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Text: I am pleased that you are able to join us today.
The slides are available on our website at investors.
We caution you that such statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from our expectations.
Leading our discussion today are Maria Pope, President and CEO; and Jim Ajello, Senior Vice President of Finance, CFO and Treasurer.
I would like to take a moment to formally introduce Jim Ajello, our new CFO, who many of you already know.
As many of you know and many of you may also be experiencing yourself firsthand, millions of Americans have been impacted by severe winter storms this past week.
In Oregon, we have had a historic storm system move through over a 4.5-day period.
It brought punishing wind, ice and snow through three separate storm systems and left hundreds of thousands of PGE customers, over a third of our customer base, without power.
The significant ice late in the storm system was particularly punishing to trees and power lines.
In less than a week, we have restored over 600,000 customers and we still have about 6,000 to 8,000 [Phonetic] customers to go -- excuse me, 68,000 customers to go.
Many customers have experienced multiple outages.
As restoration continues, we appreciate the fatigue and deep frustration of customers who have been without power for extended periods.
Our deepest gratitude to everyone who is working 24/7 to restore power.
In addition to our PGE coworkers, hundreds of line workers from neighboring utilities and contractors are working tirelessly alongside our crews in very challenging conditions.
As we look back over 2020 and into the new year, we are proud of how we have responded to significant challenges that tested us like never before.
From the pandemic, civil unrest, trading losses and historic wildfires, to these recent winter storms, our team has remained focused on delivering for customers, supporting the communities we serve.
We take very seriously our role as an essential service provider.
Given the trading losses, our financial results were disappointing, but we delivered solid operational performance and improved throughout the past year and through the pandemic.
We also have consistent momentum that is in line with our long-term growth strategy.
We took actions beginning early in the pandemic to control customer prices with an appreciation for the economic hardships of many of our customers.
Today, we are more efficient with improved reliability and getting more work done.
We are also seeing the positive impact of investments in our distribution system, including investments in substation upgrades, new wood and steel poles, distribution automation and other resiliency investments.
We improved operational efficiency by leveraging technology, improving overall workflow and operations.
We deployed solutions to better serve customers with innovative and clean energy solutions.
We are enabling our employees to work more efficiently.
2020 was an important year for us in our journey toward a clean energy future.
We announced significant decarbonization goals of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, including at least 80% reduction in the power supply to customers by 2030 relative to 2010 levels.
This ambitious Companywide goal will touch every aspect of our business, from the power we serve customers, to the vehicles we drive, to how we operate our buildings and operations.
In the fourth quarter, we closed the Boardman coal plant and opened the Wheatridge Energy Facility, one of the nation's first facilities to integrate solar and wind generation with battery storage at scale in one location.
We are also working to serve many municipal and industrial customers with 100% renewable energy under our green tariff programs, building on our number one decade-long residential clean energy programs.
Partnership and support for our communities and employees is also central to who we are.
To that end, PGE, along with employees, retirees and the PGE Foundation, donated $5.6 million and volunteered over 18,000 hours with more than -- to more than 400 non-profits across Oregon.
Diversity, equity and inclusion have long been a core value, and we measure and publish progress as well as pay equity and other key metrics publicly.
Inclusion in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index and a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Corporate Equality Index reflects our years of focus and work in this area.
However, we know that there is still much work to do.
As we reflect on 2020 and look to the year ahead, the responsibility we have as an essential service provider, a leader within Oregon's economy, and a crucial partner to customers and communities we serve, has never been more important.
Through these historic storms and record outages, many are working 24/7 to restore power.
I am humbled by the strength, dedication and resilience of our teams.
We will not stop working hard until every customer is back online.
I want to start by echoing Maria's comments.
The number of customer power outages and widespread damage to our electric system is unprecedented, and we recognize the hardship these events have created for our customers.
Our entire company is focused on restoring power to our communities and repairing our system, and I'm so impressed with my new teammates at PGE.
Although PGE faced a number of challenging circumstances in 2020, it's clear that this team's hard work and focus on advancing our strategy is paying off.
PGE is in a strong position to build on the momentum we've established and deliver long-term sustainable growth.
I am excited for the opportunities ahead to further reduce carbon emissions, invest across our service territory and continue to reduce cost Companywide to keep customer prices low.
Now I will briefly comment on the economy in our service territory.
While recovery is continuing in the hardest-hit segments of the economy such as lodging and restaurants, other segments of our economy have been less impacted by COVID-19 and performed well from a load growth standpoint, like residential, high-tech manufacturing, and digital services.
In the long run, our 1% average load growth anchors on the strength of these sectors as well as continued in-migration.
Our load growth this year remained consistent with long-term trends, despite the change in composition due to the economy's response to COVID-19.
And our customer base continues to grow.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Oregon continued to rank high among the states, ranking third for inbound moves.
Construction spending on both residential developments and commercial projects throughout our service territory is strong in several major infrastructure projects around the horizon.
Let's cover our financial results on Slide 5.
In 2020, we recorded GAAP net income of $155 million or $1.72 per diluted share compared to GAAP net income of $214 million or $2.39 per diluted share in 2019.
We finished the fourth quarter earning GAAP-based earnings per diluted share of $0.57 compared with GAAP-based earnings per diluted share of $0.68 in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Our 2020 non-GAAP net income was $247 million or $2.75 per diluted share.
This amount is adjusted to reflect the previously disclosed one-time energy trading losses of $1.03 per diluted share.
Looking ahead, we are initiating 2021 full-year earnings guidance of $2.55 to $2.70 per diluted share.
We are also affirming our long-term earnings guidance of 4% to 6% growth off 2019 earnings per share of $2.39.
Turning to Slide 6, allow me to walk through the earnings drivers for 2020.
First, we saw a $0.06 increase in retail revenue as load increased 0.4% year-over-year weather-adjusted.
This increase was partially offset by the impacts of changing load composition on our decoupling mechanism.
We also achieved a $0.12 increase due to lower net variable power cost as a result of low market prices and the effective dispatch of our generating facilities.
As we have been saying to you all along, wind was particularly strong.
In fact, our wind resources produced 23% more energy when compared to 2019.
We drove a $0.33 decrease -- increase, pardon me, in connection with our lower operating and maintenance expenses.
This year served as a catalyst for making long-term sustainable operational improvements Companywide.
I will discuss these in more detail in a moment.
Continuing on Slide 6, we have a $0.26 decrease associated with higher depreciation and amortization, which consisted of $0.09 from higher plant in service in 2020 and $0.17 attributed to a measurement of the company's only non-utility asset retirement obligation on land we own along the Willamette River at our Sullivan plant.
In 2020, we reassessed stakeholder needs in the long-term strategy for the site, which included an updated fourth quarter study.
The site study resulted in a significant increase in our retirement asset liability.
These changes, however, de-risk our ability to respond to long-term strategic opportunities at the property.
Further, there was a $0.10 increase associated with higher production tax credits from favorable wind generation compared to our forecast and then a $0.01 increase for miscellaneous items.
This brings our non-GAAP earnings per share -- diluted share to $2.75.
The third quarter energy trading losses represented a negative impact of $1.03 per diluted share for the year.
And our GAAP earnings per diluted share were $1.72 for 2020.
The corresponding ROEs are 6% and 9.3%, respectively.
As it relates to the regulatory environment, we are keeping our focus on customer price impacts, given the concerns around economic recovery in our service territory.
We continue to evaluate our cost structure to ensure that we are providing safe, affordable, and reliable service for our customers.
Right now, we are evaluating our need to file a General Rate Case with the Oregon Public Utilities Commission for a 2022 test year.
It is important that we continue to operate in a way that is cost efficient to keep prices low for our customers, regardless of our outlook for a new General Rate Case.
With respect to our future resource needs, we filed an update to our 2019 Integrated Resource Plan last month.
We are planning to work with stakeholders to seek approval of our RFP and launch the process later this year, but we are continuing to consider customer and stakeholder interest as it relates to timing.
Given recent updates to federal tax credits, we plan to issue an RFP for both renewables and our remaining capacity.
We will bid a benchmark resource into this competitive process.
On other regulatory proceedings, last October, the OPUC approved our deferral request for wildfire-related expenses.
As of December 31, 2020, we have deferred $15 million related to wildfire response.
We also applied for and received deferral treatment from the OPUC for certain COVID-19 expenses, principally bad debt expense.
As of December 31, 2020, we've deferred $10 million relating to COVID-19.
Earlier this week, we filed a deferral request for restoration cost associated with the severe winter events that Maria discussed and that we've recently experienced.
Because of the magnitude and duration of the event, we are uncertain as to the costs associated with the full restoration service.
We will continue to discuss the impact of this deferral on existing storm recovery mechanism with regulators and stakeholders.
Turning to Slide 8, this shows our updated capital forecast through 2025.
We are providing enhanced recovery here for our capital expenditures forecast.
The majority of our investment in future years are concentrated in low-risk, stable distribution infrastructure upgrades to improve safety and reliability of our system.
Investments here are also intended to make us more efficient and help facilitate savings and improve reliability.
The recent weeks and the wildfire impacts in 2020 demonstrate the importance of maintaining a safe and reliable grid.
We added $200 million to the outer years of the capital plan through 2025, and our capital plan now includes $2.9 billion over the next five years.
As a reminder, these projections do not include any generation billed investment that may arise from a renewable energy RFP.
On Slide 9, we continue to maintain a solid balance sheet, including strong liquidity and investment-grade ratings accompanied by a stable outlook.
Based on our strong financial condition, we do not anticipate to issue equity in 2021.
We expect to fund 2021 capital expenditures and long-term debt maturities with cash from operations during '21, which is expected to range from $600 million to $650 million, the issuance of debt securities of up to $300 million, and the issuance of commercial paper as needed.
After 2021, there are no maturities of long-term debt until 2024.
Turning to Slide 10, we are initiating full-year 2021 earnings guidance of $2.55 to $2.70 per diluted share.
Our assumptions for this guidance range are on the slide.
I'd like to dive deeper and walk through a few key drivers that we're confident will help us grow within the 4% to 6% range in 2021.
Because of continued load trends we are currently seeing with residential customers and commercial customers that are slowly reopening, we expect to refund residential customers under the decoupling mechanism and will again hit the 2% cap on collections for non-residential decoupling.
We continue to recognize the challenges faced by our customers and we'll continue to make sustainable changes to our cost structure throughout the Company.
We've accelerated the use of technology throughout the business.
In our 6% reduction in O&M year-over-year, and about half is from lowering our IT costs and using technology to enable process improvements.
But here are just a few examples.
We have reduced and restructured our software license agreements as PGE continued to move to the cloud.
We rolled out a new mapping software to our line crews and they are now using tablets for better access in the field.
We're using new customer relationship management software to better improve our customer relationships.
We continue to leverage our billing system to drive efficiencies while providing customers with increased functionality.
I am confident we can continue to identify and implement efficiencies in 2021 as we continue to grow.
We are also reaffirming long-term earnings growth guidance of 4% to 6% off a 2019 base year.
The drivers of our long-term guidance are consistent with what we've previously discussed, including load growth from in-migration and industrial customer expansion, operational efficiencies and potential investment opportunities in our system and renewable resources.
With respect to dividends, our Board recently declared a dividend of $0.4075 per share, reflecting an annualized dividend of $1.63 per share.
With this dividend, we completed our 14th consecutive year of dividend growth, with the last five years at a compounded annual growth rate of 5.4%.

user
q4 gaap earnings per share $0.57.
sees fy 2021 earnings per share $2.55 to $2.70.
reaffirming 4% to 6% long-term diluted earnings per share growth using 2019 base year.
initiating 2021 earnings guidance of $2.55 to $2.70 per diluted share.
sees 2021 cash from operations of $600 to $650 million.

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