Southern Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
February 16, 2023

Key Takeaways

  • In 2022 Southern reported adjusted EPS of $3.60, at the top of its guidance range, driven by higher retail rates, customer growth and favorable weather.
  • Vogtle Unit 3 startup has been delayed to May–June 2023 due to piping vibration and flow measurement issues, while Unit 4’s in-service date is now risk-adjusted to late Q4 2023–Q1 2024 with a $150 million after-tax charge.
  • For 2023 the company issued an adjusted EPS guidance of $3.55–$3.65 per share, flat with 2022’s results and incorporating half-year contributions from Unit 3.
  • Southern added nearly 50,000 residential electric and 30,000 gas customers in 2022, and economic development announcements in its Southeast territories rose by 135% for expected jobs and 257% for capital investment.
  • The company maintains a $43 billion five-year capital plan (97% regulated) excluding Vogtle, assumes no equity issuance, and expects credit metrics to improve to 17–18% FFO/debt post-Vogtle.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Southern Q4 2022
00:00 / 00:00

There are 13 speakers on the call.

Operator

Afternoon. My name is Scott, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Southern Company 4th Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

Operator

I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Scott Gammel, Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer. Please go ahead, sir.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Scott. Good afternoon, and welcome to The Southern Company's year end 2022 earnings call. Joining me today are Tom Fanning, Chairman, President Chief Executive Officer of Southern Company and Dan Tucker, Chief Financial Officer. In addition, Georgia Power's CEO, Chris Womack, who will be succeeding Tom as President and CEO in the coming months is also joining us. Let me remind you, we'll be making forward looking statements today in addition to providing historical information.

Speaker 1

Various important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated and the forward looking statements, including those discussed in our Form 10 ks, Form 10 Qs and subsequent filings. In addition, we will present non GAAP financial information on this call. Reconciliations to the applicable GAAP measure are included in the financial information we released this morning as well as the slides for this conference call, which are both available on our Investor Relations website at investor. Southerncompany.com. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Tom Fanning.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Scott. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today. Southern Company had another exceptional year in 2022. As you can see from the materials that we released this morning, We reported strong adjusted earnings per share consistent with the very top of our guidance range. These results were due in no small part to the culmination of the hard work of thousands of people throughout our company to put in day in and day out to provide customers with clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy.

Speaker 2

Our operations team, Generation fleet and power delivery system worked exceedingly well in 2022, which included meeting an All time peak load of over 41,000 megawatts in June and navigating well in extreme winter cold event over the Christmas weekend that pushed electric demand to a system peak load of nearly 38,000 megawatts, a December record. Our success with these events is a testament to the value of our vertically integrated state regulated business model delivers to our customers and the communities we are privileged to serve. A great example of the benefits which come from our state's long term integrated planning It's the 26% winter reserve margin factored into the capacity planning process. This winter reserve margin, which is significantly higher than typical summer reserve margin, inherently recognizes That peak demand in the winter occurs during the dark early morning hours when solar resources are diminished and cold temperatures can have unintended adverse effects on generation and fuel supply equipment. Such thoughtful planning assumptions along with robust winterization programs and a continuous focus on resilience investments are top of mind across all of our state regulated utilities.

Speaker 2

Let's turn now to an update on Vogtle Units 34. Since our last call, the site team at Unit 3 has turned to testing and startup process in support of the unit's next and we will now begin the call to discuss our financial results. During this process, as disclosed in January, We identified vibrations associated with certain piping within the passive cooling system, which required additional time to remediate. The site team cooled down the unit and successfully remediated the vibrations, allowing them to resume the testing, which precedes initial criticality. During this work, we identified a few additional issues to address, Consistent with our focus on optimal long term performance and getting it right, we've added Some additional time to the Unit 3 schedule to address these items and to reduce the risks associated with other potential issues emerging.

Speaker 2

We now project placing Unit 3 in service in May or June of 2023. Turning now to Unit 4, Substantial progress continued throughout the last quarter. We successfully completed cold hydro testing in early December. Electrical production and terminations through year end were sustained at levels supportive of our year end 2023 in service objective. All required systems necessary to start hot Functional testing on Unit 4 have been completed and turned over to the initial test program.

Speaker 2

Component and system testing activities are Steadily increasing and are now critical path in support of the next major milestones for Unit 4, hot functional testing and fuel load. We have seen a market improvement in testing results for Unit 4 compared to the Unit 3 process, which reflects the increased focus on first time construction quality and timely documentation. Even with the improved results, Somewhat slower than planned testing productivity has consumed margin in our schedule. The site's working schedule continues to reflect a couple of months of remaining margin for a 2023 in service date. After careful consideration and given our experience on Unit 3 and the degree of critical work ahead of us, we are further risk adjusting our Unit 4 Schedule to reflect a range of the projected in service date between late Q4 of 2023 and the end of the Q1 of 2024.

Speaker 2

Turning now to cost. Georgia Power's share of the total project capital cost forecast reflects a projected increase of $201,000,000 to fund the extension of Unit 3 and Unit 4 projected in service dates to the end of the Q2 2023 and to the end of the Q1 2024 respectively, plus modest increases in the projected cost of resources to complete the remaining work and testing on Unit 4. As a result, Georgia Power recorded an after tax charge of $150,000,000 during the quarter. We've included project schedules for the next major milestones for each unit, including initial criticality for Unit 3 and the start of high functional testing for Unit 4 in the materials provided for this call. Our priority remains Bringing Vogtle Units 34 online to provide Georgia with a reliable carbon free resource for the next 60 to 80 years.

Speaker 2

We will continue to take the time needed to get it right and will not sacrifice safety or quality to meet schedule. Dan, I'll turn the call over to you.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Tom, and good afternoon, everyone. As Tom mentioned, We had strong financial results for the year with adjusted earnings of $3.60 per share, dollars 0.19 higher than 2021. The primary drivers for the year over year increase are higher revenues associated with retail pricing, warmer weather, primarily in the Q2 2022 customer growth, increased usage and investment on our regulated utilities. These revenue effects were partially offset by higher nonfuel O and M expenses and higher interest expenses. The increase in nonfuel O and M reflects long term commitments to our regulated utilities to reliability and resiliency, along with efforts to advance maintenance activities in light of emerging cost pressures.

Speaker 3

Additional shares from A detailed reconciliation of our reported and adjusted results compared to 2021 is included in today's release and earnings package. Weather adjusted retail excuse me, electric sales were up 1.2% for 2022 compared to 2021, almost double the growth rate forecast for 2022 and back above pre pandemic levels. We continue to see robust residential growth with the addition of nearly 50,000 residential electric customers and over 30,000 residential gas customers throughout the year. Residential customer usage also continued to outpace our expectations, reflecting sustained hybrid work practices across our service territories. Additionally, commercial sales for 2022 beat our forecast by nearly 2%, reflecting a reversion to pre pandemic trends as the economy shifts from consuming goods to services.

Speaker 3

Industrial sales for 2022 were lower than forecast by 1.5%, driven by a chemical facility closure and weakening industrial sales momentum during the second half of the year. With interest rates rising, we have seen slowing and Construction and Housing related sectors such as lumber, stone, clay and glass and textiles. In the Q4 of 2022, 8 of our top 10 industrial segments experienced slower sales growth as compared to the prior quarter. Included in our 2023 guidance is an assumption of retail electric sales growth of 0% to 1%. And as in prior quarters, We continue to monitor the potential implications of supply chain constraints, labor force participation and inflationary pressures on our outlook.

Speaker 3

The economic development pipeline in our service territories remains robust. 2022 economic development announcements in our Southeast service territories Saw an increase in expected job creation and capital investment of 135% and 257%, respectively, in 2022 as compared to 2021. The pipeline of potential projects grew significantly compared to recent years With new corporate announcements and expansions representing a broad cross section of industries including automotive, technology, e Fulfillment and Distribution, Healthcare and Bioscience. In addition to the traditional factors that have historically drawn to our service territory like transportation networks, a lower cost of living and business friendly state and local policies, Another emerging trend that continues to drive momentum in both economic development wins and the size of the potential pipeline is the diversified workforce, especially technology workers and the diverse university systems in our territories, which prominently feature several HBCUs. We're proud to have been on the forefront of helping develop this workforce through our significant investment along with Apple in the Propel Center in Atlanta.

Speaker 3

More and more as other companies strive to have their workforce reflect the diverse global customers they serve, Our Southeast service territories have become a top choice for relocation or expansion. We are proud of the significant role that our subsidiaries play in attracting new businesses to our service territories. And in 2022, Site Selection Magazine named Alabama Power and Georgia Power Top U. S. Utilities for Economic Development for the 4th consecutive year and recognize the state of Georgia as the 2nd best business climate in the country.

Speaker 3

Strong economic development activity continues to differentiate our Southeast service territories from other areas of the country. Turning now to our expectations for 2023. Our adjusted earnings guidance range for the year is $3.55 to $3.65 per share. Expected drivers for 2023 versus 2022 are continued growth in our state regulated subsidiaries, including the contribution related to Vogtle Unit 3 going into service, offset by higher parent company interest expense, including financing costs for Plant Vogtle Units 34, with costs in excess of $7,300,000,000 deemed reasonable by the Georgia PSC and share dilution reflecting the full year impact of the mandatory conversion of our equity units in August 2022. We estimate adjusted earnings of $0.70 per share for the Q1.

Speaker 3

Additionally, we are narrowing our 20 24 and adjusted guidance range of $4 to $4.30 which was established in early 2021. In order to acknowledge the uncertainty inherent in providing guidance 3 years in advance, the original 2024 range was wider than our typical annual EPS guidance ranges. Since this range was introduced in February 2021, our state regulated Outcomes have been largely consistent with our assumptions. Several upside opportunities inherent in the top end of our original range, Like renewable and storage investment opportunities at both our state regulated electric companies and Southern Power have been deferred to later years, largely due to adverse market conditions, including more challenging contracting requirements and global supply chain constraints. Financing costs, particularly parent company interest rates, are a significant headwind relative to our forecast in early 2021.

Speaker 3

Rates on variable and short term debt are significantly higher than expected and as securities in our low cost debt portfolio mature, New issuances, no matter the tenure, are significantly more expensive. Compounding these negative parent company interest rate effects are the growth in our state regulated capital plans relative to early 2021 and the increased cost for Georgia Power share of Vogtle 34, which has grown by nearly $1,900,000,000 since early 2021. Collectively, these factors would narrow our $4 to $4.30 range adjusted for 2024 to $4.10 Adding the potential for Vogtle 4 to be completed at the end of the Q1 of 2024, which would have a negative $0.05 per share impact solely in 2024, we are providing an adjusted 2024 earnings guidance range of $3.95 to 4 $0.10 per share. We plan to further narrow this range during our Q4 2023 earnings call early next year. We continue to see our long term adjusted EPS growth rate in the 5% to 7% range, consistent with our updated 2024 adjusted EPS guidance range.

Speaker 3

This projected growth is supported by a $43,000,000,000 capital plan with 97% of total projected capital deployment over the next 5 years at our state regulated utilities. Additionally, our history of constructive regulation, strong credit ratings and disciplined O and M spending served to strengthen our outlook. Our robust capital investment program continues to be driven by significant investment in our state regulated utility businesses. Our total base capital investment plan of approximately $43,000,000,000 which excludes the capital required to complete Vogtle Units 34, reflects a $2,000,000,000 increase in state regulated utility investments relative to our previous 5 year forecast. These increases in our forecast are the result of greater visibility into infrastructure required to serve major customer additions and expansions, further improve our grid and protect our technology infrastructure as well as investments related to the transformation of our generation fleet.

Speaker 3

We have continued to maintain our disciplined approach to capital forecasting within our state regulated utility businesses. Consistent with past practice, we don't include placeholders and we don't include capital that isn't expected to earn or allowed regulated returns. The result of this approach is that our capital expenditure forecasts tend to grow, especially in the later years, As our visibility into customer growth increases, as regulatory processes unfold, as compliance obligations evolve and as our long term system planning is refined, we fully expect this trend to continue. Additionally, we continue to believe Southern Power has a significant opportunity to continue growing through investments that facilitate fleet transitions and the growth of clean energy infrastructure across the United States. Southern Power's business model has been distinctive since its beginnings in the early 2000s, focusing on long term contracts with creditworthy counterparties and a risk adjusted return profile that aligns well with our overall value proposition.

Speaker 3

We've allocated up to $3,500,000,000 over the 5 year plan with approximately $500,000,000 in 2023 $750,000,000 annually for the remainder of the forecast period. These allocations of capital are not included in our base capital forecast. Our financial plan is anchored to our base capital forecast of and our Southern Power allocation, which if realized would result in total spend of over $46,000,000,000 We also continue to believe many of the same drivers for additional potential investment over the next 5 years could translate to investment opportunities beyond 2020 as we continue our journey to achieve net 0 greenhouse gas emissions. We've included a 3 year financing plan in the appendix to today's slide deck. This plan, which is consistent with our updated capital investment plan and the potential capital investment opportunities that we've highlighted, continues to assume no equity need over our 5 year planning horizon.

Speaker 3

As always, we'll maintain our discipline and the flexibility to use all the financing tools at our disposal to drive value for shareholders. Credit quality and strong investment grade credit ratings remain a top priority And we continue to believe that to be a high quality equity investment, a company must maintain a strong credit profile. As we complete Plant Vogtle Units 34, we believe the expected reduction in construction risk and the projected improvement in FFO to debt metrics further position us to support our credit quality objectives. Tom, I'll now turn the call back over to you.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Dan. Southern Company strives to deliver superior risk adjusted total shareholder returns, And I believe the plan we've laid out will support that objective. Our customer and community focused business model, our growing investment in our state regulated All contribute to making Southern Company a premier sustainable investment. Our remarkable dividend track record remains a vital component to our value proposition. For 3 quarters of a century, we have paid a quarterly dividend that is equal to or greater than the previous quarter, including sustained dividend increases for more than 20 years.

Speaker 2

In closing, I'm sure that most of you are well aware of the recent announcement of to Chris Lomack to succeed me as President and Chief Executive Officer in the coming months. I will remain as Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors. In conjunction with this announcement, where a number of other senior leadership changes was highlighted the depth of talent We've worked hard to develop at Southern Company. I expect each of these leaders will flourish in their new roles, Further strengthen the company's deep bench and bring a fresh perspective to each of our businesses. With Chris Womack and his team leading us, The future of Southern Company is in great hands as we continue to strive to make the communities that we have the privilege to serve Better off because we're there and as we continue our relentless pursuit to provide customers with clean, safe, Reliable and Affordable Energy.

Speaker 2

With that, I'll turn the call over to Chris Womack for a few brief remarks before we get to Q and A.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Tom, and good afternoon to everyone. I cannot be more excited to have the privilege to lead Southern Company in the months years ahead. It is an important time in our industry as the energy landscape continues to evolve and customers' needs continue to change. Southern Company is at the forefront of that evolution and we are building the future of energy. It is an honor to lead teams that are dedicated to innovating and delivering world class customer service and reliability customers, while also moving boldly forward in our journey to continuously represent our values and improve the communities we serve.

Speaker 4

Tom and his predecessors along with the thousands of team members across The enterprise Tom mentioned earlier have built a solid foundation for Southern Company and we've got a lot of important work ahead of us to continue to build upon their legacy. Thank you all again for joining us this afternoon. I look forward to getting the opportunity to get out and interact more closely with each of you and the investment community during the weeks months ahead. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

Operator

Thank We do have a question from Shar Pourreza with Guggenheim Partners. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Hello, Shar. How are you?

Speaker 5

Hi, Tom. Shar is actually on the road traveling at West. It's James Ward here on for him.

Speaker 2

Well, glad to have you

Speaker 5

Thank you. Very much appreciated. Glad to be here. Thank you for taking our questions. I just wanted to first congratulate Chris on your new role and Tom, on your planned transition and the evolution of your role in the company.

Speaker 5

So congrats to you both.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 5

So I have a few questions here. Quick one off the bat. I just had a few inbound questions from people. To clarify, the 5% to 7% base remains the 2024 midpoint, but now it's The midpoint of $3.95 to $4.10 is that correct? Or is there another way to think about the base for that $5 to $7 going forward post BOGO?

Speaker 3

Yes. Hey, James, this is Dan. So look, we were very intentional in choosing the words consistent with our Those words we're really acknowledging of 2 things. Thing 1 is just like we did with the $4 to $4.30 We'll further narrow this range as we get line of sight on Unit 4 and have our Q4 earnings call next year. Thing 2 that it acknowledges is that the $0.05 impact for Vogtle 4 potentially Going into the Q1 of 2024 is a 1 year effect.

Speaker 3

And so the growth rate will be off of that narrowed range when we get to 2024.

Speaker 2

The other thing is the $0.05 reflects a full charge assuming you go in at the end of the quarter. I'm really I would be a little disappointed if that's where we end up. Right now as we stand adding that extra quarter, we got 5 months of margin on Unit 4. Hopefully, we can do better than that.

Speaker 5

That's very clear and that's great. So okay, so it'd be Higher base than what some people might have been reading it out. That's good to hear. Looking at your new capital plan and then Assuming that some or all of the CapEx beyond the base plans are able to be added, could you give us a bit more color on How much of that $3,000,000,000 could potentially end up at the regulated utilities versus Southern Power? And then as a follow-up, In the slides, you show the 11 different categories there, the examples of where that incremental investment could be, renewables, transmission, etcetera.

Speaker 5

In your view, Which of these categories are most likely to end up in the plan? What's kind of low hanging fruit if there is such a thing or just what is most probable and in Sort of what years, if we were to be building kind of an upside scenario versus a base scenario that we're trying to look at, What would make the most sense to kind of prioritize there?

Speaker 2

Yes. If it was me, do you include the graphs you've done in the past about how the CapEx shows we have yes, there you go. What is that? Page 21 is what I'm looking at. I don't know what you guys see.

Speaker 2

We have a history of always undershooting, especially our outward year forecast. And on the average, I would say that taken over the 5 years, we undershoot another $3,000,000,000 just round numbers. So if you look over the entire 5 year period, an upside case may include $3,000,000,000 of additional franchise related rate based looking CapEx investments. Whether Southern Power hits its $3,000,000,000 or not remains to be seen about market conditions, supply chain constraints and a variety of other things. We've been very clear in past calls to call out what I think have been challenging market conditions.

Speaker 2

Shorter terms, we like bilateral contracts, no fuel risk, creditworthy counterparties, etcetera. The contract conditions have gotten tougher And we're very disciplined. We generally expect about 150 basis points premium for us to go down the bilateral contract route via Southern Power as compared to our franchise utilities. Now whether we're able to duplicate that or not, we'll see. If they don't If you want to include more upside, I would include some portion of that $3 plus 1,000,000,000 for Southern Power over the 5 year period.

Speaker 2

I would also kind of tilt those investments towards the back end. One last comment I will make, we said it in the script, but I think it's important. When you look at Additional CapEx available outside the 5 year period. I think you really do start picking up some of the generation transition kind of capital that may be available. Recall, we will have a high bias towards More gas, more renewables, particularly solar in our region.

Speaker 2

Dan, do you want to add to that? Yes.

Speaker 3

Look, I think you've covered it really well. The other thing I'd just reinforce, James, is that the 5% to 7% Growth rate is based on our $43,000,000,000 capital plan. The opportunity to deploy more than that simply strengthens our position in that regard or potentially lengthens our position in that regard. And just Going back to what Tom said about the longer term, just recall a lot of our coal retirement plans happen at the very end or the year after our 5 year plan. And that really is where a lot of incremental opportunities also get unlocked.

Speaker 2

I mean, for example, a big Slugger retirements are in 29. So as Dan said, that's outside the 5 year.

Speaker 5

Got you. That's extremely helpful and especially the color on upside there. Very much appreciated. Yes, that helps a lot. The final question from us is, in the slides you mentioned that you expect Robust customer growth across your service territories, will then also of course only expecting flat to slightly increasing retail electric sales.

Speaker 5

Building on the details that you shared in the prepared remarks, could you give us just a bit more granularity given that these are broad rather than Regionally focused on one particular area. On these broad trends, what's driving the divergence there? Or Are you just taking a more conservative approach going forward to help us understand a bit more how to look at it?

Speaker 2

Yes, it is kind of a conservative approach, but here's the thing, we have in front of us kind of data that supports a couple of different scenarios. On CNBC this morning, I talked about the potential for a soft or no landing. In other words, when you look at Growth year over year, we have kind of a negative mixed bag of things going on in Industrial. They're not all negative. There are some positives.

Speaker 2

But when you look at the momentum statistics that is the first derivative of growth, they're all negative. In other words, even if you grew year over year, the growth rate was smaller. So that would seem to indicate that at least within the industrial sector, that things are slowing a bit now. They have been way better than what they thought we would be, but still slowing. Okay.

Speaker 2

On the other hand, What we're seeing out of our economic development statistics, increase in job announcements of 130%, Increasing capital investment a little over 2 50 percent, that says that economic development Projects generally show up in the 2 to 3 to perhaps more timeframe. So what it says is, We may see a wee bit of a downturn, a slowing in the economy in 2020 3, but we don't see this thing dipping into recession levels and we see recovery. Certainly, I think the Southeast has Demonstrated that capability in the past. Couple more economic data that's important. We tend to grow about 1% a year projected for the next, I don't know, 5 years.

Speaker 2

Everybody is able to get jobs So you add the kind of steady drumbeat of population growth to the Southeast, As Dan said before, a business friendly climate. I think we can see maybe some slowing in 2023, but recovering in 2024.

Speaker 3

Yes. And then James, I'll disconnect that back to your previous question. Look, this growth is certainly exceeding our expectations in terms of the economic development activity, And that could very well translate to the need to invest more to serve that load that was not anticipated. So we think over the next 3 to 5 years, that will all begin to be very transparent to the market.

Speaker 2

One last point. It Looks like the work environment on employees, we call it hybrid now, but it looks like it's settling down. So we're seeing residential higher than what we thought, commercial certainly higher than what we thought. We'll see how that works out in the future. There's probably still some variance there.

Speaker 5

Very helpful all around, especially in framing potential upside scenarios there, which it looks like you guys might be very well positioned to head into depending on how the macro environment works out. Either way, looking forward to having Vogtle done this year, as I'm sure you and everyone else are and being able to Move on to everything you've just been talking about. So looks like great things ahead. Thanks again for taking the questions. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2

Thank you, James.

Speaker 5

We have

Operator

a question from Steve Fleishman with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Hey, Steve. Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 6

Yes, you bet. Good afternoon. So just on and by the way, congrats to both Tom and Chris and Kim and team. So the on the Vogtle 3, Could you please elaborate on the few additional issues that are adding more time and then also your comment of reducing risk of Other issues? Can we get color on all that?

Speaker 2

Yes, sure. There were kind of 3 things. There were many other tests than the 3 things we identified. So You should know that we successfully evaluated a lot of things going up to Criticality. So the 3 though that We point to that caused delays.

Speaker 2

At least the first two on their own weren't big, but they required us As we started to heat the plant up and pressurize it, we saw the vibrations. There was some conversation about whether we should start the critical test And fix it later and we said, no, let's do it right. So we brought the plant down. We inserted a couple of metal plates To be honest with you, it's to some struts that connect to the pipe and fix the vibration. I mean, it was pretty straightforward.

Speaker 2

It just took time to Heat up, pressurize, take heat down, depressurize. The second thing we saw was a valve that was connected to some pipes that effectively had 2 drips per minute. We wanted to eliminate all drips and we that we ultimately are I think we're just about fixed with it today. But I got a report from Pete Sena, our President of Nuclear. And I think that's done today.

Speaker 2

That's completed. The last issue is not completed, but it It has to deal with flow through the reactor coolant pumps and we're just now making sure that we know what the issue is. It could be a physical issue. It could be a calibration issue. In fact, the flow may be good, but we need to recalibrate the measurements around it.

Speaker 2

So we're all about kind of looking at that today.

Speaker 6

Okay. And then in terms of the comment about doing these to reduce the risk of other issues, is that You're saying there that kind of by doing these things, you think the chance of other things coming up at this point is going to be lower or something after you started up or

Speaker 2

I guess

Speaker 6

the opposite. Yes, okay.

Speaker 2

Yes, Steve, I would think so. I mean that's when we go in to fix the vibration on the pipe, we saw this other stuff, we said, yes, let's not push it, let's fix it. All of that takes time. It's this phrase we use, but we really do act on it is get it right. We'd rather have this thing Get into criticality.

Speaker 2

Once you go nuclear and go critical, things become much tougher. So anything we know about, Let's deal with it now. And you should know that anything we find now, we go over to Unit 4 and check that. For example, we think the issue on pipe vibrations

Speaker 5

is spoken for now on Unit 4.

Speaker 2

We won't see that. It's spoken for now on Unit 4. We won't see that. So anyway, that really is the answer. We're trying to As much as we can, once you get go critical, it's a much more challenging environment than it is before you go critical.

Speaker 2

Just trying to get everything we can see right now.

Speaker 6

Okay. And I guess is the fact that you found these things kind of a And that you're going to find more or is it really more the opposite that you found these things, this is just part of A big plant starting up and hopefully there's less of a risk from here.

Speaker 2

Yes, but that is why we test, right? I mean you should view The power Ascension once you go critical has a series of tests that involve a whole variety of different conditions of the plant, Taking it up, bringing it down, throwing emergency stops in there, all kinds of things. The purpose of the initial voyage, if you will, the test voyage is to find problems. And now we allow for that within the schedule. And now in fact we have more time to allow.

Speaker 2

The schedule calls for I guess on the original schedule something like 2 months of testing, the prescribed startup and it's 2 months and there's roughly a month of slack time to fix things, okay. We now have I think another month that we've added into our projection into the 2nd quarter. But for sure, Steve, we'll find some of

Speaker 7

that stuff.

Speaker 6

Yes. Okay. Okay. I think that's it for me. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is from David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Hey, David. How are you?

Speaker 8

Hey, good morning. Great, thanks. Thanks so

Speaker 9

much for taking my

Speaker 8

question and extend my congratulations as well. I was just wondering, a follow-up on that Question is NRC approval, has that been needed for any of the remediation work on these couple of issues that you found at Unit 3?

Speaker 2

We've been in constant contact with the NRC And we did have, I think with connection of the vibration, 2 license But we got those in a matter of days. This was not a protracted process. And like I say, I think that We continue to work hand in glove with those guys. They were also aware of the valve leak and they're happy I think with the process that we're following there. You should understand that the working relationship with all of the external parties, whether it's The NRC or whether it's the state commission or DOE, anybody, we all sit in Same meetings.

Speaker 2

We all see the same stuff. We have full and complete transparency in everything we do on that site.

Speaker 8

That makes sense. Understood. And are these issues that at this point now you could potentially avoid for Unit for bring learnings from the start up process on Unit 3 and potentially make Unit 4 smoother It's not a kind of a one for one delay here equals a delay later.

Speaker 2

Amen, brother. That's exactly what we're trying to do. And in fact, the process, I think it's been noted by many, have shown that Unit 4 is going a lot smoother than Unit 3 just because I think the process we went through in Unit 3 at times was somewhat painful, but I think it was certainly instructive. If you may remember as we started, went into HFT for Unit 3, we were turning over systems like the day before we went to HFT. For example, all systems necessary to undertake HFT have been completed.

Speaker 2

The long pole in the tent on HFT at Unit 4 It's our ITP, our integrated test plan.

Speaker 8

Yes. Got you. Got you. And then a separate topic, but the decline in natural gas prices is a nice tailwind for customer bills. I was wondering, when would customers could you just remind us when they might see

Speaker 3

Hey, David. This is Dan. So Certainly lower prices are going to benefit customers and Georgia Power in particular who has the largest unrecovered balance It ended the year at about $2,100,000,000 They'll file at the end of February for those rates. So I certainly don't want The impact on customer bills will be greatly mitigated. Our other electric jurisdictions have already initially addressed The under recovery that was happening and so these lower prices are simply going to accelerate that recovery.

Speaker 8

Okay, great. That's helpful. Thanks so much.

Speaker 2

You're welcome.

Operator

And we have a question from Durgesh Chopra with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 7

Hey, thanks. Thanks, Tom. Appreciate it. Hey, I think, Dan, this is in your wheelhouse. Maybe just I apologize if I missed this, but Can you give us your sort of your CFO to debt or FFO to debt as of year end 2022?

Speaker 7

And where that is tracking versus the your targeted credit metrics? And then when In your planning horizon, do you expect to get to your targeted credit metrics?

Speaker 3

Yes, Durgesh. Thanks for the question and happy to share that. And as you know, all the agencies calculate those metrics a Slightly different way, but I think there's certainly a lot of focus on Moody's and S and P, so I'll hit on those in particular. Moody's, we were about 12% for 2022 and S and P about 15%. And as you'd expect, those were pretty significantly impacted by the under recovered fuel dynamics, Particularly the Moody's metric in the way that they calculate that.

Speaker 3

A portion of it is the debt and a portion of it for us is also the impact that Under recovering that fuel had on our tax appetite and our ability to monetize tax benefits, when you combine those factors overall, Really about a 400 basis point impact to the Moody's metric in 2022. As we look ahead and we've talked about this a lot in the past, Vogtle certainly on its own has a significant impact on improving the overall financial profile of the company as we begin to Recover our investment on that in the future. As we get out to 2024, once it's in service, our metrics are closer to 17% to 18%, which are well above our targets and provide us that kind of buffer against adversity that we prefer to have in our profile.

Speaker 7

Got it. That's super helpful, Dan. So just to be clear, like, you would be outside of the fuel balance, You'd be close to like 16% on Moody's basis as of the end of 2022 if you exclude The fuel balance that's on the balance sheet?

Speaker 3

That's right. And as I give you that 17% to 18% projection in the future, that includes An assumption that we might still have an undiscovered balance that we continue to collect, but that has certainly been worked down and Vogtle has kind of overlaid that to improve the overall profile.

Speaker 7

Got it. Got it. Thanks again. And just one hopefully quick one. In 2023 EPS guidance range, can you just remind us like what is your assumption for Earnings from the Unit 3?

Speaker 3

So it's about $0.04 or so that Contributes in 2023 relative to 2022. So that's essentially the assumption of a little more than half the year in service. And then there's that's offset slightly by the fact that there's some of the rate base that won't Actually earned its full return until Unit 4 is also in service.

Speaker 7

Got it. Thanks so much and congratulations Chris and Tom. Much appreciate the time today.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Serge. Always glad to have you with us.

Operator

Our next question is from Angie Storozynski with Seaport Global. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Hey, Angie. How are you?

Speaker 9

Good, good. But I will stir it up a little bit. So can we talk about management succession? So We're really glad to see the updates and congratulations to you and Chris, but I'm just wondering how Chris' appointment reconciled with the age policy that Southern used to have at least? So that's 1.

Speaker 9

And then 2 We've had some negative headlines around Alabama Power. There's been a change in CEO, and I'm just Basically asking if there's any link in those management changes at that subsidiary and those media headlines.

Speaker 2

Yes, sure. The $65,000,000 thing is kind of a policy. It's not a rule, I don't guess. The Board and I had lots of discussions about staying on beyond 65. One of my Personal interest has been to help see Vogtle through.

Speaker 2

And I'm still young physically and young at heart, I guess. And when we kind of crossed that threshold, we looked at people like Womack, who is, I guess you're what, a year younger than me. And if you've been around Chris at all, you would know that he still acts like a 25 year old. So, it was very easy to see him continue in the role and he has Fire in his belly and he's done a great job wherever he's been, most notably at Georgia Power, successfully working with our constituents on the 3 year triennial rate case that we did. So it was easy for us to kind of say, look, 65 is just a number, so long as we're able to contribute in a robust way, that's great.

Speaker 2

And No, that's how we did that. There really wasn't any connection with Mark Crosswhite, to be honest with you, he had I don't want to go into all that, but He had some issues he want to deal with. It was reasonably clear that he wasn't a contender as a successor here, And I think he decided to retire. That was kind of his choice at the end of the day.

Speaker 9

Okay. So just one follow-up on Chris. So we should expect that Chris is going to stay in the current spot for the next couple of years, Even when he crosses that 65 year old threshold. Yes.

Speaker 2

Wait, I'll go ahead. Chris was asked directly. He's committed to 70.

Speaker 9

Okay. Good for you. Okay. Moving on to Southern Power. So I hear your comments and I see obviously The reduction in growth CapEx at that subsidiary.

Speaker 9

But is it I mean, are you trying to conserve in a sense financing? Is that the constraint? I mean, I obviously hear issues with profitability of additional contract based renewables and Some constraints about equipment availability, but I'm just wondering if you were just trying to plan Your spending for Southern Power within the capital structure that you currently have.

Speaker 2

No, Angie. It has nothing to do with that. It really is two things. So Dan is a conservative soul, and he likes to build his plan without considering upside. So as we've done for years, but way before Dan got here, we don't put in placeholders.

Speaker 2

We think about them and think about what effect they could have. Further, we don't add anything from Southern Power. You should think about contributions Southern Power's upside to the base case. It really isn't a constraint of capital structure or balance sheet.

Speaker 9

Okay. That's all I have. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Operator

We have a question from Nick Campanella with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Hey, Nick.

Speaker 10

Hey, everyone. Hey, congrats to all management changes. Thanks for taking the question as well. I guess just, hot functional for Unit 4, you have this nice slide here, Slide 8, looks like end of March Call it late June on HFT, just going back to kind of the conservatism comments, like where do you kind of see yourselves Tracking towards now with the system turnovers and the line of sight. Thanks.

Speaker 2

The site working plan has HFT in March. We know that things can happen between now and then, but that's what it shows.

Speaker 10

Okay. And then, can you just update us on The time line for the prudency review just with

Speaker 5

the latest kind of updates to the COD data?

Speaker 2

It's fuel load on Unit 4. Chris, you want to say anything more?

Speaker 4

We're scheduled to enter prudence on fuel load of 4. So That's the schedule and that's the path we'll take and that's the agreement arrangement we have with the Georgia Public Service Commission.

Speaker 5

Okay. So mid summer here.

Speaker 10

All right. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

We have a question from Paul Fremont with Ladenburg. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Hello, Paul. Always glad to have you with

Speaker 11

Thank you so much. Going back to Unit 3, The flow through on the reactor coolant comps, is that a valve issue as well or is that something else?

Speaker 2

We're still kind of running it down. It could be a calibration issue. It could just be the way we measure the flow going through. So we're Trying to guess what it is at this point is really not practical. They're doing all the work necessary to get to the bottom of that.

Speaker 2

Okay.

Speaker 11

And the valve issue that you talked about with the drips, that's completely resolved?

Speaker 2

Think so. Yes, I talked to Pete Senna, gosh, 11:30 today and he thought it was taken care of. We'll

Speaker 11

see. And then how many ITAC approvals do you think you need to move forward and actually do hot functional testing?

Speaker 2

0. We're good.

Speaker 11

Okay. Because I thought On Unit 3, there were a certain number of ITACs that you thought were nuclear related where you didn't feel comfortable doing the hot functional testing without having those in hand?

Speaker 2

No, that I think you're remembering fuel load there. We're in awfully good shape. And if you look at where we are on 4 as Compared to 3 as in relation to HFT, we are light years better. I mean, we're ready to go. All we got to do is finish the required tests before we get the heat going and run the plant.

Speaker 2

That really is the critical path at this point.

Speaker 11

And then last question for me. If you were to do the additional CapEx beyond the base, does that also not require equity or does equity come with that?

Speaker 3

Yes. Based on our current projections, we would still not project any equity. And that's where when I talked about having that cushion in our credit metrics, that plays a big part of

Speaker 11

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

Speaker 2

Thank you, Paul.

Operator

And we have a question from Anthony Cardell with Mizuho. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Anthony, how are you? Not bad, Tom. How are you doing? Fantastic, my friend. Congrats to all.

Speaker 2

And I just have one quick follow-up from Durgesh's question on the credit side of

Speaker 12

the world. Just With the units going in service, do

Speaker 2

you think the credit agencies lower the downgrade threshold because

Speaker 12

of the, I guess, reduced business risk?

Speaker 3

Yes. Look, Anthony, I'd never want to speak for the agencies. I would say from my own observations, companies that look like us that aren't Currently building nuclear units, many of them have lower thresholds. So I think there's certainly a strong argument for that to potentially take place.

Speaker 2

Won't speak for them, but they should.

Speaker 12

Well, thanks so much. That's all I had. Everything else has been answered.

Speaker 2

Thanks. Bye, Brian.

Operator

And that will conclude today's question and answer session. Sir, are there any closing remarks?

Speaker 2

Yes. Really appreciate you guys joining us. It's an exciting year. 2023 is going to be an exciting year. Gosh, we have our annual meeting where I turn over President and CEO.

Speaker 2

I guess I've already turned over President, but CEO to Chris. Wouldn't it be great, Chris, to have Unit 3 under our belt by then? You guys are going to love Womack. It's a funny story I Tell everybody, when I first got this job, I have always been friends of his, but admired his wisdom, intelligence, his work ethic, his Can do attitude. And the very first thing I did when I got the job was move his office from down the hall right next to mine.

Speaker 2

And I can tell you that Chris He has been a thought leader and a partner of mine throughout my tenure. He'll be ready to go day 1 to carry this And when you look at people like Kim Green and Stan Connolly and Jim Carr and Jeff Peoples and all the other people That are in these positions. I think it's an awfully strong team. It's the envy of our industry and embarrassment of riches in some respects. And I think Southern, especially post Vogtle, is going to be a little bit like a rocket ship, if I could say that.

Speaker 2

We're going to be doing great. So thank you all. It's been a pleasure knowing you all and working with you and we'll see you soon. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes The Southern Company 4th Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. You may now

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