IDACORP Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 1, 2025

There are 12 speakers on the call.

Operator

Welcome to IDACORE First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded and our webcast is live. A replay will be available later today and for the next twelve months on the IDACORE website. I will now turn the call over to Amy Shaw, Vice President of Finance, Compliance and Risk.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining our call. The slides we'll reference during today's call are available on IDACORP's website. As noted on Slide two, our discussion today includes forward looking statements, including earnings guidance, spending forecasts, financing plans, regulatory actions and plans, and estimates and assumptions that reflect our current views on what the future holds, all of which are subject to risks and uncertainties.

Speaker 1

These risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from statements made today, and we caution against placing undue reliance on any forward looking statements. Our cautionary note on forward looking statements and various risk factors are included in more detail for your review in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As shown on slide three, we have Lisa Go, President and CEO Brian Buckham, SVP, CFO and Treasurer and John Wunderlich, Investor Relations Manager presenting today. We also have other members of our management team available for a Q and A session following our prepared remarks. Slide four shows a summary of our first quarter results.

Speaker 1

IDACORP's diluted earnings per share were $1.1 compared with $0.95 for last year's first quarter. Our key operating metrics and guidance are unchanged except for our hydropower generation forecast which has improved. We're reaffirming our full year IDACORP diluted earnings per share guidance range of $5.65 to $5.85 This includes our expectation that Idaho Power will use between 60,000,000 and $77,000,000 of additional tax credit amortization. These estimates assume historically normal weather conditions and normal power supply expenses for the rest of the year. Now I'll turn the call over to Lisa.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Amy, and thanks to everyone for joining us on the call today. I'll start with a look at the continued customer growth and economic expansion happening across Idaho Power's service area as you can see on slide five. Our customer base has grown 2.6% since last year's first quarter including 2.9% for residential customers. The first quarter featured several significant new customer investments in the food processing and warehousing sectors. Our existing customer Chobani announced a $500,000,000 expansion of its facility in Southern Idaho increasing production by 50% and adding 500,000 square feet to its plant.

Speaker 2

The expanded plant will total 1,600,000 square feet with 24 production lines making it the largest natural food production facility in the country. In addition, the Tractor Supply Company broke ground on a new distribution center in Nampa. The 865,000 square foot facility represents an investment of nearly $225,000,000 Many of our large customers are far along in their projects as you can see the magnitude of two of those projects on Slide 6. Recall we have another large customer that made a financial commitment and whose load ramp is expected to start in 2029. So you can see interest remains high from businesses looking to locate and expand within Idaho Power's service area.

Speaker 2

As a reminder, prospective customers would be incremental to both our existing anticipated load growth rates and our capital plans. Turning to slide seven, the five year forecast for retail sales growth is 8.3% annually. This forecasted growth continues to drive our need for additional system investments and power purchases to help meet projected load deficits. Like our customers, we're very much in execution mode. We're making great progress on the projects being built to support our customers.

Speaker 2

Our 80 megawatt twenty twenty five battery project is on track to be operational later this spring along with a 150 megawatt storage agreement. In addition, our Boise Bench battery storage project was recently permitted. Our agreements on the 600 megawatt Jackalope Wind project, 300 megawatts of which will become our first company owned wind resource are pending approval from the Idaho Commission. A solar PPA project associated with our Clean Energy Your Way program also came online. Our update on the ongoing RFP process for 2028 is on slide eight.

Speaker 2

On March 31, the OPUC acknowledged the 2028 final shortlist, which includes both owned resources and third party projects. We're currently working through negotiating and contracting process and we anticipate providing an update later this year. Transmission is also vital to meeting demand and our three major projects are highlighted on Slide 9. We're working towards breaking ground on the Boardman de Hemingway project this year with an anticipated in service date as early as 2027. As I mentioned on the year end call, we've also entered into an agreement to become a partial owner of the Swift North project.

Speaker 2

We expect construction to begin as early as this year and take approximately two years to complete. The Gateway West transmission line also remains in our plans. We've initiated permitting and preliminary design activities and are coordinating with Pacificor on the timing to best meet customer and system needs. We're pressing full speed ahead on bringing these important projects online to help meet customer demand. As we work to put steel in the ground infrastructure projects, we've had a lot of questions about tariffs and executive orders.

Speaker 2

Idaho Power is actively monitoring the situation as we remain focused on affordability for our customers. We've reviewed countries of origin for our supplies, the potential impacts and alternative plans to mitigate those impacts. Tariffs on battery storage assets in particular are something we're monitoring because we have several projects in progress. At the same time, we're committed to meeting customer demand and must have the energy and capacity available when and where our customers need it. And switching resources for in process project is almost impossible given the demands on our system.

Speaker 2

Turning to regulatory matters, we submitted to the Idaho Commission a notice of intent to file a general rate case in Idaho as early as the May. We expect the process for this full general rate case to take approximately seven months with rates effective no earlier than January 2026. We expect this comprehensive filing will be similar to the full general rate case we filed in 2023. This filing is necessary to recover on the substantial capital investments we've been making to keep our system safe and reliable. We shared some good news with our customers this spring.

Speaker 2

The combination of the annual power cost and fixed cost adjustments along with the filing related to additional collection of AFUDC resulted in Idaho Power requesting substantial rate decrease for all Idaho customers. It would be a net 8.3% decrease for residential customers. The power cost adjustment rate decrease was largely due to completing the final year of collection of the 2023 PCA. The AFUDC filing requests recovery of an additional $30,000,000 of financing costs annually related to the investments we've made in relicensing the Hell Canyon complex. The intent of this filing is to provide incremental cash collection and mitigate future rate impact once the license is received.

Speaker 2

We've also requested a price decrease for Oregon customers in our annual spring power cost adjustment. Shifting our attention to slide 10, we received good news from this year's legislative session in Idaho with Governor Little signing the Wildfire Standard of Care Act. Under this new law, commission approved wildfire mitigation plans will establish the standard of care and facilitate access to land for wildfire mitigation work. Some additional details on the legislation are in the 10 Q. Idaho Power has had a wildfire mitigation plan which includes PSPS in place for several years and we continue to actively enhance our plan as we pilot new technologies and approaches.

Speaker 2

I'll close with a look at hydro conditions. We had a great winter with heavy snow in the mountains in the mountain ranges that help fuel our 17 hydroelectric projects on the Snake River and its tributaries. Our snowpack currently sits at 100108% of normal, which bodes well for another year of solid reservoir storage and ability for us to generate reliable, affordable hydropower. And with that, I will hand the presentation over to Brian for an overview of our financial results.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Lisa. Hi, everyone. I'm gonna start on slide 11, which has our reconciliation of first quarter results. As you can see, Idaho Corp's net income increased $11,400,000 for the first quarter this year when compared with the first quarter last year. And to summarize the quarter, the increase was mainly driven by Idaho Power's higher retail revenues from the January first rate case, increase from customer growth and from recording incremental tax credits this year under the Idaho regulatory mechanism.

Speaker 3

Those benefits though were partially offset by higher depreciation and interest expense from our infrastructure projects, and I'd expect to see those trends continue throughout the year. Getting into specifics, a net increase in retail revenues per megawatt hour, which is net of power cost adjustment mechanisms, increased operating income by $11,300,000 on a relative basis. This benefit was mostly from the increase in Idaho base rates from the limited issue rate case Idaho Power filed last year. Customer growth increased operating income by $7,300,000 with no slowdown in customer growth during the past year. Usage for retail customer was relatively consistent quarter over quarter.

Speaker 3

Residential usage per customer increased because lower temperatures in the first quarter this year resulted in residential customers using more energy for heating purposes. But that increase was offset by a slight decrease in industrial usage per customer and the effects of customer mix changes with some customers moving between rate classes with different rate structures. Last on the revenue side, an increase in the deferral of revenues through the fixed cost adjustment mechanism reduced retail revenue slightly. Other O and M expenses in the first quarter of this year were $7,200,000 higher. This was partially related to a roughly $3,000,000 increase in wildfire mitigation program and related insurance expenses.

Speaker 3

They also increased $1,800,000 due to a decrease in grant funding for maintenance work compared to the prior year's first quarter and then standard labor related costs also contributed to the increase. Depreciation expense increased $5,800,000 for the year, which was an expected increase from our continued investment. And on a net basis, other changes in operating revenues and expenses increased operating income by $1,900,000 That resulted primarily from a decrease in Idaho Power's share of net power supply expenses that weren't deferred for future recovery in rates. That's thanks to less volatile natural gas and power market prices in the quarter. On a net basis, non operating expense increased $2,200,000 in the first quarter.

Speaker 3

Higher long term debt balances and an increase in interest that Idaho Power is required to pay on transmission customer deposits were what contributed to the increase. And this was partially offset by an increase in AFUDC because the average construction work in progress balance was higher. The decrease in income tax expense that you see was mostly the result of an increase in additional ADITC amortization. Based on current expectations of full year financial results, Idaho Power recorded $19,300,000 of additional ADITC amortization under the Idaho regulatory settlement stipulation during the first quarter. That was compared with $12,500,000 of additional ADITC amortization in the first quarter last year.

Speaker 3

And remember, we record the ADITCs rapidly each quarter based on our full year expectations of financial results. Moving to slide 12. This is really just a reminder on the CapEx forecast we shared on our year end call. That forecast has us spending $5,600,000,000 on CapEx over the next five years, and that's double what we spent in the prior five years. Again, the CapEx stack in the two out years isn't fully refined.

Speaker 3

That's in part because that's a ways out, and we're also still in the RFP process for additional resources. And we expect the cost of any owned resources could land largely in those years. Lisa mentioned that Idaho Power continues to have discussions with prospective new large load customers, and signing additional large load customers could also result in additional CapEx at the far end of our plan to meet those incremental customers' needs. You can now plainly see the actual CapEx materializing in our financial statements. In the 2024 form 10 k, if you look at the cash flow statement, you'll see additions to PP and E exceeded a billion dollars for the first time.

Speaker 3

Spending continued in the first quarter of this year, and Quip on the balance sheet as of March 31 is around 1,400,000,000. We've been busy executing a capital plan designed to meet customer needs. Our customers have a lot of steel on the ground on their projects, and I think the photos that Lisa showed earlier were illustrative of that. So we're working in lockstep to ensure they have the energy when they need it. As we talked about on the last earnings call, building the needed infrastructure is just one step in our execution.

Speaker 3

We also need to convert them to rate base to keep the utility financially healthy and to provide provide returns to the debt and equity holders funding our growth. We've replicated slide 13 from our twenty twenty four year end call, where you can see our then current 2025 to 2029 estimated rate, rate base and growth rate. Upside to that five year CAGR could come from things like additional RFP wins or from a change in our regulatory methodology to eliminate some of the regulatory lag we've experienced. Either way, we expect to at least double our rate base in a five year period. Another part of our execution is our financing plans.

Speaker 3

I'll have you flip to slide 14 for that. Operating cash flow alone is insufficient, obviously, to finance what we're doing given the magnitude. So it's no surprise that we'll need growth capital like I've mentioned in the past. As we go through this cycle of growth, we're focused on keeping our balance sheet strong, still targeting a fifty fifty debt equity capital ratio. At March 31, you can see that our balance sheet is slightly debt heavy, which resulted from the $400,000,000 debt issuance we did during the quarter.

Speaker 3

But not shown on the equity side is around 90,000,000 of stock issuance proceeds held at IDACORP from the November 2023 equity offering, along with over a hundred and $44,000,000 in today's forward sales under the ATM program, none of which we've drawn thus far. So the balance would be closer to our structural target with those amounts included, likely near 49 equity, 51 debt. At March 31, we also had a relatively large amount of cash on the balance sheet. The bulk of that balance is proceeds from the March debt issuance, which we'll use in the relative near term to fund our infrastructure projects. Slide 15 is another one we included on the q four call replicated here.

Speaker 3

It shows the amount of external we estimated we need for 2025 through 2029 based on capital already in the plan at that time, which is about $1,400,000,000 in equity and about $2,200,000,000 in debt. We believe those amounts allow us to stay at our target capital ratio and fund the projects in our plan. This is over a five year period. And as I've mentioned, the amounts needed in each year will not be equal, but we do have a degree of optionality to be opportunistic on the timing and nature of our debt and equity issuances with significant revenues anticipated in the later years of our plan. We do anticipate a step down in the amount of our external capital needs further out, but we still expect incremental financing would be necessary for any additional company owned projects resulting from the 2028 to 20 20 nine RFPs or otherwise.

Speaker 3

So to conclude, I'm gonna double down on what Lisa said. We're in execution mode, and we're seeing the benefits of the thoughtful planning we've already done. Several factors are helping with that execution, starting the permitting of our transmission projects well over a decade ago has been key because the timeline to build transmission is very long. We're issuing annual RFPs for resources to keep up with energy and capacity needs and ensure we get the best price and terms for our customers. We are negotiating with large load customers on thoughtful contract terms that barely allocate cost and reduce risk.

Speaker 3

We're focusing on our constructive relationship with our regulators and working to ensure affordability of the service we provide to our customers. And to top it off, our team of employees at Idaho Power are some of the smartest and hardest working people in the business. All of those factors help us execute in this period of unprecedented growth. With our customers already far along in their projects, the power has to be there when they flip the switch on their facilities. And we're working full speed ahead operationally and financially to ensure we meet that important commitment to our customers.

Speaker 3

We appreciate that our shareholders and debt holders have been with us as we execute. With that, I'm going to turn it over to John to step through our 2025 guidance and estimated key operating metrics.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Brian. Moving to slide 16, you can see our 2025 full year earnings guidance and key operating metrics. Not a lot of change from our Q4 twenty twenty four conference call. This guidance assumes normal weather and normal power supply expenses for the rest of the year. We continue to expect IDACORP's diluted earnings per share this year to be in the range of $5.65 to $5.85 with the assumption that Idaho Power will use 60,000,000 to $77,000,000 of additional investment tax credit amortization.

Speaker 4

That $77,000,000 top end is what we currently have remaining in the mechanism. We have the ability to request that the Idaho PUC allow Idaho Power to add additional credits to the mechanism, either from legacy credits on our balance sheet or credits from our current battery projects. And we'll consider that option in the context of our broader regulatory strategy going forward. Our expectation for full year O and M expense continues to be in the range of $465 to $475,000,000 We still anticipate spending between 1,000,000,000 and $1,100,000,000 on CapEx in 2025. Although we have not adjusted our forecast for new tariffs as we continue to evaluate and monitor the situation.

Speaker 4

Finally, we expect good hydropower generation in 2025 ranging from 7,000,000 to 8,500,000 megawatt hours for the year. We have solid carryover from the prior year and snowpack has been favorable this year as well as noted by Lisa. With that, we're happy to address any questions you might have.

Operator

We are now ready to begin the question and answer session for attendees who have joined on the q and a line. If you would like to ask a question, please do so by pressing star one on your phone. Your first question comes from David Arcero with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hi, David.

Operator

Hi, David.

Speaker 5

Hey, thanks so much for taking my question. Maybe on let's see. You know, on the on the wildfire legislation, I was just curious, do you expect any changes to your wildfire mitigation plans on the back of that legislation or just generally any changes to programs that you would anticipate?

Speaker 2

We don't anticipate any changes in the program. We are hard at work at deploying that now. We are taking a look at the plan as it's written today and May make some modifications, but it would not necessarily be changing any of the actual activity. So more to come on that, but we feel really confident in what our plan has us doing now and we'll continue to evolve it over time.

Speaker 5

Got it. Okay. Thanks. That's helpful. And then, looking ahead to the rate case, I was just wondering if you'd be able to share thoughts on, what kind of mechanisms or trackers you might be contemplating filing for, whether it's capital trackers or otherwise just efforts to, improve earned ROEs from here?

Speaker 2

I'm gonna have Tim Tatum, answer that. He's our VP of regulatory affairs.

Speaker 6

Yeah. Thanks for the question, David. We're we're right in the middle of preparing our case right now. We're considering a number of different options. I can say that we will we will take some action in the case to request that the commission, help us to to reduce regulatory lag going forward or the the negative effects of regulatory lag.

Speaker 6

The details on exactly what we're doing at this point are are still sort of influx and certainly more to come in the next month or so.

Speaker 3

Yeah. David, this is Brian. One thing I'd also point to is the Health Canyon filing that we made on AFUDC that we've talked about, in terms of helping to reduce regulatory lag. That's more of an earnings neutral item, but it does help from a cash flow perspective. So that helps on, cash lag outside of the general rate case.

Speaker 5

Yep. Okay. Excellent. I'll leave it there. Thanks so much.

Operator

Hey. Thank you. Thanks, David. Your next question comes from Chris Ellinghaus with Siebert Williams, Shank and Company. Please go ahead.

Operator

Chris.

Speaker 7

How are you today? Hi, Chris.

Speaker 8

So, Lisa, you talked about some of the business development. Obviously, you still have a lot of interest in expansion and moving into your service territory. But have you noticed anything through sort of this chaotic period? Any effects on, say, the agricultural community and what kind of crops they're working on given their expectations on their ability to export or say discretionary in migration or tourism or any of those kinds of things?

Speaker 2

Yeah. So, I think, like us, it's a little bit too early to tell. A lot of the agricultural customers, they've made the decision what they're gonna plant, last season. So, what they might do in the next season, I think, remains to be seen. But I I will say, you know, there's there's concerns just given how uncertain things are.

Speaker 2

But I can't really say that there has been anything very measurable at this point in time. We are still getting a lot of interest in what is, you know, the the inquiries we get. And and, you know, as far as tourism goes, I think that still remains to be seen how that shapes up. This is a state that people that love the outdoors come to, and and we haven't seen, well, I I guess we'll just have to let the season sort of play out. But I think, Adam, what would you add to what you're seeing up there?

Speaker 7

Hi, Chris. Yeah. I actually spoke with our irrigation customer representatives a couple weeks ago. And from a planting perspective, they said it appeared to be a relatively normal season. I think commodity prices aren't great.

Speaker 7

And certainly, at some point, the tariffs could have an impact. But the boots on ground, the Idaho Power employees that are out there, they did not believe it would impact this year. And then I might also add in terms on the irrigation side of things, the water conditions are positive as well. So that should provide some help to the farmers.

Speaker 9

Okay. That's great.

Speaker 8

Given the filing coming up on the rate case, does Can you give us any thoughts? And I guess some of the mitigation efforts that you might put into the filing might give us better insights into this later. But should we sort of be thinking about this as the normal cadence of what you would expect unless there is some kind of breakthrough on trackers or some other kind of mitigating mechanism?

Speaker 2

Well, certainly, I think that's fair to say given the amount of capital in our near term plan. But, of course, as these customers come on and start generating revenue, you know, that may delay some of future rate cases. And then, of course, if there are any sort of mechanisms that that come through this rate case, yeah, it certainly could change the cadence. But based on what we know we need to spend to meet our customers' needs, we will continue to be filing rate cases more frequently than we certainly have in the past. Anything you would add?

Speaker 8

Have expressed some I I don't know what word to use. Dismay is maybe too strong, but have expressed some issues with the, you know, their workload. So do you have any capacity to propose, you know, anything along the lines of a multiyear mechanism?

Speaker 2

Like, far as the PUCs go? Yeah. Yeah. I do know we're willing to talk with them about, you know, any sort of creative solutions. And we do know that they like our regulatory group, you know, it is it is a lot of work to process these filings.

Speaker 2

So we'd certainly be open to anything that would, you know, help with that. But, you know, I don't know what what else we would add, Tim.

Speaker 6

Yeah. It's certainly it's certainly an option that that we'll consider, and we wanna be mindful of the the the impact of of the volume of filings that might have on our commission staff. And, you know, at this point, don't think that that's that's a tool that we're we're looking at currently, but, certainly, maybe something going forward that might work.

Speaker 8

Okay. In light of the success of s p eleven eighty three, that's sort of one level of wildfire liability mitigation or alleviation. Are would you be wanting to pursue or would be hopeful for another step at the legislature to sort of codify more direct limitations legally on what potential litigants can pursue other than just sort of this type of legislation which says we have followed plan type of legislation?

Speaker 2

Well, I think it's important to remember that in Idaho, we have had tort reform. I don't know that we have anything imminent that, we would be pursuing, But we and and we do feel like this has been a a good step to define what a standard of care plan looks like just so that it isn't decided after the fact. So, you know, we we feel like we're we're in a pretty good spot. Anything you would add, Julia?

Speaker 10

Hi. Yes. This is Julia Hilton. I'm the company's general counsel. And Idaho has really favorable damage caps for both punitive damages and noneconomic damages.

Speaker 10

In wildfire or litigation, what we have seen is that the noneconomic damages are the ones that tend to really run away. So having those statewide damage caps on noneconomic damages is very favorable in Idaho.

Speaker 8

Okay. Yeah. That's what I'm getting at. Lastly, continue to have some pretty sizable development in your area. Have you revised at all your thinking on when you need your next dispatchable resource at all?

Speaker 2

That's absolutely taken into consideration when we do our IRP. So, we're in the process of doing that right now, and and, dispatchable resources are are showing up in the in the portfolio for sure.

Speaker 8

Can can you tell us what that time frame is at this point that they're showing up?

Speaker 2

Adam, I'm not sure what we have shared publicly yet if it's in a place yet where we're ready to.

Speaker 7

Okay. Okay. We have shared we have shared two of the time frames. 2029 shows the dispatchable resource in 2030 as well, and then it was kind of a question of whether we might see something in the next couple years after that as well. So we'll know more as we work through the IRP process.

Speaker 7

Certainly, as of right now, it's showing at least 2029 and 2030 and could be more over the next couple years after that.

Speaker 8

Okay. That helps. And

Speaker 6

are

Speaker 8

you seeing additional or incremental large load customers coming to you, say, over the last couple of quarters seeking interconnection? I don't want to say at briskier pace, but are you still seeing interconnection requests, you know, continue to build in the queue?

Speaker 2

As far as, interconnection requests, you know, that that's a little further down in the process. We are still seeing, I would say, the same inquiries at which would then, you know, start a process that involves construction, studies, etcetera. And I think those are on on a pretty similar pace as we've seen in the past. Adam, what would you say about the interconnection request when that that seems like at the at sort of end of the of the large load process.

Speaker 7

I agree. It's been a steady flow of inquiries and requests from large loads. And what we're seeing in our q two is a lot of generation resources showing up across our service territory to help meet that that potential low growth. So it's been, Chris, it's been pretty strong and continues to be strong.

Speaker 8

Okay. That's helpful. That's exactly what I was trying

Speaker 7

to get at. I appreciate it. Thanks for the details.

Operator

Thanks, Chris. Your next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin Smith with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

it's Brian Russel on for Julien. Hello.

Speaker 7

Hi.

Speaker 9

Hey. Just curious about the the twenty eight and twenty nine RFPs. If if there are new large load customers, would that be captured in those RFPs? Or would we need subsequent RFPs to to meet any incremental demand above what's embedded in that 8.3% low growth rate in the IRP?

Speaker 2

Yes. So when we when new loads would come on, they'll come into the making a request to us. It would depend on what year they would start for sure. But it's it's possible that if, you know, we have a number of projects that would meet a need as the need changes, we could certainly contract with those as well. So but if the if the customer needs are are beyond that in time or amount, we would we would we may have to, you know, do some other kind of RFP.

Speaker 2

Yeah. It's just sort of a a we have to wait and see what what is, real before before we would make that kind of, commitment.

Speaker 9

Okay. Got it. And and I think on the last call, you discussed, the contract negotiations were ongoing with, another data center. Is is that still, the updated status, or is is there anything, that's transpired since then?

Speaker 2

Yeah. That's that is still ongoing.

Speaker 9

Okay. And then, you know, it it looks like as your transmit know, you highlighted three transmission projects. Right? And you can look at your CapEx forecast and there are some incremental investments there. How should we think about the timely recovery of those types of projects?

Speaker 9

Would that be separate filings from your traditional base rate filings? Or how confident are you for timely recovery of some of these kind of larger projects?

Speaker 2

Sorry about that. We're all looking at each other.

Speaker 6

Yeah. So I I think in this at this point, we are looking this is Tim Tatum from regulatory affairs. Looking at the rate case and other potential mechanisms to help provide more timely cost recovery of of these investments. As I mentioned earlier, those methods are still in the process of being developed and and evaluated internally, but our efforts to reduce regulatory lag provide more timely cost recovery are certainly underway, and and we're hopeful for success in that area.

Speaker 3

And, Brian, what I would add, this is Brian. You know, we haven't shied away from one off cases in the past. You've seen us do quite a few of them. But to the extent the in service date of a transmission line lined up well with a, you know, a general rate case or some form of tracking mechanism, that's another avenue that we have. So I'd say all options are on the table for those larger transmission projects at this point.

Speaker 9

Okay. Great. And lastly, could you just remind us how many how much capacity is in the shortlist that was acknowledged by the OPUC for the 2028 RFP?

Operator

Adam, do you have that number?

Speaker 7

I don't have that exact number. I mean, it was it's several hundred megawatts, maybe even more than that. And just as a reminder, there was a idle power project on that list as well for 2028.

Speaker 3

It was a fair amount of projects.

Speaker 9

All right, great. Thank you very much.

Operator

You. Next question comes from the line of Anthony Crowdell with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Hey, good afternoon team. Sorry, I think those guys asked all nine of my questions. Just I guess a quick follow-up was just on the wildfire legislation. Just anything in the legislation you guys were hoping to get or the utilities in the state were hoping to get that were not that was not included in what passed?

Speaker 2

Well, I I feel like we were really happy that it it passed at all, to be quite honest. So I can't think of anything offhand that that we wanted that that we, you know, ultimately didn't get. We knew that, you know, this is the first step at trying to define the the standard of care, and and that's essentially what this what this bill did. Is there anything you would add, Julia?

Speaker 10

I think that this bill does a really great job of establishing a first step and establishing that standard of care like Lisa mentioned. There was an earlier run of the bill that that did not go through. I think that the the bill that ultimately passed contained the majority of the protections that we were seeking to achieve. So I do think that it's a great result, we were able to get different industry groups comfortable with it with the final version of that.

Speaker 11

Do do you see the company in the future looking of push for a fund? It seems that, you know, I know every state has their own, issues with respect to wildfire, but it seems investors, I think in another state they're trying to get a fund going, it didn't happen or it's not moving the legislature. Is that something that's on the radar in Idaho or you don't believe so?

Speaker 2

It was certainly something that we discussed. The hard part is that Idaho is very small, and so, you know, the the amount of of money that would be needed to to create a fund would fall on a few people. So, you know, when you have the state of California that, you know, can put billions of dollars into a fund, it is not really something that that Idaho could do. And then it was, well, do you look at a multistate sort of arrangement? But then that's always the sort of, well, who pays and who gets the benefit.

Speaker 2

And so it wasn't one that really we thought was was something we could do now, but it's something we could certainly think about. But it's also important to remember we do have insurance and, you know, there's might be there might be other strategies like a captive insurance product or something along those lines.

Speaker 11

Great. That's all I had. Thanks for taking my questions.

Speaker 2

Of course. Thanks for calling in.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Daphne.

Operator

That concludes the question and answer session for today. Ms. Grow, I will turn the conference back to you.

Speaker 2

Well, thank you again for everyone joining us today, and we really appreciate your continued interest in IDACORE, and we hope have a great evening. Thank you.

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IDACORP Q1 2025
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