividend growth trajectory change was interesting. You're now saying low end of the 5% to 7% because you have higher growth rate. Maybe just talk through your thinking there. You are kind of growing faster, so that gives you more flexibility on the financing side. Just a little bit more color there would be helpful.

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yeah, absolutely, and good morning, Durgesh. As we look at it, given our significant growth in our base plan, we just added $5 billion of capital to it, and the fact that we're guiding to the top end or above our conservative 5% to 7% EPS growth, we thought it was prudent in the right decision to lower our dividend growth still within our dividend growth guidance of 5% to 7%. But as we think over the long term, that helped us reduce the equity we needed for this $5 billion of capital. But even longer term, when you look at the compounding impact of a lower dividend with significantly high capital needs, that it feels like a prudent decision, gives us longer-term financial flexibility and dry powder, and reduces financing risks over the long term. So, we feel really good about it. We feel really good that we have a very good total shareholder return proposition for investors and we'll continue -- we expect to deliver it year-on-year for them.

[Durgesh Chopra, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Got it. And Brian, just as you -- there's obviously a ton of capex opportunity, you outlined $5 billion additional capex. You expect -- is that 5% the floor, or could you -- could the dividend growth be further lowered in case you have -- you're adding more capital to the plan?

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Durgesh, I think we'll assess it every time if we have a significant chunk of capital or update our plans as we do regularly. We obviously evaluate all parts of our total shareholder return.

[Durgesh Chopra, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

That's fair. Okay. And then just one last one for me, is just thank you for the color on Marshall fire, the additional complaints and other things. Maybe just what are the key steps for us to watch there? And when could we expect updates?

[Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Xcel Energy]

Hey, Durgesh, it's Bob. Thanks for the support, as always. With the fire, I think the next sort of milestone, I'd say is we have a sort of a trial planning period of meeting first week of February. Given the change in cases and plaintiffs, that schedule got moved back a little bit to give new claimants more time. We'll get a better trial calendar. As Brian said, we expect a trial sometime in '25. And we're looking -- we -- after that we're going to discovery and there's not much to do past that. So, we'll update everybody when we know more. But there's not much to say other than the facts remain the same on the case, and we'll have a calendar probably early next month.

[Durgesh Chopra, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Thank you so much.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Steve Fleishman with Wolfe Research. Please, go ahead.

[Steve Fleishman, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Yeah. Hi. Good morning, everyone. So, I just wanted to clarify all your growth rate commentary. Is that based on the base plan, the updated base plan?

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yes, Steve, the updated $39 billion plan. Yes.

[Steve Fleishman, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Okay. And on the -- could you just talk to the PIMs in Colorado and just how you're feeling about being able to manage any, I guess it could be good or bad, but just any risk exposure from that?

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yeah, certainly, Steve. And for the folks that haven't been close to that proceeding, we really have two PIMs which the commission asked to propose, a couple PIMs. So, we have a cost to construct PIM. Think of that just as a capital, what's our budget for the project's PIM. And we've operated under those types of PIMs for a long time, whether in Minnesota, Texas, New Mexico, we've had those in Colorado. So, we proposed the PIM. The commission modified it a little bit, so it's a plus or minus 5% deadband, and then customer sharing -- savings and sharings with a penalty or incentive above that 5%. Overall, we're comfortable with managing within that PIM. We feel like we put forward good budgets for our projects and knew going in that we would be held to what we proposed given that was a competitive process. So, feel comfortable that on the operational PIM, again, it's -- the commission modified it slightly, but generally adopted what we proposed. That's an overall -- think of it LCOE PIM on a three-year rolling average with a plus or minus 5% deadband and the first 5% to 10% above, it's 80% of the costs or savings to other customers, the company bears 20%. So, when you look at it, we feel that's very manageable. And appreciative that the commission adopted the PIMs that we, or our structure, the PIMs that put forward. So, we look forward to working through the CPCNs with the commission, and then we have the just transition plan coming up, which is additional opportunities as we think about transitioning our generation fleet in Colorado.

[Steve Fleishman, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Okay. Great. And then lastly, just some Washington questions. The, I guess, timeline, if any, on the nuclear PTC, your thoughts on the proposed hydrogen rules and what that means for your project. And if you want to take up any thoughts on election, risk it to IRA.

[Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Xcel Energy]

Hey, Steve, it's Bob. The last one seems like a lot of fun to talk about, but I'll probably pass on that fastball. On Washington, in particular, the hydrogen production tax credit, we were very active. We've been very stalwart in our position that we believe that clean fuels and clean molecules are going to be needed as part of a broader, cleaner energy economy. We felt that hydrogen was probably the most attractive molecule that we could produce in a clean and green way. We were really proud to be considered for a hydrogen hub in our Upper Midwest proposal, the Heartland Hub. But I've got to tell you, the 45E tax credit draft guidance out of the treasury was disappointing. It doesn't feel as if we're trying to support a hydrogen economy in the United States. It's going to make it more expensive for our customers, harder to develop an electrolyzer industry on an industrial basis in the country, and will slow or stall clean fuel deployments in the United States. We expect to make comments within the comment period. We expect DEI to make comments. We expect other customers to make comments. So, I think the treasury is going to have a lot to balance here, I mean, strict additionality and hourly matching. It's just going to make it more challenging to produce hydrogen at a cost competitive basis with other fuels.

So, that's kind of where we are on hydrogen. And I think you asked about nuclear. Our math -- go ahead, Brian.

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yeah, I can just chime in on nuclear. So, we expect guidance here in Q2 is our current thinking. And obviously, the guidance we're looking for is how do you calculate the gross receipts, meaning how do you calculate the value. We've advocated for the use of LMPs. Obviously, given that we're in an RTO, certainly, if you look at our earnings guidance, we have not incorporated that into our ETR. But when we look at kind of the forward curve, we would expect north of a $100 million benefit for our customers. So, it's something that we're -- we provided our comments and hopeful that treasury comes out in favor of us because it's a great benefit for our customers.

So, looking for that Q2, just to follow up on Bob's comments about hydrogen, I mean, disappointing. Now, the analysis I've seen is green hydrogen now is structurally more expensive than blue hydrogen for the next decade and so it's significantly more expensive than gray hydrogen. And so, it will depress the development of the green hydrogen market. And so, hopeful to get some changes to the final rules.

[Steve Fleishman, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Great. Appreciate it. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Anthony Crowdell with Mizuho. Please, go ahead.

[Anthony Crowdell, Analyst at Mizuho]

Hey, good morning, Bob. Good morning, Brian. Just hopefully two quick ones. If I could follow up on Steve and Julien's math class question. When you think of the 5% to 7%, you're at or above the high end, and that's all on the base capital. What would cause you to get to 6% growth?

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Well, I mean, at or above the high end implies that we're above 6% growth right now. But I take your question, what would cause us to go to 6% to 8%, if I can interpret it. Look, we evaluate it. We feel 5% to 7% is the right long-term growth rate. It's conservative and rebasing off of actuals and signaling that we're going to be the top end or above is the right place to be long term.

[Anthony Crowdell, Analyst at Mizuho]

Great. And then I think you mentioned you're filing a Colorado wildfire mitigation plan later this year, I believe. Just, could you give us a look into that? I mean, is that also a potential for additional capital -- capex? And then -- or any changes in operation you're thinking once you make that filing?

[Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yeah. Hey, Anthony, it's Bob. Good to hear you this morning, and thanks for the questions. We're operating under an existing wildfire mitigation program in Colorado right now. And I'd say that, that plan includes asset hardening and replacement. It's got pilots for various technology solutions and risk modeling embedded within that. I think the updated plan that we're anticipating for Colorado would be a continuation of a lot of those existing programs and maybe moving from more pilot to more scale deployment of everything from coatings on poles to covered conductor analysis and deployment to enhanced recloser settings and recloser installations across the business, potential for incremental undergrounding in various areas, and probably some operational opportunities around enhanced power line settings and PSTS mechanisms. Still working on finals. So, I don't think it's going to be a material driver in terms of our capital deployment, but I do think it'll be an enhancement to our risk reduction in our Colorado company.

[Anthony Crowdell, Analyst at Mizuho]

And Bob, just lastly, do you -- does that plan have to get approved or just accept it? Just a procedure that goes on in Colorado on a wildfire mitigation plan.

[Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yeah, it goes through a regular-way proceeding with intervener testimony and our testimony approval by the PUC.

[Anthony Crowdell, Analyst at Mizuho]

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Appreciate it.

[Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Xcel Energy]

You bet. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Carly Davenport with Goldman Sachs. Please, go ahead.

[Carly Davenport, Analyst at The Goldman Sachs Group]

Hey, good morning. Thanks so much for taking the questions. Just two quick ones for me on some of the resource plan opportunities that you've highlighted. So, first on Colorado, obviously, strong results on that plan in 2023. How should we think about just the next milestones to watch in Colorado whether that's around the CPCN process for transmission or the just transition filing? And then just second on SPS. We saw the load growth come in close to 5% overall in '23. So, just in that context, can you talk a little bit about the SPS opportunity around the future RFP there to sort of accommodate that level of potential growth going forward?

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yeah, absolutely, Carly, and good morning. Related to Colorado, we'll being -- so, the marker will begin to file CPCNs for all of our projects and transmissions starting in likely late February. And then you'll just see them kind of filter in probably over Q2. And then those will be regular-way CPCNs, think probably eight- to nine-month type approval processes on each of those filings. So, those are the next markers at least on the projects coming out of the Colorado resource plan that was just approved. And then we're working on filing our just transition plan in June. And that was originally focused on the replacement of the Comanche 3 assets with a little bit of the commission approving a no-regrets portfolio in this December, I think there's opportunity to bring the incremental resources. We do think we need additional resources that we propose and even the commission acknowledged that there may be an opportunity or they believe that we may need those resources. So, that will be all part of the just transition plan filing. And again, that follows a typical Colorado timeline in terms of nine months or so to work through that proceeding. So, that pushes that into 2025. But overall excited. Those are kind of looking at 2028 to 2030 type clean generation opportunities in how do we transition our fleet in Colorado as it'll be completely out of coal by the end of 2030 in Colorado.

On SPS, really great loan growth opportunities in SPS. You noted our sales growth there in 2023. We expect to continue to see significant sales growth in that region. I think that is really the driver of our SPS resource plan. We provided a range from 5,000 megawatts up to 10,000 megawatts. And that 10,000 megawatts is really working with our large customers around their electrification forecast. So, I think it's a significant opportunity. We do not have that anywhere in our capital plans. So, we will make -- we will work through that filing and the New Mexico commission will -- they don't officially approve it, but they accept the resource plan, and then we'll look to launch the RFP in the summertime, and then we'll get our results later in 2024 and likely start working on selection early in 2025. So, pretty excited about that plan, excited about supporting the benefits of electrification down in SPS and making sure that we can serve our customers.

So, overall, like I said, really great Steel for Fuel loan growth -- Steel for Fuel opportunities and serving the loan growth in our territories.

[Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Xcel Energy]

Hey, Carly, I just thought I'd add onto what Brian said is probably remiss if we didn't comment on the Minnesota and the Wisconsin RFPs that are in the SPS RFP that's in flight right now, which represents 2,000 megawatts of new clean energy in the Upper Midwest and in the Southwest. We expect resolution of those, as I said in my prepared remarks, this year, and they're included in our incremental capital opportunities in our investor deck.

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

And just one more thing to add. We'll be filing a resource plan in Minnesota in February 1, which is a continuation of the transition of our generation fleet as we shut down all our coal plants in Minnesota by 2030. And we're pretty excited about just all the opportunities across our service territories.

[Carly Davenport, Analyst at The Goldman Sachs Group]

Awesome. Thanks for that detail, and congrats on the updates.

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Sophie Karp with KeyBanc. Please, go ahead.

[Sophie Karp, Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Hi. Good morning, guys, and thank you for taking my questions. So, a couple of questions here.

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Hey, Sophie.

[Sophie Karp, Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Hey. So, I noticed that you showed the Colorado, I guess, earned ROE like sub-8%, if I'm reading this correctly. Just given how much capital you're going to be investing in the state, do you see a path to improve that? And what is that?

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Hey, Sophie, thanks for the question. Yeah. Certainly in Colorado, we've had a pretty significant gap between our authorized versus earned ROE as we think about the capital that we're deploying on the clean energy transition that will flow through timely recovery from a wider perspective. Also, all the transmission we need to invest to be able to deliver that clean energy to our customers will flow through the TCA. So, the incremental capital should get more timely recovery. I mean, it's important as we think about longer term to ensure that we have a financially healthy utility because it allows us to have a competitive cost of capital, which in the long term is most beneficial to our customers as it delivers the lowest cost of customers -- lowest cost to our customers. So, something that we're certainly aware of in working on our stakeholders and policymakers around, ensuring that we are aligned with the clean energy policy in Colorado and how we can ensure that we keep that alignment and improve it over time.

[Sophie Karp, Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

So, the problem, so to speak, there was just a timing lag with capital, which you expect to improve with more contemporaneous mechanisms. Am I getting this right?

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yeah. And as we mentioned, yes, it is the regulatory lag, the capital lag. We had a historic test year in Colorado Gas. And as we mentioned in my opening remarks, we'll be filing a Colorado natural gas case here in the next week or so. And so, we'll be working through that.

[Sophie Karp, Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Okay. All right. And my other question was, your volume growth overall for the company was something like 1% or above in '23, and you're basing your guidance on 2% to 3% growth in '24. So, I'm wondering, where do you expect to see this acceleration and what's the underlying assumption there?

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

So, as we think about it, yeah, our guidance here is 2% to 3% in 2024. The biggest driver continues to be in SPS and the electrification and growth we're hearing from our customers. Obviously, we work very closely with our large industrial customers down there, so have a good sense of what their loan growth forecasts are in 2024 and even beyond. We're starting to see some large C&I growth in Colorado with the datacenter coming online and a couple other large customers coming online. So, really driven by C&I loan growth in 2024. We do continue to have customer -- residential customer growth of roughly 1%. So, that contributes some, but overall it's driven by our C&I growth, particularly in SPS.

[Sophie Karp, Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Awesome. Thank you so much. This is all for me.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. Please, go ahead.

[David Arcaro, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Hey, good morning. Thanks so much. Had a quick question just on tax credit transfers. Let's see. Are you changing kind of the anticipated level over the course of the plan given the increased capex here? And did that contribute? I saw that the cash flow from ops increased versus the prior slide deck. Wondering if that was part of it.

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Hey, David. So, we incorporate the transferability into the cash from operations. But for us, transferability isn't really a cash flow driver when we look plan over plan, because we've incorporated all the transfer tax credits in the previous plan to the transfer tax credits in this new plan. Certainly, cash flow from ops increased by about $1.5 billion when you look at it, from the $34 billion to $39 billion plan. Really, the projects, there's a -- net income is a driver, book depreciation and some deferred taxes, it's a combination of all three. Some of these projects do go in service in the middle [Technical Issues] so they are good cash-flowing assets as we think about it. And so, that's why you see that there.

From a transferability perspective, we do include that now in our five-year forecast. I think prior, I'd talked about we were somewhere around $2.5 billion of transferability. Now we're approaching about $3 billion of transfer tax credits over the five years. $500 million, there's roughly $500 million this year growing to about $700 million at the end of the five-year forecast. So, we see the demand and have -- actually have much more demand than our supply.

[David Arcaro, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Got it. Great. That all makes sense. That's all I had. Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Travis Miller with Morningstar. Please, go ahead.

[Travis Miller, Analyst at Morningstar]

Morning, everyone. Thank you.

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Hey, Travis.

[Travis Miller, Analyst at Morningstar]

I'm disappointed we don't get to hear your election thoughts, but aside from that, wonder if you could talk a little bit more after you've added this capital and the impact that's going to have, obviously, on financing needs and the impact on the dividend growth, how do you go into these next set of RFPs and any kind of other capital investment opportunities? Does that change your thinking in terms of pursuing some of those projects?

[Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Xcel Energy]

Hey, Travis, it's Bob. Thanks for the question. We really want to own and operate the infrastructure that serves our customers. I think it's a core skill set of the company. We think we're competitive. We think we can do it price competitively for our customers. I think we've proven that over the last five or six years. And delivering value to our customers from our clean energy investments, I think, wasn't in our original pro forma estimates, but I think our total over the last five years is close to $5 billion worth of tax credits and avoided fuel costs from installing wind into our system for the benefit of our customers, which was never included in our forecast when we put those wind farms in. So, there's real customer benefit for us owning and passing that stuff through to our customers.

As we look to the future, obviously, we want to own and operate the infrastructure. It's important in the regulatory mechanisms, as you said, making sure that we get timely recovery of the new investment assets is really important for us as we think about installing new generation into our areas. But I think our position would be that we continue to want to own and operate generation assets, recognizing that they're going to be likely competitive processes and we have to prove value to our customers. But we've been good at that. And I think our plan would be to continue to target ownership of some amounts of those generation assets.

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yeah. And Travis, just add to that, and Bob's absolutely right, we have to demonstrate that we're competitive with our commissions, and we have been and we expect to continue to be so going forward. And so, we can continue to deliver low-cost electricity to our customers. But I think just from a purely financial standpoint, we've been very open about we will fund accretive capital growth, and we'll fund that with a balanced mix of equity and debt and cash flow from operations. So, overall, we're very comfortable with it and think we're in a great place to be both to deliver for our customers and our shareholders for the longer term.

[Travis Miller, Analyst at Morningstar]

Okay. Great. That makes sense. And then one other different subject. Assuming you get the Tolk accelerated depreciation approval in Texas, are there any remaining steps, either regulatory, other procedural steps, necessary to hit that 2030 goal of closing your entire coal fleet?

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

No, that was the last one outstanding. So, we're pretty excited about it assuming we get PUCT approval of the settlement. That's the last one.

[Travis Miller, Analyst at Morningstar]

Okay. No transmission operator agreement necessary and anything like that?

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

No.

[Travis Miller, Analyst at Morningstar]

Okay. Great. Thanks so much.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Ryan Levine with Citi. Please, go ahead.

[Ryan Levine, Analyst at Smith Barney Citigroup]

Hi. A couple quick questions in terms of the Marshall fire. Appreciate the clarifications and updates. Is there any opportunity for settlement there outside of the formal court process?

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Hey, Ryan. It's still very early in the process, but as we've said from the beginning, we strongly disagree with the conclusion of the sheriff's report, and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves sitting here today.

[Ryan Levine, Analyst at Smith Barney Citigroup]

Okay. And given the balance sheet, [Indecipherable] challenges and needs to raise capital over the coming years, are there any M&A opportunities in terms of asset sales that you'd contemplate to derisk your funding plans?

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yeah. First, I guess I'd disagree with the balance sheet challenges. I think we have one of the stronger balance sheets in the industry. So, I don't necessarily agree with that characterization. But now, from an M&A standpoint, we're comfortable with where we sit in the assets we own. Obviously, we're aware of everything that is going on in the industry.

[Ryan Levine, Analyst at Smith Barney Citigroup]

Okay. Appreciate the color. Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Paul Fremont with Ladenburg. Please, go ahead.

[Paul Fremont, Analyst at LADENBURG THALM/SH SH]

Thank you very much. Just a quick question on the Marshall fire. Is there any update on the dollar amount that -- of the claims at this point?

[Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Xcel Energy]

Hey, Paul, it's Bob. Thanks for the question. No, no updates. I mean, the insurance commissioner said that the property damage was in excess of $2 billion. But as far as the total amount of suits, they haven't claimed any liability in the suits or from the plaintiffs.

[Paul Fremont, Analyst at LADENBURG THALM/SH SH]

Great. That's it for me. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our last question is from Paul Patterson with Glenrock Associates. Please, go ahead.

[Paul Patterson, Analyst at Glenrock Associates]

Hey, good morning. Can you hear me?

[Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Xcel Energy]

Hey, good morning, Paul. Yes.

[Paul Patterson, Analyst at Glenrock Associates]

Just -- a lot of my questions have been asked, but on the -- to follow up on Steve Fleishman's question on the PIMs, it seemed like reading the order and stuff that there was a greater -- that they basically anticipated looking at additional PIMs and sort of were intrigued with sort of PBR in general. And I was wondering just sort of how you -- I know it's early to say, and it depends, obviously, what the PIMs are, but given that they seem to be sort of more performance-based PBR, directionally-driven, how do you think you're positioned to deal with that? And do you see perhaps not only sticks, but also carrots? Is there a potential, perhaps, that you could do well under PBR if you follow me?

[Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Xcel Energy]

Hey, Paul, you were breaking up a little bit, but let me see if I understand the question. Given the recent PIMs in Colorado, how do you feel broadly about performance-based rate-making and things like that? Like, I think that it's natural, and we -- as Brian indicated earlier, that we've had capital cost caps on various projects, broadly throughout the portfolio. I think to set up PIMs that we worked through with interveners and stakeholders in the commission as part of the CEP in Colorado. I think the process was productive. We had an opportunity to propose. I think they appreciated our proposal. I don't think it's a material move in a certain direction. I think it's probably appropriate on a project basis, probably less so for an entity-wide basis. So, I don't see a lot -- I don't read a lot into where we've been with Colorado or with other jurisdictions in terms of incentive mechanisms around capital deployment.

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Yeah, Paul, in the written order, certainly, there's a discussion. We'll work with the staff as we work on the just transition plan, in terms of looking at well-designed PIMs. And there's also a PIM around potential, kind of the emissions achievement. So, we look forward to working with staff on that as we move through time.

[Paul Patterson, Analyst at Glenrock Associates]

Okay. Thanks a lot, guys.

[Operator]

Thank you very much. I'd like to hand it back over to CFO, Brian Van Abel, for any closing remarks.

[Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Xcel Energy]

Well, thank you, all, for participating in our earnings call this morning. Please contact our relations team with any follow-up questions.

Have a great day.

Participants

Corporate Executives

• Paul Johnson, Vice President - Treasurer & Investor Relations
• Robert (Bob) Frenzel, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer
• Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

• Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Bank of America Co.
• Richard Sunderland, J.P. Morgan
• Durgesh Chopra, Evercore ISI
• Steve Fleishman, Wolfe Research
• Anthony Crowdell, Mizuho
• Carly Davenport, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
• Sophie Karp, KeyBanc Capital Markets
• David Arcaro, Morgan Stanley
• Travis Miller, Morningstar, Inc.
• Ryan Levine, Smith Barney Citigroup
• Paul Fremont, LADENBURG THALM/SH SH
• Paul Patterson, Glenrock Associates