Southern Q1 2023 Earnings Report

Southern EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.79
• Consensus EPS: $0.71
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.08
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.97

Southern Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $6.48 billion
• Expected Revenue: $6.14 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$340.11 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: -2.50%

Southern Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2023
• Date: 4/27/2023
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, April 27, 2023
• Conference Call Time: 1:00PM ET

Southern (NYSE:SO) Company (NYSE: SO) is an Atlanta-based energy holding company that provides electric and gas utility services and owns power generation assets across the United States. Founded in 1945, the company operates a portfolio of regulated electric utilities and affiliated businesses that generate, transmit and distribute electricity to residential, commercial and industrial customers.

Southern’s principal regulated electric subsidiaries include Georgia Power, Alabama Power and Mississippi Power, which serve large portions of the southeastern United States. The company also conducts wholesale and competitive generation through Southern Power and provides natural gas distribution and related services via Southern Company Gas. Its generation mix includes conventional thermal plants, nuclear facilities and a growing fleet of renewable energy projects such as utility-scale solar and wind.

The company is involved in major infrastructure and grid modernization initiatives, including investments in transmission upgrades, distributed energy resources, energy efficiency programs and technologies to support reliability and decarbonization. Southern Company’s operations encompass both regulated utility service and competitive energy businesses, enabling it to serve retail customers, wholesale markets and industrial clients.

Listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SO, Southern Company is a prominent energy provider in the southeastern U.S. and is actively pursuing strategies to adapt its generation portfolio and grid capabilities to evolving regulatory and market demands related to clean energy and resilience.

Southern Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Adjusted EPS of $0.79 in Q1, beating estimates by $0.09 per share despite a $0.18 year-over-year decline from milder weather and higher depreciation & interest costs.
• Plant Vogtle Unit 3 reached initial criticality and grid synchronization with full power expected in May/June, while Unit 4 is ~80% through hot functional testing and on track for late Q4 2023 to Q1 2024 in-service.
• Strong retail growth supported by record economic development, including 4,200+ jobs and nearly $2 billion in Q1 capital investments, highlighted by a $2 billion solar manufacturing plant adding 2,000 jobs in Georgia.
• Board approved an $0.08 increase in the annual dividend to $2.80 per share, marking the 22nd straight year of dividend hikes and extending a pay-or-beat record since 1948.
• Second quarter adjusted EPS guidance of $0.75 per share was reiterated, reflecting stable execution amid ongoing regulatory and market factors.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good afternoon. My name is Cathy, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Southern Company First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there'll be a question-and-answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press the one followed by the four on your telephone. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star zero . As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Thursday, April 27th, 2023. I would now turn the conference over to Mr. Scott Gammill, Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer. Please go ahead, sir.

[Scott Gammill, VP of Investor Relations and Treasurer at Southern Company]

Thank you, Cathy. Good afternoon. Welcome to Southern Company's First-Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. Joining me today are Chris Womack, President of Southern Company, and Dan Tucker, Chief Financial Officer. Let me remind you, we'll be making forward-looking statements today in addition to providing historical information. Various important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements, including those discussed in our Form 10-K, Form 10-Q, 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 Chris Womack.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Thank you, Scott. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. I am delighted to be joining you today in my first earnings call as President of Southern Company. I've enjoyed getting the opportunity to interact with many of you over the last couple of months and look forward to meeting with many more of you in the months ahead. I am incredibly excited about the future of Southern Company, the energy industry, and the valuable work that we're doing to serve our customers and communities. I am excited about the opportunities ahead of us and proud to be a part of a team that is making such a significant impact in building the future of energy.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

As you've watched us reposition our deep, talented bench across the system, our mission remains unchanged: provide our customers and communities with clean, safe, reliable, and affordable energy while continuing to keep our customers at the center of everything we do. Also unchanged is our goal to deliver superior risk-adjusted total shareholder return. I believe our financial plan supports that objective. The strength of our value proposition is a function of our customer and community-focused business model, the robust economic growth in our service territories, and the constructive regulatory frameworks in our states. It is also a function of our discipline as we remain committed to our objectives of strong investment-grade credit ratings with a regular, predictable, and sustainable dividend policy.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Along with our focus on long-term execution and value accretion, we are executing on our plans and believe we're well-positioned to achieve our financial objectives for 2023. Dan, I'll now turn the call over to you for our financial update.

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

Thanks, Chris. Good afternoon, everyone. For the first quarter of 2023, our adjusted EPS was $0.79 per share, $0.18 lower than the first quarter of 2022 and $0.09 above our estimate. The major driver for the variance to last year was milder than normal weather as the first quarter of 2023 was the warmest on record in the Southeast. Higher depreciation and amortization and interest expense also impacted earnings for the first quarter compared to last year and were somewhat offset by constructive state regulatory actions. A complete reconciliation of our year-over-year earnings is included in the materials we released this morning. When looking at adjusted EPS impacts compared to our estimate for the quarter, the main drivers were a strong start for our state-regulated natural gas utilities and continued strong electric and gas customer growth.

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

Given the mid-February timing of our last earnings call, we were able to factor mild, milder than normal January and February weather into our estimate for the quarter. Weather was not a major driver of our performance versus our estimate. You may recall that our adjusted earnings in the first half of 2022 were significantly better than projected due to weather and other market-driven factors. Our early 2022 outperformance supported our full-year adjusted EPS performance and enabled us to accelerate maintenance activities in several areas of the business. Those initiatives had us well-positioned with additional spending flexibility entering 2023 such that we expect the significant weather impact we experienced in January and February should be manageable over the remainder of the year, assuming a return to more normal weather throughout the balance of the year. Turning now to retail sales and the economy.

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

In the first quarter, weather-normal electric retail sales were 0.4% higher than the first quarter of 2022. This increase reflects stronger residential and commercial sales from continued robust net in-migration to our service territories, a strong labor market, and a return to more normal business trends. Industrial sales for the quarter were down 1.6%, as we are beginning to see weakness in housing-related sectors such as stone, clay, and glass, lumber, and textiles did inflationary pressures and higher interest rates. Half of the industrial variance for the quarter compared to last year can be attributed to the closure of a caustic soda manufacturing facility in Alabama. Excluding the impact of this single customer, industrial sales were down approximately 0.8%.

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

In a trend that continues to differentiate our Southeast service territories from many other areas of the country, we once again saw record levels of economic development activity with job creation and capital investment announcements at all-time highs in the first quarter. We are beginning to see supplier announcements related to the Rivian and Hyundai electric vehicle manufacturing facilities in Georgia, with six supplier announcements made during the quarter, totaling over 4,200 jobs and nearly $2 billion in capital investment. We expect additional automotive supplier announcements in the coming months. Beyond the automotive industry, Qcells recently announced a new $2 billion solar panel and component manufacturing facility in Georgia, which is expected to create 2,000 jobs. Additionally, the Port of Savannah continues to set records, boasting its highest national market share ever and second busiest February on record.

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

The Port continues to expand capacity, including the recent announcement of the addition of 55 electric cranes, which are expected to eliminate 500,000 gallons of diesel consumption and related emissions per year. Before I turn the call back over to Chris, I'd like to call your attention to our recent dividend increase. At its last meeting, the Southern Company Board of Directors approved an $0.08 share increase in our common dividend, raising our annualized rate to $2.80 per share. This action marks our 22nd consecutive annual increase. For 76 consecutive years, dating all the way back to 1948, Southern Company has paid a dividend that was equal to or greater than the previous year. This remarkable track record supports Southern Company's value proposition. Lastly from me, our adjusted EPS estimate for the second quarter is $0.75 per share.

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

Chris, I'll turn it back over to you.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Thank you, Dan. Before taking your questions, I'd like to first provide an update on recent progress on Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4. Importantly, the projected completion timeline and capital cost forecast for both units are unchanged from the updates that we provided last quarter. Since that time, we've seen sustained progress consistent with our expectations for each unit. At Unit 3, we've achieved initial criticality in March and successfully synced to the grid earlier this month. We continue to work through final startup testing and commissioning and are currently performing testing at the 50% thermal power plateau. This testing is expected to continue in the coming weeks with extensions to higher power plateaus and forced trips to test the unit's safety systems.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Following completion of this final testing sequencing and consistent with our long-term plans, we expect Unit 3 to enter into a brief maintenance outage window before returning to full power. After the successful completion of all appropriate pre-operational and power extension testing, as well as any necessary fine-tuning, Unit 3 will be ready for commercial operations. We continue to project placing Unit 3 in service in May or June of 2023. Turning now to Unit 4. Substantial progress continued throughout the last quarter, with hot functional testing commencing in March, with lessons learned from Unit 3 continuing to benefit our execution on Unit 4. Hot functional testing is approximately 80% complete. We have already achieved peak planned output of the test and are currently in the process of cooling the unit back down with progress throughout the test that has been consistent with our plan.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

We project to complete hot functional testing in the coming weeks to be followed by planned inspections and surveillance along with submittal of our final ITAAC, receipt of the 103(g) finding from the NRC, and fuel load later this year. Only six systems remain for turnover to testing for Unit 4, and we continue to project an in-service date between late fourth quarter of 2023 and the end of the first quarter 2024. We look forward to sharing our exciting progress in the weeks and months ahead as we bring these units online to provide reliable, carbon-free energy to the benefit of our customers in the state of Georgia for decades to come. In closing, I'd like to highlight that Southern Company was named the top utility on Forbes magazine Best Large Employers in America 2023 rankings.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

We ranked nearly 100 places higher than the next industry peer and in the top 15 of the 500 large employers ranked for the second consecutive year. Being recognized amongst the best in the nation once again is an honor. This accolade is particularly gratifying because it is directly based on employee feedback. We are committed to creating a workplace where all groups are well-represented, included, and fairly treated within all levels of the organization and that everyone feels welcome, valued, and respected. At Southern Company, we aspire to be a leader in our industry. As such, we will continue to strive to create the best workplace possible for our thousands of team members who work tirelessly each and every day to provide world-class service to the customers that we have the privilege to serve. Thank you for joining us this afternoon.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Operator, we're now ready to take questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. If you would like to register for a question, please press the one followed by the four on your telephone. You will hear a three-tone prompt to acknowledge your request. If your question has been answered and you'd like to withdraw your registration, please press the one followed by the three. Again, to register for a question, it is the one, four on your telephone. Our first question comes line of Steve Fleishman with Wolfe Research. Please proceed.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Hey, Steve. Good afternoon.

[Steve Fleishman, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Hey, good afternoon, Chris. Congrats, on your first call.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Thank you very much.

[Steve Fleishman, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

in the new role.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Thank you.

[Steve Fleishman, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

You bet. Hi to Dan out there. I'm sure he's listening. Could you just remind us for the prudency filing in Georgia, when that comes and, you know, roughly when that's gonna be scheduled this year?

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

It is scheduled to come as we enter fuel load on Unit 4. Right now we're looking for fuel load to occur in the July timeframe. We'll work with the commission and the staff on moving through that process, but it will get started as we enter fuel load on Unit 4.

[Steve Fleishman, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Okay. I think most things take six months pretty much in Georgia.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Yeah, we expect six. Yeah, six months is the timeframe we expect today.

[Steve Fleishman, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Okay. I know you mentioned the remaining process for Unit 3 startup, but just the testing so far. I mean, obviously, you kept the timeline, but so far the testing, is it fair to say everything's gone as planned? Are there any issues that have come up? Just any color there.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Steve, I think as you've, as you've seen before, you know, things do come up. I would say testing has gone very well. You know, we've experienced some trips and the systems operated as they should, but we worked our way through it. But we continue to proceed and move ahead. You know, so far so good. You know, we know there's first time startup, there's always issues. This is why we test. We're focused on the secondary side. I'd say so far so good. We continue to, you know. Testing is always a process that we'll go through, to make sure we're ready for commercial operation.

[Steve Fleishman, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Yep. Okay. Thank you very much.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Thanks, Steve.

[Operator]

Our next question comes line of Shar Pourreza with Guggenheim Partners. Please proceed.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Hey, Shar. Good afternoon to you, my friend.

[Shar Pourreza, Senior Managing Director, Energy and Power and Utilities at Guggenheim Partners]

Good afternoon. Chris, did you guys recently, just around the 2024 guidance, kind of lowered it on the back of, you know, ongoing inflation and interest rates? I guess, how are you seeing things develop now? Do you see kind of opportunities to manage your exposure like we saw with the prior convertible note you issued in February? Got a bit of a better sales outlook today. I guess, what are some of the pushes and takes since you revised that 2023 guide? Seems like there's some incremental tailwinds here. Thanks.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Shar, are you asking about 2023 or 2024?

[Shar Pourreza, Senior Managing Director, Energy and Power and Utilities at Guggenheim Partners]

24.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Let me start then I'll kick it to Dan. We moved the lower end of our band down because as we pushed out our expected startup of commercial on Unit 4, we lowered the range down to $3.95. That was based on the push on the schedule for Unit 4. Dan, you wanna comment on any other aspects of guidance?

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

Yeah. Just following on to what Chris said. You know, once we have clarity, which again will be the end of this year, early next year on Unit 4, we'll narrow that 2024 guidance down to something that's more akin to what we typically do, you know, around a $0.10 range or so based on the actual in-service date. All the other moving parts you mentioned, Shar, I mean, we kind of are where we were. We are executing in a way to make sure that we're managing where we need to. We'll continue to be creative and thoughtful around how we're financing, particularly at the parent company. I think the convertible deal was a tremendous success. You know, we'll see what other opportunities we have, not necessarily that specific instrument, but just to be opportunistic in the way we do that.

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

From a cost perspective, you know, everyone is seeing pressures and we are no different. We've got a lot of efforts underway to make sure that we're running the business as efficiently as we can in a way that continues to support that guidance range.

[Shar Pourreza, Senior Managing Director, Energy and Power and Utilities at Guggenheim Partners]

Got it. Then just, Chris, I'm kinda curious maybe just your overall thoughts on the cost side, because Southern doesn't really have a stated cost-cutting target like some of your peers, despite obviously you guys managing O&M fairly well. I guess looking at things kinda from a fresh lens, are you seeing opportunities to cut costs incremental to your current plan? Maybe at the whole co level, like shared services or even at the OpCos. I mean, I guess is there any opportunities you see as a new CEO that could be additive to plan as we're thinking about maybe further streamlining the business?

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Yeah, and Shar, I would say it's a wonderful question. I'd build on what Dan has said. I mean, we will continue to look at how we can run this business more efficiently. I mean, there are opportunities to create shared service, opportunity to find efficiencies in places. We will do that. As you know, there's a lot of conversation and interest, and we take it very seriously, the issue of affordability. We will continue to find ways to put downward pressure on our pricing, find ways to look at the interest rate and inflation implications, but look to find ways to make sure from an O&M perspective that is either flat or declining over our forecast periods.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

We will continue to do that and pursue those kind of opportunities, and we've done it in the past, and we'll continue to do it in the future.

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

I'd say in addition to the particularly the shared service opportunities Chris mentioned, one of the other great opportunities we have, which you'd hope we would have, is to really optimize how our internal resources are deployed between operating expenses and capital investments. We're certainly doing everything we can to optimize the way they're deployed to focus on our capital spend and reduce costs at the same time.

[Shar Pourreza, Senior Managing Director, Energy and Power and Utilities at Guggenheim Partners]

Terrific. Thanks, guys. Congrats, Chris, on your first call of many. Appreciate it.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Again, Shar, thank you very much.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from line of Ross Fowler with UBS. Please proceed.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Hey, Ross. Good afternoon.

[Ross Fowler, Managing Director at UBS]

Afternoon, Chris. Afternoon. Afternoon, Dan. Dan, I just wanna go through the seasonality again. You kinda brought it up in your prepared remarks, but I just wanna make sure I fully understand the drivers there. You hear about, you know, you had a little over $2 in the first half of 2022, and you've got a little over $1.50 in the first half of 2023. If I heard you correctly, you said that that outperformance in 2022 allowed you to pull a lot of O&M forward into the year, so that's part of it. There's other pieces here too, I think.

[Ross Fowler, Managing Director at UBS]

One would be a reduction in part of the Vogtle penalty once Unit 3 goes in, and then I think there was some sharing outside the band in Q4 of last year. Other than those three pieces, is there anything I'm missing around sort of getting back into the guidance range with a better second half number this year versus last?

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

Yeah, not in terms of getting back, but in just in terms of making those comparisons year-over-year, Ross. I think the other important moving part that we saw in the first half of last year that really helped us get up to that strong start was earnings that were really driven by where energy prices were. Not only on our regulated side, we had some commercial industrial pricing that benefited from that, but also on the Southern Power side, got off to a great start just because of where market energy prices were and allowed us to do a lot of those things. When you're doing the year-over-year comparison, that will be a difference. Big thing that you brought up that's just not as obvious always looking at this is the kind of, you know, rebates or refunds back to customers notion.

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

That was a significant element of the second half of last year. If you combine all of our jurisdictions in terms of either what was accrued to refund back to customers or what was put into regulatory reserves, we have this, you know, reliability reserves in some of our jurisdictions. That was $0.33 just in the fourth quarter. That's a pretty significant year-over-year reconciling item that won't necessarily be there this year, but we'll still be able to support that $3.60 as a midpoint.

[Ross Fowler, Managing Director at UBS]

All right. Thanks for that, Dan. On the industrial sales decline, you mentioned about half of that was sort of a one-off item due to the caustic soda facility. The rest was kind of like seen in lateral housing-related sectors. Maybe ex-housing, you know, what are you seeing for the economic backdrop currently in that context?

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

Yeah. You know, still, I want Chris to kinda add on to this, just from an overall sales perspective, still seeing year-over-year growth in a lot of sectors. There is a bit of slowing going on, but the overall strength here in the Southeast continues to show itself. Chris, you wanna add anything there?

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Yeah. You know, we look at the economic development pipeline here in the Southeast, which remains to be robust. I mean, I look at first quarter of 2023 versus the first quarter of 2022, the announced projects expect, like, 10,000+ jobs and some $4 billion of investment here in Georgia and in Alabama, also sees increases around EV and battery supply chain. The pipeline continues to be very full. We continue to be excited about the economic activity, the economic development pipeline, you know, from population growth, in-migration, to the customer growth. We saw some 11,000 on the electric side, some 6,000 on the gas side.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

We continue to see, very positive factors that, you know, some people say there may be a recession, but we think here in our territory it may be lessened because of this ongoing continuing economic strength and economic activity that we continue to see.

[Ross Fowler, Managing Director at UBS]

Yeah. That's great, Chris, and thanks for that, Dan. Maybe this is an unfair question, but I'm gonna pose it anyway. I mean, we've seen in the press this week an EPA power plant rule potentially coming, around natural gas and emissions reductions. You know, how do you think about that in terms of sustainability achievement versus affordability and reliability? Because natural gas is definitely needed for both of those things as we walk through the energy transition. You know, what are the risks and opportunities around that type of regulation?

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Yeah, let me break that up in two parts. I mean, I think in terms of the proposal, you've seen the process before, and that will go through a number of different iterations. If when there is a final rule, we'll assess it and understanding and figure out what it means to us. I mean, we have been pursuing our fleet transition, our focus on sustainability, and with a real commitment of balancing affordability, with sustainability and moving toward net zero. I mean, we'll continue to do that as we go through this fleet transition. Our path will continue, whenever a new rule comes out, we'll take a look at it. I mean, I would also say, I think for the economy, natural gas is very important.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Natural gas is important to this country, to the economy, to a lot of regions that cannot from an affordability standpoint, make a transition to all electric. I think from a national energy policy standpoint, I think it's important to recognize the importance of natural gas as we go forward. That'd be my response to that question.

[Ross Fowler, Managing Director at UBS]

Yep. Couldn't agree more, Chris. Thank you very much.

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

Thanks, Ross.

[Operator]

Our next question comes line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Bank of America. Please proceed.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Hey, Julien. How are you this afternoon, my friend?

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Hey, hey. Absolutely. Thank you for the time, Chris. Appreciate it. Nice to chat with you. Congrats again.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Thanks, man.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Listen-- Absolutely. It's nice to have you. With that said, look, I wanna pivot back to the credit conversation. As we kind of pivot out of the U3, U4, you look at the timelines getting a little bit narrower here. What are you guys thinking today about the prospects of credit improvement? What kind of metrics would you wanna target? Obviously, you've seen some gyrations there through the course of construction. How far do you wanna go on that improvement side? What does that mean in terms of, like, targeted broad metrics? Again, I get that the rating agencies have different metrics they target. Ultimately, what does that translate to in terms of target FFO for you guys and the timeline they're in, right, as you look at this in service?

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

Yeah, Julien, it's Dan. Look, once Vogtle Unit 3 and Unit 4 is in service reflected in rates from a cash flow perspective, I know we've talked about this before, it's about a $700 million improvement in our operating cash flow and thus improvement in FFO. From an FFO to debt perspective, what that means is given the rest of our business combined with that improvement, we should be comfortably in a, let's just call it 17-ish zone from an FFO to debt. You know, it could be as high as 18 in years, could be in the high 16s, but comfortably above certainly current ratings thresholds. What I've continued to articulate is an objective to have all of our regulated utilities in the A category and our parent company at BBB+.

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

I think we can achieve that without having to do anything but execute.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Right. Not a further improvement in terms of the underlying metrics per se?

[Dan Tucker, CFO at Southern Company]

Absolutely.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Okay. Then, sorry, if I can pivot one more subject here, just to touch on Georgia and Georgia Power specifically around solar opportunities. I know that IRA has unlocked certain opportunities. I know that this is in flight in the process, so maybe not necessarily ripe, but prospects for investing on that front. Obviously, you've had the Southern Power placeholder, but I'm focused more specifically on solar at Georgia Power and/or any of the other OpCos today, post IRA and given the RFP.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Yeah. Julien, as you know, we have opportunity as a result of the 2022 Integrated Resource Plan, but also with the Inflation Reduction Act, we think, as a level of the playing fields between from tax policy, it offers us the opportunity to own renewables ourselves. Our teams are looking at the opportunities, and we'll be working with the commissions to pursue those opportunities for us to build and own more renewables as we go forward, taking advantage of the opportunities that the Inflation Reduction Act affords us. The opportunity we have is not just looking at the least cost, but also who's the best cost owner of these projects going forward. It's a wonderful opportunity for us.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Also, I think as you mentioned, there are also opportunities for Southern Power, as we go forward. There are wonderful opportunities for us as we go forward, and we're looking forward to fully investigating and executing around them.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Got it. Maybe in the next quarter or so, we'll get a little bit more detail there.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

We'll keep you posted.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America]

All right. Excellent. We'll leave it at that. Thank you, guys. Good luck. All right. We'll see you soon.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Thanks, Julien.

[Operator]

Our next question comes line of David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Hey, David. Good afternoon.

[David Arcaro, Executive Director, Equity Research at Morgan Stanley]

Hey there. Good afternoon. Thanks so much for your time. A couple of quick questions on the Vogtle units. I was wondering when would we expect Unit 3 to be running at full capacity? We've seen it ramping up and down, you know, getting to 50% power. Wondering when we might see that at full capacity. Just on that Unit 2, has the, I think you touched on this before, but has the testing and running so far been going smoothly enough to not push out any like incremental delays within the May to June time frame?

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

No. David, we're not announcing any schedule shifts or cost estimate increases. You know, 100% power is sometime in May. I mean, we're working through the process, we're doing all the testing and we're ramping up. I would say look for sometime in May to get to 100% power.

[David Arcaro, Executive Director, Equity Research at Morgan Stanley]

Okay, gotcha. Thanks. Then, on Unit 4, just during hot functional, I guess similar question, have you seen any issues pop up during that testing phase that would add incremental time even within the 4Q to 1Q 2024 window?

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

I think as we said, we're about 80% complete on hot functional on Unit 4. I think, I mean, it is clear that we have taken lessons learned from our Unit 3 experience, and there are no issues to note. I'd say so far so good. I mean, if you recall, you may recall Unit 3 took us about 94 days. We're now 80% complete. If we stay on schedule, sometime in early May, we will conclude hot functional testing and then look toward critical path items of ITAACs and testing and looking toward fuel load sometime in July. So far so good. That's where we are.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

I mean, the lessons learned from Unit 3, Unit 4, I think are clearly reflecting and showing up as we go through hot functional testing on Unit 4.

[David Arcaro, Executive Director, Equity Research at Morgan Stanley]

Okay, great. That's good to hear. Thanks so much.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Our next question comes line of Durgesh Chopra with Evercore ISI. Please proceed.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Good afternoon.

[Durgesh Chopra, Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

Hey, good afternoon, Chris. Thanks for thanks for taking my question. Just first, Chris, you talked about the maintenance outage at Unit 3. I just want to confirm that's just standard process, right? That's not an added step, based on.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Yeah, Go ahead, Durgesh.

[Durgesh Chopra, Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

No, that's it. Please go ahead.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Yeah, no, you're right. I mean, it's a standard outage. I mean, there's some testing equipment that has to be removed and some things that we have learned. We'll fine-tune some things, maybe some remediation that will occur, probably about a 10-day maintenance outage. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's standard and what's expected.

[Durgesh Chopra, Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

Perfect. Thank you for clarifying that. Maybe I can just pivot to the Georgia Power, you know, under-recovered fuel filing. I believe you made that in February. Any initial stakeholder feedback there? I know at the, you know, the last call we talked about perhaps, you know, offsetting, you know, some of that balance with lower gas prices going forward as we see it. Anything you can share, with us on that front would be great. Thank you.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

As you may know, we reached a stipulation with the staff, and we're looking at about a 12% price increase on retail rates over a three year period to recover that under-recovered fuel balance, and that would take effect in June. That is lower than what our initial request was, and 30% less than what we expected. I think as we look at this outcome, this stipulation, it reflects kind of our sensitivity and our interest in paying attention to affordability and recognizing that we must recover this under-recovered fuel balance. How do we do it in a manner that minimizes the impact on customers? That's kinda where we are.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

More hearings and considerations take place, but the rates will take effect in starting in June.

[Durgesh Chopra, Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

Perfect. Thanks so much.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

You're welcome. Thank you, Durgesh.

[Operator]

Our next question comes line of Sophie Karp with KeyBank. Please proceed.

[Sophie Karp, Senior Equity Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Hi.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Sophie.

[Sophie Karp, Senior Equity Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Good afternoon.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

How you doing?

[Sophie Karp, Senior Equity Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Hello.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Good afternoon. Thank you. Welcome.

[Sophie Karp, Senior Equity Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for taking my question. Most of my questions have been answered, actually. Let me just maybe throw this one at you guys. With Vogtle moving towards the completion, Unit 3 and Unit 4 can remain on track to be completed in the, you know, direct line of vision. Would you take some time, you know, in the medium term to have another look at the businesses that you own and maybe figure out which ones could be, you know, recycled, capital-wise and optimize the business mix? Are you quite happy with what you got right now?

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

I mean, I think you kinda speak to it. As we have success on Vogtle 3 and 4, it does give us the opportunity to unlock the field value of this company and kinda regain our premium valuation. I mean, we will look at our business, we'll look at all parts of it in terms of from a buyer and seller perspective. The thing about it is, I say, you know, we've got, and we will always look our hand over. We feel real good about the cards that we have. I mean, we'll always do our homework, and we'll look at what others have extracted in the marketplace. We'll also look and see some things we can do better. I mean, we don't have any equity needs. I mean, we're in a very, very good spot.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

I just think it's an opportunity for us to really unlock full value and the full potential of this company as we go forward.

[Sophie Karp, Senior Equity Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

All right. Well, thank you so much. That's all for me.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Angie Storozynski with Seaport. Please proceed.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Hey, Angie, how are you?

[Angie Storozynski, Managing Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Very good. I'll ask a different question. Would you actually be willing to acquire some assets now that you have a seemingly a clean slate? You mentioned you have no equity needs, you have a strongly improving cash flow.

[Angie Storozynski, Managing Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

They're all assets available for sale. For now, the way we look at you guys, you basically solve for roughly the, you know, a sector average earnings growth, which I cannot believe that you would be happy with.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Angie, I mean, I'll tell you, and I think I said it on the last answer to the last question. We are excited about the progress we're making through on these Vogtle units, and we're looking forward to bringing both units online and getting those units completed. Once we do that, I mean, we're really gonna focus on really making sure that we're unlocking the full potential and the full opportunities for this business that we have, and we are large enough to do this as a standalone. At the same time, we're continuing to always look at our look at the market, look over our hand, as I said, from both a buyer and seller perspective. We'll always continue to do our homework. We feel good about where we are.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

you know, 5 to 7 is good enough for us to be the best risk-adjusted return in the industry, and we feel good about where we are.

[Angie Storozynski, Managing Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

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

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from line of Ashar Khan with Verition. Please proceed.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Ashar, how are you today?

[Ashar Khan, Portfolio Manager at Verition Fund Management LLC]

Hi. Pretty good.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Yes, sir.

[Ashar Khan, Portfolio Manager at Verition Fund Management LLC]

Congratulations. My, my questions have been answered. Thank you.

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Thank you very much. Have a good day.

[Operator]

Thank you. That will conclude today's question and answer session. Sir, are there any closing remarks?

[Chris Womack, President at Southern Company]

Guys, we thank you for being with us today, and we look forward to speaking with you in the future. Otherwise, operator, thank you very much, for the call.

[Operator]

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Southern Company First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.

Participants

Executives

• Chris Womack, President
• Dan Tucker, CFO
• Scott Gammill, VP of Investor Relations and Treasurer

Analysts

• Angie Storozynski, Managing Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Seaport Research Partners
• Ashar Khan, Portfolio Manager at Verition Fund Management LLC
• David Arcaro, Executive Director, Equity Research at Morgan Stanley
• Durgesh Chopra, Managing Director at Evercore ISI
• Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America
• Ross Fowler, Managing Director at UBS
• Shar Pourreza, Senior Managing Director, Energy and Power and Utilities at Guggenheim Partners
• Sophie Karp, Senior Equity Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets
• Steve Fleishman, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research