SRE Sempra

DALLAS, May 7, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC ("Oncor") today reported three months ended March 31, 2024 net income of $225 million compared to reported three months ended March 31, 2023 net income of $103 million. This $122 million increase was driven by higher revenues primarily due to updated interim rates to reflect increases in invested capital, increases in transmission billing units, higher customer consumption partially attributable to weather, new base rates implemented May 1, 2023 and customer growth, and the write-off of rate base disallowances recorded in the first quarter of 2023, partially offset by higher costs associated with increases in invested capital (primarily borrowing costs and depreciation) and higher operation and maintenance expense (primarily regulatory asset amortization and self-insurance reserve accrual recovery amounts in new base rates). Financial and operational results are provided in Tables A, B, C and D below.

"We are proud to announce Oncor's solid financial performance in the first quarter of 2024. Our continued focus on operational excellence is evident in our strong safety and reliability metrics during the quarter," said Oncor CEO Allen Nye. "Our team worked hard to prepare our System Resiliency Plan filing. This strategic initiative, with almost $3 billion in capital expenditures and over $500 million in operation and maintenance expense earmarked for critical investments in system hardening and modernization, cybersecurity, wildfire mitigation, and other investments designed to make the grid more secure, reliable, and resilient, reflects our commitment to fortifying our infrastructure for the future. Pending approval from the Public Utility Commission of Texas, we anticipate launching these investments in 2025, to be rolled out over three years. This plan is not just an investment in infrastructure; it's an investment in creating a more secure and more intelligent grid that is better able to withstand and more quickly recover from the wide range of threats impacting our customers."

System Resiliency Plan ("SRP") Filed
Yesterday, Oncor filed its first SRP for Public Utility Commission of Texas ("PUCT") approval. Oncor's SRP (PUCT Docket No. 56545) requests approval of approximately $2.9 billion in capital investment and $520 million in operation and maintenance ("O&M") expenses over a three-year period to enhance the resiliency of its transmission and distribution system. The three-year period will commence upon PUCT approval of the plan, but is anticipated to be for the years 2025 through 2027. The proposed SRP requests capital investment and O&M spend for the following key resiliency measures:

• Overhead and Underground Resiliency and Modernization – Approximately $1.830 billion in proposed spend to modernize and harden legacy overhead system (poles, crossarms, lightning protection and capacity) and underground system with injection/replacement and switchgear automation;
• Continued Optimization of Distribution Automation – Approximately $510 million in proposed spend to enable, expand and optimize distribution automation through new ties, capacity and intelligent switches;
• Expanded Vegetation Management ("VM") – Approximately $285 million in proposed spend to expand VM along laterals and leverage remote-sensing capabilities such as satellite and laser imaging, detection and ranging, commonly known as LiDAR;
• Enhanced Cybersecurity Risk Mitigation – Approximately $525 million in proposed spend to enhance cybersecurity risk mitigation, enhance and secure Oncor's digital backbone infrastructure and other measures;
• Improved Physical Security – Approximately $80 million in proposed spend to improve physical security, including video and event correlation systems and asset protection; and
• Enhanced Wildfire Mitigation – Oncor estimates that approximately $900 million of the total proposed spend under the SRP will enhance its wildfire mitigation efforts, consisting of $182 million in specific wildfire mitigation measures as well as the implementation of the overhead and underground resiliency and modernization and expanded distribution automation measures described above in areas at the highest risk for wildfires. The SRP offers Oncor an opportunity to advance and accelerate its wildfire mitigation strategies through additional investments in fire safe device deployment, advanced wildfire risk modeling, and strengthening, modernization and protection of assets in wildfire mitigation zones.

Oncor further believes these measures will provide a substantial reduction in outage minutes for customers, while also expanding and accelerating Oncor's efforts around wildfire risk mitigation, the security of the grid, vegetation management and the expanded deployment of smart grid technologies. These investments, if approved, are expected to enable Oncor's transmission and distribution system to better withstand and more quickly recover from the wide range of extreme weather conditions and other risks Oncor experiences across its diverse service area. 

The statute provides that the PUCT will review and approve, modify or deny a filed plan within 180 days. Oncor cannot predict the outcome of the proceeding. To the extent Oncor's SRP is approved by the PUCT, Oncor intends to recover distribution-related costs through its interim distribution cost recovery factor adjustments, with the unrecovered distribution-related O&M expenses, depreciation expenses and return on the capital to be recognized as a regulatory asset.

The amount of capital expenditures ultimately approved as part of Oncor's SRP program, would be incremental to Oncor's $24.2 billion of planned capex for the five-year period 2024-2028 announced earlier this year.

Operational Highlights and Growth
Throughout its operations, reliability and safety remain a primary focus at Oncor. For the industry's primary benchmark for reliability, System Average Interruption Duration Index (non-storm), Oncor's customers continued to see a decrease in the average minutes of outage in the twelve months ended March 31, 2024 compared to the twelve months ended March 31, 2023. On the safety front, Oncor's Days Away, Restricted and Transferred Rate and Preventable Vehicle Accident Rate decreased 26% and 61%, respectively, in the first quarter of 2024 as compared to the first quarter of 2023.

Ongoing growth within Texas as a whole, and within Oncor's service territory, continues to be a driver of operational activity. Oncor increased its premise count by 18,000 in the first quarter of 2024 as compared to 17,000 in the first quarter of 2023, and at the end of April reached a milestone in exceeding four million premises. Additionally, Oncor placed approximately $161 million of transmission projects into service in the first quarter of 2024 as compared to placing approximately $94 million of transmission projects into service in the first quarter of 2023. The continued growth across Oncor's service territory resulted in the construction or upgrading of approximately 24 circuit miles of transmission lines and included 9 major substation projects and 3 major switching station projects, all being placed into service in the first quarter of 2024.

At March 31, 2024, Oncor had 781 active generation and large commercial and industrial ("LC&I" and also known as retail) transmission point of interconnection ("POI") requests in queue, representing a 20% increase as compared to March 31, 2023. Of the 482 active generation POI requests in queue at March 31, 2024, 46% are solar, 42% are storage, 9% are wind and 3% are gas. LC&I requests come from customers across a diverse group of industries, including many with electricity loads that represent the potential for hundreds of megawatts of new electric load, such as data centers. Of the 299 active LC&I transmission POI requests in Oncor's queue, more than 25% of the projects represent large load customers that in the aggregate represent over 40 gigawatts of potential load.

In order to address the increased growth in Texas, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc. ("ERCOT") recently announced new load forecasting and planning processes. Relying on House Bill 5066 passed in the 2023 Texas legislative session, ERCOT now includes prospective load identified by transmission service providers like Oncor. As part of the new planning processes, ERCOT announced last month that it is studying load growth that could result in a peak demand of approximately 152 gigawatts in 2030. Previously, ERCOT had projected a peak demand of approximately 111 gigawatts by 2029. 

Oncor anticipates that approximately 40% of the 2030 load being studied by ERCOT is in Oncor's service territory. Oncor's current five-year capital plan of $24.2 billion (not including amounts approved in its SRP filings) was developed with the anticipation of some but not all of the capital investment that would be needed to support this growth. The number of generation and LC&I customers seeking interconnection has grown since the capital plan was developed.

As part of its annual renewal process, Oncor recently secured excess liability policies that maintain $300 million of coverage for wildfire for the period May 1, 2024 through May 1, 2025.

Liquidity
As of May 6, 2024, Oncor's available liquidity, consisting of cash on hand and available borrowing capacity under its existing credit facilities, commercial paper program and accounts receivable facility ("AR Facility"), totaled $2.1 billion. Oncor expects cash flows from operations combined with long-term debt issuances and borrowings under credit agreements as well as availability under its existing credit facilities, commercial paper program and AR Facility to be sufficient to fund current obligations, projected working capital requirements, maturities of long-term debt and capital expenditures for at least the next twelve months.

Sempra Internet Broadcast Today
Sempra (NYSE: SRE) (BMV: SRE) will broadcast a live discussion of its earnings results over the Internet today at 12 p.m. ET, which will include discussion of first quarter 2024 results and other information relating to Oncor. Oncor Chief Executive Allen Nye will also participate in the broadcast. Access to the broadcast is available by logging onto the Investors section of Sempra's website, sempra.com/investors. Prior to the conference call, an accompanying slide presentation will be posted on sempra.com/investors. For those unable to participate in the live webcast, it will be available on replay a few hours after its conclusion at sempra.com/investors.

Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q
Oncor's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2024 will be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after Sempra's conference call and once filed, will be available on Oncor's website, oncor.com.

Headquartered in Dallas, Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC is a regulated electricity transmission and distribution business that uses superior asset management skills to provide reliable electricity delivery to consumers. Oncor (together with its subsidiaries) operates the largest transmission and distribution system in Texas, delivering electricity to more than 4 million homes and businesses and operating more than 143,000 circuit miles of transmission and distribution lines in Texas. While Oncor is owned by two investors (indirect majority owner, Sempra, and minority owner, Texas Transmission Investment LLC), Oncor is managed by its Board of Directors, which is comprised of a majority of disinterested directors.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to Oncor within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, that are included in this news release, as well as statements made in presentations, in response to questions or otherwise, that address activities, events or developments that Oncor expects or anticipates to occur in the future, including such matters as projections, capital allocation, future capital expenditures, business strategy, competitive strengths, goals, future acquisitions or dispositions, development or operation of facilities, market and industry developments and the growth of Oncor's business and operations (often, but not always, through the use of words or phrases such as  "intends," "plans," "will likely result," "are expected to," "will continue," "is anticipated," "estimated," "forecast," "should," "projection," "target," "goal," "objective" and "outlook"), are forward-looking statements. Although Oncor believes that in making any such forward-looking statement its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, any such forward-looking statement involves risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Factors that could cause Oncor's actual results to differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements include: legislation, governmental policies and orders, and regulatory actions; legal and administrative proceedings and settlements, including the exercise of equitable powers by courts; weather conditions and other natural phenomena, including any weather impacts due to climate change; acts of sabotage, wars, terrorist activities, cybersecurity attacks, wildfires, fires, explosions, hazards customary to the industry, or other emergency events and the possibility that Oncor may not have adequate insurance to cover losses or third-party liabilities related to any such event; actions by credit rating agencies; health epidemics and pandemics, including their impact on Oncor's business and the economy in general; interrupted or degraded service on key technology platforms, facilities failures, or equipment interruptions; economic conditions, including the impact of a recessionary environment, inflation, supply chain disruptions, competition for goods and services, service provider availability, and labor availability and cost; unanticipated population growth or decline, or changes in market demand and demographic patterns, particularly in the ERCOT region; ERCOT grid needs and ERCOT market conditions, including insufficient electric capacity within ERCOT or disruptions at power generation facilities that supply power within ERCOT; changes in business strategy, development plans or vendor relationships; changes in interest rates or rates of inflation; significant changes in operating expenses, liquidity needs and/or capital expenditures; inability of various counterparties to meet their financial and other obligations to Oncor, including failure of counterparties to timely perform under agreements; general industry and ERCOT trends; significant decreases in demand or consumption of electricity delivered by Oncor, including as a result of increased consumer use of third-party distributed energy resources or other technologies; changes in technology used by and services offered by Oncor; significant changes in Oncor's relationship with its employees, including the availability of qualified personnel, and the potential adverse effects if labor disputes or grievances were to occur; changes in assumptions used to estimate costs of providing employee benefits, including pension and retiree benefits, and future funding requirements related thereto; significant changes in accounting policies or critical accounting estimates material to Oncor; commercial bank and financial market conditions, macroeconomic conditions, access to capital, the cost of such capital, and the results of financing and refinancing efforts, including availability of funds and the potential impact of any disruptions in U.S. capital and credit markets; circumstances which may contribute to future impairment of goodwill, intangible or other long-lived assets; financial and other restrictions under Oncor's debt agreements; Oncor's ability to generate sufficient cash flow to make interest payments on its debt instruments; and Oncor's ability to effectively execute its operational strategy.

Further discussion of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from management's current projections, forecasts, estimates and expectations is contained in filings made by Oncor with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Specifically, Oncor makes reference to the section entitled "Risk Factors" in its annual and quarterly reports. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and, except as may be required by law, Oncor undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which it is made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for Oncor to predict all of them; nor can it assess the impact of each such factor or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement.  As such, you should not unduly rely on such forward-looking statements.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/oncor-reports-first-quarter-2024-results-302137451.html

SOURCE Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC