Annual General Meeting Transcript - IDA 2026-05-21

Lisa Groke, Analyst — Other

Good morning, everyone. I'm Lisa Groke. On behalf of the directors, officers, and employees of IDACOR and Idaho Power, I want to welcome you to the annual meeting of IDACOR share owners. I'd also like to recognize that 2026 marks the 110th year Idaho Power has been serving our customers. Thank you for being here with us today. We're hosting this meeting virtually, and today's webcast is being recorded. A replay will be available on our website starting tomorrow for the next 12 months. As we get started, I'd like to recognize the other directors and director nominees of our company. Odette Bellano, Annette Elge, Dennis Johnson, Nate Jorgensen, Mike Kennedy, Scott Madison, Sharon Miller, Susan Morris, and Dr. Mark Peters. All of our directors and nominees, with the exception of myself, qualify as independent directors. All of the current directors have been nominated for re-election at today's annual meeting, and we have one new nominee as a candidate for our board, Sharon Miller. Sharon recently retired as President, North America, of Lamb Weston. She brings a wealth of global business sales, customer operations, and supply chain insights to our board, along with strong ties to idaho power service area information on each director and nominee can be found in the proxy statement for this annual meeting before i move on i'd also like to recognize our officer team their leadership and service make us the successful organization we are today their impressive and varied biographies are on the idacor website we have an outstanding leadership team that is excited about our business and committed to serving our customers customers, employees, and you, our owners. For today's meeting, we'll start with the formal business, and then Brian Buckham and I will provide additional comments about our company. We'll end with a Q&A session, and of course, our management team welcomes questions from our owners outside of this meeting as well. Today's presentation contains forward-looking statements that relate to future events or expectations. I'd like to remind everyone that the company's future results could differ from those discussed at this meeting. Factors that could cause future results to differ materially can be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our 10-K and 10-Q reports. I encourage you to review those documents, other documents we file with the SEC, and our press releases for material information about our company. It is now my pleasure to officially call the 2026 annual meeting of IDACOR shareowners to order. This annual meeting is being held to address three items, to elect 10 directors for a one-year term, to address an advisory resolution to approve executive compensation, and to ratify the appointment of Deloitte and Touche as our independent registered public accounting firm for 2026. IDACOR has approximately 139,000 share owners located throughout the United States and internationally. The results of share owner voting for the annual meeting are typically determined by the return of proxies from share owners who are not present, and we have those results today. Before moving on, there are a few administrative matters that need to be addressed. First, a majority of the share owner's voting power outstanding is represented at this meeting by proxy. Consequently, we have a quorum. Second, in accordance with the IDACOR bylaws, no matters other than those stated in the proxy statement or that have been properly raised by by a share owner in advance can be considered at this meeting. Finally, if you have not already voted your shares, you may do so now by following the voting instructions provided in the virtual meeting email sent to you this morning. The first item of formal business is the election of directors. Ten director nominees are up for election at this meeting. All ten have been nominated for one-year terms to expire at the 2027 annual meeting. The second order of business is the advisory resolution to approve executive compensation, commonly referred to as the stay-on-pay vote. The third order of business is to ratify the appointment of Deloitte & Touche as IDACOR's independent registered public accounting firm for 2026. The company's board of directors has unanimously recommended a vote for each of these proposals. The IDACOR proxy holders have voted all shares represented by proxy as submitted on all three matters. Based on the proxies, the preliminary results of the voting indicate that each of the 10 director nominees named in the proxy statement has been elected for a one-year term and all proposals have. At this time, the voting has now closed. This concludes all items scheduled for action at this annual meeting. The business portion of the meeting is now adjourned. As we move to the informal portion of the meeting, I'd like to start by thanking our employees for the great work they did during an especially busy and exciting year for IDACOR and Idaho Power. Their dedicated service continues to drive strong results for our customers and our owners. During 2025, our company produced its 18th consecutive year of earnings per share growth, sold a record amount of energy to customers, broke grounds on the Boardman to Hemingway transmission project, and achieved the best reliability scores in Idaho Power's history. I'm so impressed with the incredible work our team is doing to help build a secure energy future for our company and our customers. Customer growth remains strong for Idaho Power. Our customer base grew by 2.3% in 2025. We now serve more than 660,000 customers and a population of more than 1.4 million. The growth across our region is robust, and it's happening across most customer classes, spurred by extensive residential, commercial, and industrial construction. We expect this growth to remain strong as our local economy continues to outperform national trends. Notable large customer projects are making significant progress. Micron's new semiconductor facility is advancing towards completion, and we're also working through the details of Micron's second fabrication facility announced last year. MEDA's data center has reached the testing and commissioning stage. We're starting to see loads and revenues increase from these projects, which will continue throughout this year. Idaho Power brought several additional industrial projects online in 2025, including a new tractor supply distribution warehouse and a major expansion of Chobani's yogurt production facility. We continue to see steady interest from many of our core industries of food processing, manufacturing, distribution, and warehousing, as well as inquiries from other energy-intensive customers looking to operate within our service area. We work closely with prospective customers to set realistic timelines to meet their energy needs while ensuring they are not shifting costs to other customers. As we serve one of the fastest-growing areas in the nation, we're doing it thoughtfully to ensure that growth pays for growth. As we work to meet growing energy needs, affordability remains a top priority. We work hard to keep our costs down and provide exceptional value for our customers, and our rates remain 20 to 30 percent lower than the national average. Our rates are also increasing at a slower pace than many other utilities, 23 percent over the past decade compared to 41 percent nationally. Our price history also compares favorably to the Consumer Price Index, which has gone up 36% over the same period. The benefits of our low-cost system, and hydro generation in particular, help with our affordability focus. We also work with our regulators to help keep rates low. Our 2025 general rate case in Idaho reached a constructive outcome via a settlement. The new rates are helping us recover costs to support our operations, and based on current projections, we are not planning to file a general rate case in 2026. We are full speed ahead on the major transmission projects we are building to serve our customers. After breaking ground on B2H last year, 260 towers have been completed, representing about 20% of the towers for the project. In addition, we have completed nearly half the access roads and structure pads for the project. We expect B2H to be in service by late 2027. and we're excited to add this important transmission resource to our system. Permitting is nearly complete on the Swift North transmission project, and we expect construction on that line to begin this year. We anticipate Swift North will be done as early as 2028. We're also working with Pacificor on the Gateway West transmission project. We anticipate a critical section of that line between our Hemingway and Midpoint substations will come online as early as 2028. Permitting transmission lines takes a lot of time and effort, and I want to recognize the great work that teams across our company have done to move these projects forward. We continue to add generation and storage resources that will help us maintain excellent reliability as demand grows. In 2025, the 200-megawatt Pleasant Valley Solar Project came online as part of our Clean Energy Your Way program, And we added 230 megawatts of battery storage to Idaho Power's resource portfolio. We are adding another 250 megawatts of batteries and 125 megawatts of solar this year. Both of those projects are nearly complete. Idaho Power has announced plans to construct 167 megawatts of natural gas fuel generating capacity next to the existing Bennett Mountain Power Plant, which is slated to be online in 2028. We're proud this company-owned project was the most cost-effective resource in the RFP. We're also working hard to solve the generation needs in 2029 and 2030, and we're working to procure additional resources to solve those deficits. We filed CPCNs for two additional natural gas plants. We plan to bring the 222-megawatt South Hills project online in 2029, and the 430-megawatt Peregrine project is slated for operation in 2030. Full units of the Volney plant have been converted from coal to natural gas and are ready for our summer peak this year. This February, Idaho Power entered into an agreement with the Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative for the sale of our distribution system with some transmission assets in Oregon. If the transaction is approved, we would have no regulated retail operations in Oregon, though we provide power to OTEC for some time under a power purchase agreement. The base purchase price is $154 million, and the deal is subject to approval from state and federal regulators. Oregon represents a small portion of our service area, projected to be less than 3% of total sales by 2030. We're confident OTEC will provide a strong local focus and dedicated service for eastern Oregon, while Idaho Power concentrates on supporting our rapidly growing Idaho communities. While Idaho Power would no longer directly serve Oregon customers, we would retain ownership of our Oregon generation facilities and most of our Oregon transmission, including C2H. We're working closely with OTAC to prepare for a smooth transition. I will now turn the time over to Brian for a financial update.

Brian Buckham, CFO

Brian Briscoe Hey, thanks, Lisa. We spent a lot of time talking about the financial side of the company on our recent earnings call. So I'll be brief in my comment now that we had another strong year in 2025. We achieved the unprecedented 18th consecutive year of earnings growth that Lisa mentioned earlier. Customer growth, constructive regulatory outcomes, and our Idaho earnings support mechanism have all helped continue this impressive trend, all while maintaining affordability for our customers. Lisa spoke about what we're doing on the operational side to address growth and the continued reliability of our system. On the financial side, we're working in parallel extra return on the investments that we're making. On the fourth quarter earnings call, we noted that we're forecasting spend over the next five years, $1 billion. As was the case last year, we're again doubling our average. In fact, our 2026 to 2030 forecast is a 26% increase in CapEx compared to our 2029 forecast. There's still potential upside to the forecast. It depends on the outcome of our latest RFP and potential resource needs from prospective incremental industrial. Financing and building the needed infrastructure is just one element of our execution. We also have to convert it to rate-based to keep the utility financially healthy and to provide returns to the debt and equity holders that are funding our growth. Coming out of our most recent Idaho case, our rate-based is the end of 2025. And a similar story to last year, we haven't made rate-based more than doubling over the next five years, increasing to around $11 billion by the FB Thoughtful, the company. And as we look ahead to funding our growth, we have a strong balance sheet, and we intend to keep it that way through this growth cycle with an average 50-50 debt equity capital ratio target as of now. The external financing we noted on our fourth quarter call that we estimate we need for 2026 to 2030, just for the capital that we have in the plan as of right now, is about $2 billion in equity, about $2.9 billion in debt to stay at that ratio. We've already executed or settled on forward-sale agreements that equity need as of the end of the first quarter. As we've progressed through the focus on maintaining affordability for our customers, our approach to contracting with new large industrial projects is focused on protecting existing customers and our shareholders from potential negative financial impacts, as well as being transparent Growth in the denominator of our regulatory equation helps to avoid rate increases for our existing customers. We're fortunate that the IDEO regulatory process doesn't grow. This year, and more so next year, we anticipate some notable industrial revenue growth, and that's a large part. It demonstrates that the growth pays for growth. As we've noted in the past, when we continue to believe IDEOCorp is among the leading earnings growth and earnings quality profiles in the industry, we have a demonstrated CapEx need for our growing customer base, and we have a version to rate base and earnings. Our commitment is that we'll keep focusing on solid execution. I'll close with a quick note on our dividend, which increased 2.3% last year. That was our 14th consecutive year of the dividend increase, with cumulative growth of 193%. The company has paid a dividend every quarter since 1940 for the presentation back over to Lisa.

Lisa Groke, Analyst — Other

Thank you, Brian. As we conclude, I want to reiterate my thanks to our outstanding employees and leadership team. These are exciting, challenging times in the energy industry, and thankfully, this is where we thrive. IDACOR and Idaho Power are committed to balancing safe, reliable energy with affordable prices as we grow. Our employees are dedicated to our core values of safety first, integrity always, and respect for all, as we work to support the communities we serve, the environment we share, and the places we call home. Their hard work and innovative problem solving continues to drive strong results for our company, our customers, and our owners. Thank you for your continued trust in IDACOR as an investment and thank you for joining us for this annual meeting. With that, we're ready to begin the question and answer session. You should see a QA icon near the bottom of the webcast screen. You can click that and submit a question and we'll take as many questions as time permits on a first come basis. So we'll start with a question about really the growth pace for growth methodology given the increase of all these big data centers and big loads, what is that doing to rates for customers? And again, in Idaho, we actually are very careful. We've talked about that in our comments. We want to make sure that there isn't cost shifts, and our regulator requires us to conduct a no-harm analysis when we submit the energy services agreements for approval. So as Brian mentioned, that is showing that it works and that the costs are being appropriately directed to who's causing the cost. And so we feel really good about that. Another question, there's a couple of questions sort of asking about what's going on in the Middle East, and how is that affecting our business and our plans? And certainly, in general, inflation and some of the supply chain constraints have impacted us over the past few years, not just the Iran conflict. So we've been sharing that in our quarterly calls and updates. It is worth noting, though, that we have a very large fleet of vehicles, because we drive 10 million miles a year. So certainly we're seeing the increased cost in O&M there just from the increased gas prices as an example. Another couple of questions we're really asking about our portfolio, our generation portfolio, our clean energy goal, and just sort of how we're navigating through this large load or large growth cycle. So, you know, it is true that we set a goal to be 100% clean into 2045, but it's a goal, and it's an aspirational goal. And we have said all along that we would really need technology to produce resources that we could afford that are commercially available and at competitive prices to reach that goal. And again, we set that goal prior to this growth cycle. We still, you know, our primary business goal is our obligation to serve. So we have to serve this load, and we have to do it in a way that is safe, reliable, and affordable, and clean if we can manage the first three first. It has to be in that order. So we are working through all of that, and as we work through our IRP, that is where we look at the portfolio and we produce the least cost, least risk portfolio, and that is what drives our decision-making. And right now, gas is about the only thing that you can build in the timeframes we need that have the operating characteristics to serve this load reliably. So it isn't, you know, we continue through the IRP process to model a 100% clean portfolio. The world has changed a lot. And so, you know, we are still navigating through it, and we will continue to still look at it. And we're hopeful that things like SMRs or hydrogen or some other fuel cell, something will show up that would be able to, you know, and we could add to our portfolio so that we can continue to serve in a safe, reliable, affordable way. So it isn't that we're backtracking. It's just simply that we're moving forward and adapting to the world we live in. And we will continue to do so. So I think that pretty much closes out the questions that we've seen so far. So I think with that, I will say thank you again for attending the annual meeting and for your questions. And we appreciate your investment in IDACOR, and we look forward to connecting again at future annual meetings. We hope you have a great day. Thank you.