Jeffrey Guldner
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Pinnacle West Capital
Thank you, Amanda and thank you all for joining us today. We were troubleshooting a little bit of static on the line, so hope, we were able to address that as we get the call started here this morning. Financial results year-to-date in 2022 continue to be in line with our expectations and so before Andrew discusses the details of our second quarter results, I'll provide a few updates on recent operational and regulatory developments and I'll also touch on our ESG progress and accomplishments.
As we move through the summer season, our team continues to excel in delivering reliable service to our customers. Each year, we prepare for summer ensuring that we've got adequate generation resources to meet our peak demand and preparing for the summer wildfire season, which started early this year. Our robust vegetation management, fire mitigation programs and mandatory line inspection requirements prior to re-energizing high-risk area aligns all contribute to the protection of our infrastructure and the public safety as well as to reliable service for our customers. Additionally, our resource procurement efforts and reserve margin standards have allowed us to provide exceptional service to our customers through multiple days, consecutive days of over 110 degrees and we're well prepared to meet the expected peak demand through the balance of the summer.
With the extreme weather that we experienced each summer, it remains as important as ever to continue assisting our communities through our heat-relief support programs, APS has expanded its heat-relief initiatives including partnering with local community organizations to aid the State's most vulnerable populations. This support includes a collaboration with the Foundation for Senior Living where we offer emergency repair or replacement of air conditioning systems during the hot summer months. The Salvation Army's network of 18 cooling and hydration stations across Arizona and an emergency shelter and eviction-protection program that we do in partnership with St. Vincent de Paul. These are just a few examples of our effort to collaborate for the benefit of our customers and our community.
We continue to remain focused on improving our customers' experiences as previously shared APS's J.D. Power residential rankings for overall customer satisfaction have improved over the past two years. And thanks to the hard work of our employees that improvement trend continued with the latest JDP Residential 2022 second quarter results, which reflects our mid-year progress. Compared to 2021, APS made quartile gains in every driver of customer satisfaction and overall satisfaction now exceeds industry benchmarks when compared to our large investor-owned peers nationally.
APS is a strongest performing drivers in the latest J.D. Power survey where customer care and that's both phone and digital, power quality and reliability and corporate citizenship and our improvement is also being recognized by our business customers. As we saw in J.D. Power's Business 2022 mid-year results, APS is now in the first quartile for business customer satisfaction and we're also the second most improved utility in the nation. Although we've made good progress in our customer experience journey, we're not done yet. I'm proud of the team's progress to date and I look forward to sharing further advancements in our customer experience journey with you in the future.
Turning to our regulatory updates, in June, we filed our notice of intent to file a new rate case with the Arizona Corporation Commission, in that notice, we outlined the various items that we expect to request, including 12 months of post-test year plant to be included in rate base. This application will really focus on a return to balanced rate making, which will enable the company to make the necessary investments to support Arizona's growing economy, resilient infrastructure, service reliability, improved customer experience and a clean and secure energy future for our customers.
We made the decision to delay the filing a few months from mid-year to the end of October to allow for additional time to work with stakeholders and address topics that were raised by Chairwoman, Lea Marquez Peterson through various filings in the docket. The rate case will now have a test year ending June 30, 2022 and that test year actually allows us to include changes in revenue expenses and investments that we've experienced in the first six months of 2022 and to provide the commission a more accurate view of our current financial needs.
In addition, we continue to work with the Arizona Corporation Commission and many stakeholders in an effort to gain a common understanding on a variety of issues and to pursue balanced solutions and we look forward to continuing that work in our rate case. As an update on our ESG progress, early in May, we issued our 2022 all source RFP, which we're seeking a 1,000 to 1,500 megawatts of new resources and that will include up to 600 to 800 megawatts of renewables and we've seen a very robust response to that proposal. We're currently in the process of reviewing bids and we expect to develop a shortlist by the end of August.
And I'm also proud to share that for the second consecutive year, the Environmental Protection Agency recognized APS with the Energy Star Partner of the Year Award for excellence in customer energy efficiency programs. These offerings include the APS marketplace, which is a one-stop online shop that offers customers smart energy products and the company's core rewards smart thermostat program. In our fourth year of operation, our Cool Rewards demand response program essentially operates like a virtual power plant where our customers provide over 100 megawatts of flexible clean capacity.
The program connects nearly 66,000 APS customers with smart thermostat technology that helps them save money, while also playing an integral role in conserving energy when the demand on the electric grid is at its highest. This partnership helps us ensure reliable, uninterrupted service to our customers on the hottest Arizona days, while also assisting us on our journey to a 100% clean and carbon-free electricity by 2050. We've made solid progress through the first half of the year, improving our customer experience and enhancing our stakeholder relationships and working towards achieving our ESG and clean energy goals, there's certainly more work to do, but this is a good opportunity for me to acknowledge the team's dedication and those early accomplishments.
Finally, I'd like to congratulate Ted Geisler on his recent promotion to President of APS, returning to a separate CEO and President roles within APS allows us to consolidate our core utility functions including operations, public policy, technology, customer experience and strategy and Ted's well-rounded utility experience will be extremely valuable in this role. And additionally, I'd also like to congratulate and welcome Andrew Cooper, who is our Chief Financial Officer. Some of you met Andrew in his prior role as the company's Treasurer and I look forward to each of you getting know him better in his new role.
And so with that, Andrew, I will turn the call over to you.