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NextEra Energy, Inc. (NEE)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Wed, Jul 27, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the NextEra Energy and NextEra Energy Partners Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time for opening remarks, I would like to turn the call over to Ms. Amanda Finnis. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Amanda Finnis - Director, Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Clair. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our Second Quarter 2016 Combined Earnings Conference Call for NextEra Energy and NextEra Energy Partners. With me this morning are Jim Robo, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NextEra Energy; John Ketchum, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of NextEra Energy; and Armando Pimentel, President and Chief Executive Officer of NextEra Energy Resources, all of whom are also officers of NextEra Energy Partners; as well as Eric Silagy, President and Chief Executive Officer of Florida Power & Light Company. John will provide an overview of our results and our executive team will then be available to answer your questions. We will be making forward-looking statements during this call based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from our forward-looking statements if any of our key assumptions are incorrect or because of other factors discussed in today's earnings news release, in the comments made during this conference call, in the risk factor section of the accompanying presentation, or in our latest reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, each of which can be found on our website, nexteraenergy.com and nexteraenergypartners.com. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements. Today's presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures. You should refer to the information contained in the slides accompanying today's presentation for definitional information and reconciliations of certain non-GAAP measures to the closest GAAP financial measure. With that, I will turn the call over to John. John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: Thank you, Amanda, and good morning, everyone. NextEra Energy and NextEra Energy Partners each delivered strong second quarter financial results and solid operating performance. NextEra Energy's adjusted earnings per share…

Operator

Operator

Thank you very much, sir. We will now take our next question from Stephen Byrd from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead sir. Stephen Calder Byrd - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hi. Good morning. John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: Good morning, Stephen. Stephen Calder Byrd - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Wanted to discuss the repowering update you provided on the Wind business. It sounds like you're making some good progress. Could you give us a sense of what portion of your fleet would either be sufficiently old that it's run through the PTC or the elected the (30:58) CITC. Is there a rough portion we should be thinking about that could potentially be eligible for repowering? Armando Pimentel, Jr. - President & Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy Resources, LLC: Stephen, it's Armando. Obviously, a question that everybody wants to know so they can give some size to the program. I think what I can tell you is that it's a fair amount of our program that would be eligible for repowering. I'd say that anywhere from maybe 3 gigawatts to 4 gigawatts are potential repowering candidates. But what we say internally and what I want you and others to understand is, each one of these repowering projects that we're looking at is a whole new project, right? I mean, we've got to look at has the permitting changed, have the environmental regulations changed, what do the land leases look like, what discussions can we have with the customers, what do the old PPA's look like? If it's a merchant project, how comfortable are we with revenues and/or hedges that we have to take a look at. So, we've actually got a very large spreadsheet where we're looking at these projects, but I can tell you…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Jonathan Arnold from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open.

Jonathan Philip Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Hi. Good morning, guys. John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: Good morning, Jonathan.

Jonathan Philip Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Just a follow-up on the repowering. I recall at one point, you indicated that you might need to get some incremental IRS guidance around 80/20 calculations and the like. Do you have that in a form that you feel is financeable currently or is there still a need to sort of firm up the structure? Armando Pimentel, Jr. - President & Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy Resources, LLC: So, Jonathan, it's Armando. We did get some incremental guidance from the IRS on repowering a couple of months ago. The reason that we felt comfortable announcing the 327 megawatts on repowering today is we think that it at least this project and the calculations, the fair value calculations that we have to do on the project fit squarely into that guidance. I will tell you that, as I mentioned before that each one of these are mini projects. It would be helpful, obviously to get additional guidance from the IRS to make the entire portfolio that I talked about before work, but there is a good bit of the portfolio that we're comfortable with the guidance that we have received to date and that in and of itself would not to be what holds it up. John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: And one thing to add to that, Jonathan, we have secured tax equity financing for the two projects that we announced on this morning's call.

Jonathan Philip Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Okay. Great. That was going to be my follow-up, but are you pursuing incremental clarification or not? John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: We don't need any incremental clarification at this point, Jonathan. It would be, we're not the only ones that are thinking about doing something like this, so there are others that are interested, I think potentially in getting additional clarification. But for the projects, at least for the initial projects that we're looking at, the guidance that we have received is good enough. Again, I want to make sure that everybody understands. These things are all mini projects in and of themselves, the IRS piece is just one small bit of what we need in order to make the conclusion that we would move forward.

Jonathan Philip Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Okay. Thank you. And then on, just as we look at the slide with the detail around the NextEra Energy Resources, EBITDA and cash outlook, it seems to be in a bit of an uptick from first quarter in the financing costs line, can you give us a sense of what's driving that is it incremental project financing, is it higher cost, is it... John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: We just had some incremental refinancing activity that was impacting that line, Jonathan.

Jonathan Philip Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Okay. Great. That's all I got. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Paul Zimbardo from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Paul A. Zimbardo - UBS Securities LLC

Management

Hi. Good morning. Yet another follow-up on repowering, can you provide a little additional color on how you selected those specific 327 megawatts out of the portfolio? And what kind of return profile you're expecting on that investment? John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: I feel comfortable giving you little bit more detail on the former, but at this point, I think it's too early to talk about the returns although I can at least tell you on the returns that, we wouldn't be making investment returns on repowering projects, if they weren't at least as good as the returns that we're getting on new projects. But – so we – take a look at our portfolio, obviously if a project does not have production tax credits, it's no longer generating production tax credits that makes it a pretty good candidate for repower. Why? Well because if you're going to repower before the production tax credits have expired, you're going to lose some of those older production tax credits in order to gain new production tax credits. Having said that, projects that still have one year or two years of production tax credits that they're generating, they may also work. I'm not saying that they would work, but you've got to understand whether giving up two years of production tax credits and getting another 10 years of production tax credit as an example in 2020 when you can get 100% PTC's for 10 years, whether that makes sense or not. Projects that -- what we call the convertible investment tax credit, what other people call the 30% grant from the government, those never had production tax credits, those are actually decent candidates. There's not a big difference, whether a project was or is tax equity financed or is project finance. So, either one of those would work. There's not a big difference, whether a project has already been dropped or sold to NextEra Energy Partners certainly NextEra Energy Partners, could do this. Projects that are merchant have one less difficulty associated with them that is, you don't have a PPA counterparty to have a discussion with. Having said that, we have had discussions with a couple of PPA counterparties, and they love the idea of repowering. I am not suggesting that those are going to get repowered, but at least the discussions that we've had, those customers love the idea that they can get repowered turbine. So that's kind of the things that probably the most important things that we're looking at in order to determine if something, somebody's a candidate. But the bottom line Paul is that the return thresholds are at least equivalent if not slightly better than what we currently see in our existing – in our new build portfolio that's why repowerings are so attractive.

Paul A. Zimbardo - UBS Securities LLC

Management

Okay. Thank you. That's great. And then one other question at the utility after the Supreme Court decision for the gas rate basing, do you still think this is an opportunity you're going to explore and if so, what are the next steps from a regulatory or legal standpoint? Eric E. Silagy - President & Chief Executive Officer, Florida Power & Light Company: So, this is Eric Silagy. From the reserve standpoint, I mean, the court was clear that the CSE would have to go back and review this, they feel as if actually to do that they would need the authority, so that would really require legislative action and whether or not that occurs or not remains to be seen. We clearly see a lot of value in the opportunity at the utility to be able to have predictability and some certainty a little more around gas supplies from a pricing standpoint. And that's what this is the physical hedge. And so, we think there's a lot of value there for customers. But the commission thought that unanimously and the court made it clear that they weren't really passing a judgment on whether or not it was a good idea, just that they didn't believe that the commission had the authority under the current legislative construct to be able to make that ruling, and so in a way they were encouraging that to be clarified due to legislative process.

Paul A. Zimbardo - UBS Securities LLC

Management

Okay. Thank you very much. Eric E. Silagy - President & Chief Executive Officer, Florida Power & Light Company: You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Shahriar Pourreza from Guggenheim Partners. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Shahriar Pourreza - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Management

Hi, everyone. John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: Good morning, Shahriar.

Shahriar Pourreza - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Management

So, really robust spending outlook at resources and then it doesn't appear that you are sort of putting any strain on your credit metrics in the near term. But, can you kind of touch on, if you sort to see any mismatches between the future cash flows and the current development spend, say post 2017, 2018 and then sort of are these merchant, potential merchant asset sales are levered to mitigate any potential for right sizing? John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: No. Don't see any mismatches. We continue to grow cash flow through new investments. We do run at a free cash flow deficit, which we finance with – from third-party sources. We are careful in terms of how we balance our growth going forward. We have very attractive investment opportunities at Florida Power & Light that we continue to execute on and continue to see good opportunities at Energy Resources. But as we said in the prepared remarks, we do continue to look at recycling activities as a way to become more long-term contracted and rate regulated, which is consistent with our strategy.

Shahriar Pourreza - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Management

Got it. Thanks. That's helpful. And then just on the reserve amortization balance, any sort of expectations how much we could carry into 2017 if it's extended as part of the negotiation process in the current filing or do you expect to fully recognize it by yearend? John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: Yeah. It's a feature of our settlement agreement that we executed back in 2012. So, the plan would be to use what we currently have.

Shahriar Pourreza - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Management

Okay, got it. And then, just lastly on the Woodford Shale investments, what are you (46:20-46:25) come from an asset standpoint? John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: I am sorry, Shahriar. Can you repeat the question?

Shahriar Pourreza - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Management

Sorry about that. So, just on the Woodford Shale investments, what are you exactly unwinding from an asset standpoint or are these just – are these just contracts? John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: Yeah. All we're unwinding is basically the fuel costs that was passed onto customers and since natural gas prices have come down just a hair, the differential between what was rolled through in the fuel charge and what the market price for natural gas is, that's really the unwind of the charge. However, I do want to say that – in our current natural gas price environment, this would have been a great time to be layering into further investments. So, it's unfortunate with the Supreme Court decision.

Shahriar Pourreza - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Management

Exactly. Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Paul Ridzon from KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Paul T. Ridzon - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Good morning. John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: Good morning Paul.

Paul T. Ridzon - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Can you give a sense of as you look at these repowering opportunities kind of a dollar per megawatt kind of bookings around that? John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: It's going to, I mean, it is going to depend. I will give you an assessment though on the ones that we announced today. The CapEx investment is roughly $250 million. That's not to say that it's going to be the same metric for every project that we could do, but for this one is roughly $250 million.

Paul T. Ridzon - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Is part of the economics that make these at least as good as new development the fact that you don't have to do the siting and permitting, how big a component is that? Armando Pimentel, Jr. - President & Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy Resources, LLC: As I mentioned before, these are all mini projects. I mean you are going to – in some cases, you are going to have to re-permit, in some cases you're going to have to relicense, in some cases you are going to have to have discussions with the county or the state or I mean – you are going to have to deal with birds and bats and bees and you know all of the things that we generally deal with. We've got to take a look at these as a brand new development. Some states are actually easier to get some things down than others, but that's the case for repowering the same as for new investments. James L. Robo - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Paul, let me just add because we have had a lot of questions on, this is Jim – on repowering this morning. I just want to reemphasize something that Armando said. We are not trying to be cagey in terms of how we are answering all these questions on repowering. I mean, the reality is we have several gigawatts, as Armando said, of opportunities but each project is a completely new development and it's a little bit easier than the old development because you don't have to go get land leases and you have a transmission interconnect, but there is still an enormous amount of work that needs to get done for each of these projects. So, we have a big team on it, we're running through it. It is as Armando said, if it's up to – if it's as many as 3 gigawatts or 4 gigawatts, that's a tremendously big opportunity for us and we're as always on something that we've been work – the other point I just wanted to make is, we've been working on it for about 90 days. And so, we are – I think we've made tremendous progress actually in the last few months on it and we're going to have more clarity on each of the calls that we do as we go forward. It is becoming clear though for sure that most of the activity is going to be 2018, 2019 and 2020. And so, really as you think about this for us, it's a terrific driver of growth post 2018 as we think about the longer term future for the company.

Paul T. Ridzon - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

And is this 327 megawatts – a megawatt-per-megawatt displacement or is this adding more megawatts with bigger towers? Armando Pimentel, Jr. - President & Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy Resources, LLC: No. This is not a megawatt-per-megawatt – well, let me put it to you this way. We are taking turbines down that have 327 megawatts of capacity and we're putting refurbished turbines up that have 327 megawatts of capacity. Does that answer your question?

Paul T. Ridzon - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Yes, yes. It does. Armando Pimentel, Jr. - President & Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy Resources, LLC: Okay.

Paul T. Ridzon - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

And then you kind of alluded to the fact that the second half growth is going to come in the fourth quarter. Are we expecting a down third quarter? Armando Pimentel, Jr. - President & Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy Resources, LLC: Yeah. We're expecting most of the growth to have occurred in the first half of the year versus the second, and that's really due primarily just to some timing issues around some tax items and then Lamar, Forney sale having hit in the second quarter as well. Those are really the two primary factors.

Paul T. Ridzon - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Okay. And then in Florida, is there a specific time period carved out for settlement discussions? John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: No. There is – there is not. I mean, obviously we're going to be going into hearings starting on August 22. Those are scheduled to last for two weeks. And so we're open to settlement discussions at any time. But realistically, I mean timing becomes more challenging as you get closer and closer to getting in the hearings, simply because everybody is gearing up and then going into the hearings.

Paul T. Ridzon - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Got it. Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Greg Gordon from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Greg Gordon - Evercore ISI

Management

Thanks, actually that last question was the vast majority of my question. I was wondering if at this point, there would be any specific filings that talk about the concept of retaining or changing the current return on equity construct. In the last several rate deals you had, the commission has been consistent in giving you sort of a target base ROE with a wide band of opportunity and risk. Do you expect that you'll have the same framework going forward or is there potential for a change in that framework? And if so, when we will get a sense of where the different parties are on that issue? Eric E. Silagy - President & Chief Executive Officer, Florida Power & Light Company: Yeah. So, this is Eric. We filed our case and we don't expect any change in the longstanding commission framework of having 100 basis points on either side of a midpoint. That's really designed for again to, for the commission to be able to have predictability and stability and not having people coming in for rate cases in the short-term basis. So, I – there is no indication that that's going to change that's something that – that the commission has had in place for awhile and it's effective for all IOUs in Florida.

Greg Gordon - Evercore ISI

Management

Great. And has there been any testimony filed on cost of capital yet? Eric E. Silagy - President & Chief Executive Officer, Florida Power & Light Company: Well, we had lots of testimony filed, absolutely. So, the commission has received our direct testimony and then as John said, we're in the process now of filing, preparing our rebuttal testimony, and that will go in on August 1.

Greg Gordon - Evercore ISI

Management

Great. And is there – I know that there has been a lot of, I doubt you're going to answer this question, but someone has to ask it. Is there anything that you can say publicly about the Oncor process? James L. Robo - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I know you had to ask it and I'm not going to comment on it. Thanks.

Greg Gordon - Evercore ISI

Management

Okay. Thank you guys. James L. Robo - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the Steve Fleishman from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead sir.

Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC

Management

Yeah. Hi, just a follow-up on the rate case. What's your views on the chances of settling the case? Is it kind of the same as when you filed earlier this year or has anything changed in your views on settlement chances? Eric E. Silagy - President & Chief Executive Officer, Florida Power & Light Company: Yeah. Steve, this is Eric. It's always hard to predict. We've got a number of interveners. We've made it very clear that we're always open to having these discussions. We think settlement is a good thing just generally as long as it's fair for all the parties. But we just finished nine quality of service hearings where the commission went around the state throughout our territory. The response from customers was overwhelmingly very positive. We've filed a very strong case. I feel really good about where we stand from a perspective of we've had the lowest bills in the state for six years in row and the highest reliability and best customer service and emissions profile that's the cleanest in the Southeast U.S. And I think the commission recognizes that. So, we're prepared to go into hearings and to finish the case out, but if we can have a settlement, that's great. It's just hard to predict because it's not dealing with one counterparty, it's multiple counterparties.

Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC

Management

Okay, great. And then just maybe just clarify on kind of financing plan, I know you guys have talked about really looking to limit any equity needs for your plan, particularly near-term. Just do you continue to think you can kind of fund the plan pretty much without additional equity? John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: Yeah, we do for 2016. With of the sale Lamar, Forney generating about $450 million in net cash proceeds, I think that puts us in pretty good position for the balance of this year, we have a few more capital recycling opportunities that we're looking at as well. And for 2017, we're really not going to give any guidance around that until we get through the rate case.

Steve Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC

Management

Okay. Thank you. John W. Ketchum - Chief Financial Officer & Director: Thank you, Steve.

Operator

Operator

We will now take our final question from Michael Lapides from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, your line is open. Michael Lapides - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hey, guys. Easy I think easy question and likely for Eric. Eric, can you talk about the issues surrounding Turkey Point, especially with the lawsuit that's been filed and just how do you think about the cost of remediation, how do you think about the kind of the timeline for that and then obviously some of the complainants – some of the complainants are talking about the potential for cooling towers, what you kind of think about the likelihood and need for that would be as well? Eric E. Silagy - President & Chief Executive Officer, Florida Power & Light Company: Yeah, Michael, Turkey Point, it's a – there are a lot of parties obviously who have jumped in on this for a whole variety of reasons. The reality is that the cooling canals have operated as designed, there is no impact on the local drinking water wells, there is no pollution going into Biscayne Bay. There is a concentration of salt water below the cooling canals that has moved to the limestone, that was frankly anticipated during the original design of the canals. Everybody knew that was going to occur it was a question of how far. We've now identified because we now have the technology to identify, how far some of that salt water has migrated and we have a plan in place working very closely with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Miami-Dade authorities and others to mitigate that plan. It's fact-based, it's science-based, we're going to undertake that, we are waiting on permits to be able to do some of that. And the costs associated with that is the costs associated with operating the plant. And so, we fully expect that to be recovered through our environmental cost recovery. Michael Lapides - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Got it. Thanks, Eric, much appreciated. Eric E. Silagy - President & Chief Executive Officer, Florida Power & Light Company: You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

Thank you very much everyone. That will conclude today's conference call. Thank you very much for your participation ladies and gentlemen, you may now disconnect.