Entergy Corp (ETR) — Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. We will begin today with comments from Entergy’s Chair and CEO, Drew Marsh, and then Kimberly Fontan, our CFO, will review results. In an effort to accommodate everyone who has questions, we request that each person ask no more than two questions. In today’s call, management will make certain forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, which are set forth in our earnings release, our slide presentation and our SEC filings. Entergy does not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Management will also discuss non-GAAP financial information. Reconciliations to the applicable GAAP measures are included in today’s press release and slide presentation both of which can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website. And now I will turn the call over to Drew.

Thank you, Bill, and good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us on this Entergy earnings call day. In June, we hosted our Analyst Day in New Orleans. I want to thank all of you who attended in person and listened online then as well. We provided a comprehensive update on our business strategy and discussed the macro drivers behind our unique growth story, including on shoring, clean energy, electrification, and technology. We also talked about our customer-first approach that is the cornerstone for achieving outcomes that drive significant long-term value for all our stakeholders, including our customers, employees, communities, and owners. We continue to make progress towards these outcomes, helping us achieve our near and long-term objectives. Starting with our financial results, we are reporting strong quarterly adjusted earnings per share of $1.92. Kimberly will go over the details. The bottom line is that we remain firmly on track to meet our 2024 guidance. Now turning to business updates, I am pleased to report that Entergy Louisiana has reached an agreement in principle with the LPSC staff and other parties on its FRP extension. The settlement, subject to LPSC approval, also resolved several other open matters, including all FRPs prior to the 2023 test year. By settling these matters, Entergy Louisiana will resolve all its outstanding base rate-making proceedings. As part of this settlement, we will provide $184 million of customer credits, which includes our agreement to increase customer sharing of income tax benefits resulting from the 2016 to 2018 IRS audit. We’re also pleased to announce that System Energy Resources, or SERI, reached an agreement in principle with the LPSC staff on the long-standing litigation at FERC. Pending approval, this settlement substantially resolves the major litigation at SERI and removes an ongoing challenge for many of our stakeholders to understand and value. These agreements, as well as other commission approvals earlier this year, including the resilience plan and the process to accelerate the development of renewables, provide important clarity for all our stakeholders and allows Entergy Louisiana, the commission, and other stakeholders to focus on capturing the significant growth opportunities before us. We appreciate the hard work of all parties to get to this point and look forward to focusing on the future together. We’ll provide more information on the Entergy Louisiana settlement when we file the full settlement agreement, which we plan to submit in the coming days. We anticipate the commission to take up both matters at its next business and executive meeting on August 14. Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Southeast Texas in early July. The storm affected about half of our Texas customers. I first want to thank our customers and community leaders for their understanding and support during restoration. We are honored to serve them. We are once again inspired by our communities coming together in the face of such an event. Beryl sustained high winds that uprooted and damaged a significant number of trees, which caused most of the grid damage and customer outages. This included many tall trees outside right-of-ways that fell into our transmission and distribution lines. We brought a lot of experience and lessons learned from past storms into this effort, which led to timely, safe, and cost-effective power restoration. Our past learnings also facilitated our communication plan providing accurate, trusted, and timely updates regarding outages and restoration time lines. We are focused on keeping all stakeholders up to date with customers as well as state and local officials at the top of the list. As we discussed at Analyst Day, when the power is out, everyday activities of our customers and communities are interrupted. This is why a well-prepared operational response, coupled with clear communication, is more important than ever. I’m very proud of our employees for keeping our customers top of mind, working diligently before the storm to learn and prepare, and tirelessly after the storm to safely restore power as quickly as possible. Beryl reminded us of the importance of resilience, and we saw firsthand how investment to support growth delivers benefits across multiple dimensions. The Ball of our Peninsula is a good example. To support growth, we built a new elevated substation and installed more than 200 new distribution structures built to modern standards. As expected, these new assets easily withstood Beryl, which improved performance during the storm and supported timely restoration. To further our resilience efforts, Entergy Texas submitted its future-ready resiliency plan, requesting approval for a three-year first phase estimated to cost $335 million. To maximize benefits while minimizing costs for customers, roughly $200 million is contingent on a grant from the Texas Energy Fund. The legislation calls for a commission decision within 180 days of filing. Separately, Entergy New Orleans held a technical conference last week to further Phase 1 of its plan, and we are targeting a council decision before year-end. Entergy’s unique and robust growth story was a key theme we highlighted at Analyst Day, and we are making important progress to support growth across our businesses. For example, we hosted a Southeast Texas Leadership Summit, which brought together more than 200 industry community and political leaders to discuss collaborative approaches to serve the region’s growing energy needs. At the summit, we outlined our Southeast Texas Energy Plan, or Step Ahead Plan, which includes additional generation capacity. Advancing that plan, Entergy Texas submitted its filing request to CCN for two new generation resources. The Legend Power Station, a 754-megawatt combined cycle combustion turbine to be located in Port Arthur, will be built to ensure sustainability and long-term viability as the plant is carbon capture enabled and features hydrogen-capable technology. We’re working with customers to assess their interest in purchasing the clean attributes from carbon capture. While our discussions are in early stages, customer interest in CCS appears to be strong. Our request also includes the Lone Star Power Station, a 453-megawatt combustion turbine to be located in Cleveland, Texas, that will also be hydrogen-capable. The total investment is estimated at approximately $2.2 billion, which includes transmission and interconnection costs as well as financing costs during construction. Both plants are expected to be online in the summer of 2028. Also furthering our Step Ahead Plan, Entergy Texas filed for approval of two owned solar projects that came out of RFPs. The capacity for the proposed additions totals more than 300 megawatts. The first is expected to come online in 2027 and the second in 2028. The green attributes from these plants will help meet our customers' demands for clean energy. More broadly, clean energy and electrification remain key macro drivers behind the growth across our businesses. Many of our large customers have clean energy goals, and we are expanding our clean energy capacity to support those objectives. To that end, in early June, we signed a joint development agreement that will accelerate the development of up to 4.5 gigawatts of new Entergy-owned solar generation and energy storage projects. Also supporting our renewables expansion, and as I referenced earlier, the Louisiana PSC approved a streamlined and enhanced renewable RFP process to add up to 3,000 megawatts of renewable capacity. This will enable Entergy Louisiana to bring renewable resources online much more quickly, which helps attract new customers to our service area. Technology is another macro driver for our growth. At Analyst Day, we identified 5 to 10 gigawatts of new hyperscale data center potential in our service areas, which was informed by customer discussions. We continue to have very active customer and other stakeholder engagement on this front, and the growth potential for all our stakeholders from this driver remains strong. Putting our customers first remains our path forward to achieve regulatory outcomes that benefit all stakeholders. We continue to move steadily through regulatory proceedings. Results of this are evident in the agreement in principle in Louisiana and the filings in Texas that I already discussed. In June, Entergy Mississippi’s annual FRP filing was approved. We continue to work well with the Mississippi Commission to achieve good outcomes that support our customers and the operating company’s credit, positioning Entergy Mississippi strongly for additional growth in the state, benefiting all stakeholders. Additionally, Entergy New Orleans and Entergy Arkansas filed their annual FRP. We expect new rates to be in effect in September for New Orleans and January for Arkansas. Finally, our gas LDC sale continues to progress. For Entergy Louisiana, the staff report and recommendation was filed on Tuesday, stating that staff believe the transaction is in the public interest subject to customary conditions. We believe the matter will be taken up by the LPSC on August 14 at its business and executive meeting. For Entergy New Orleans, the hearing is scheduled to begin on September 9, and we expect a decision from the City Council in early 2025. We remain on track to close the transaction by the third quarter of 2025. Our commitment to supporting our communities continues to be evident this past quarter. Our efforts were recognized as Entergy was once again a Civic 50 points of light Entergy. The Civic 50 has served as the national standard for corporate citizenship and showcases how leading companies are moving social impact in the community to the core of their business. In the first half of 2024, we made steady progress across key customer operational, regulatory, and financial fronts. We’re solidly on track to achieve our objectives for 2024 as well as our longer-term outlook. By continuing to put our customers first, we remain focused on delivering premium value to each of our key stakeholders. I’ll now turn the call over to Kimberly, who will review our financial results for the quarter.

Thank you, Drew. Good morning, everyone. As Drew said, today, we are reporting strong results for the quarter that keep us firmly on track to achieve our adjusted EPS guidance for the quarter and for the year. Shown on Slide 3, our adjusted earnings were $1.92 per share. This result is consistent with our objective of steady, predictable earnings growth. For the quarter, we had two items that were considered adjustments and excluded from adjusted earnings. First, we recorded a $1.17 settlement charge as a result of the pension plan lift-out. With this lift-out, our remaining pension liability is 96% funded as of the end of the quarter. As I mentioned at Analyst Day, this is another step in reducing our risk. Second, as Drew discussed, Entergy Louisiana reached an agreement with the LPSC staff to resolve our formula rate plan extension filing. Part of the settlement includes providing $184 million in customer credits. To reflect these credits, we reported expenses totaling $0.52, which is net of $38 million previously recorded for tax sharing related to the IRS audit resolution. Slide 4 details the quarter’s adjusted EPS variances. Key drivers include retail sales growth fueled by hotter-than-normal weather. On a weather-adjusted basis, retail sales increased 2.9%, with growth across all customer classes. Industrial growth was the biggest contributor. Regulatory actions that support our customer-centric investments also contributed to earnings growth. Costs to serve our customers increased, primarily due to other O&M and depreciation. Interest expense also increased due to higher interest rates and higher debt balances to finance investments. Moving to Slide 5, operating cash flow was higher than in the second quarter last year. Key drivers were the timing of payments and higher customer receipts. Credit and liquidity are shown on Slide 6. Our credit metric outlook, which fully reflects the effects of the regulatory settlements, remains very healthy. Our net liquidity is strong at $5.9 billion. This includes approximately $800 million of equity forwards that we have already locked in but are not yet settled. While we don’t plan to settle these forward until next year, they are a source of cash if needed. We also issued term debt in the quarter, including $1.2 billion of junior subordinated notes, which are very credit supportive. As Drew mentioned, our restoration response to Hurricane Beryl was timely, safe, and cost-effective. We’re still refining the details, but our early cost estimate is $75 million to $85 million. We plan to recover these costs through normal mechanisms. Turning to Slide 7, you can see that we’ve continued to make good progress through our 2025 to 2026 equity needs. To date, we’ve completed approximately 60% of our projected equity needs through 2026. As shown on Slide 9, we are affirming our adjusted EPS guidance and outlook. For 2024, as we’ve said, we’re firmly on track. Our EPS contribution from volume is expected to be a little higher than our guidance assumption, including the new industrial customers I mentioned last quarter. Weather was hotter than normal this quarter, which created headroom for us to flex our O&M spending plans to achieve better operational outcomes. For the remainder of 2024, there are a couple of quarterly timing considerations that I’d like to note. The sales growth for the balance of the year is still expected to be largely weighted to the fourth quarter, as additional new large customers are expected to come online later in the year. We expect as much as 90% of the remaining O&M savings to be achieved in the fourth quarter, given our significant flex spending increases in the fourth quarter last year. As you know, if we experience additional weather outside of normal, we may further flex our spending plans. We have provided additional quarterly considerations in the appendix of our webcast presentation. We’re pleased with the progress we’ve made, especially the settlements with the Louisiana Public Service Commission that support and solidify our long-term outlook. With the important clarity we now have in Louisiana, the stage is set for us to capture the unique growth story that we laid out at Analyst Day. And now the Entergy team is available for questions.

Hey guys, good morning.

Good morning, Shar.

Drew, starting off on sort of the regulatory progress in Louisiana and FERC. Any further updates there with the updated schedule? And more importantly, would that be a potential catalyst to maybe revisit capital allocation and the CapEx plans, especially as you settle the FRP and look at new generation deployment under the new 3-gigawatt mechanism? Thanks.

Shah, could you repeat the first part of your question? You cut out for just one second.

Do you have any further updates on Louisiana and FERC in that process? As we consider concluding those processes, depending on whether there's a global settlement, will that serve as a catalyst to reconsider capital allocation and the CapEx plans, especially as you finalize the FRP and look at new generation deployment? Thank you.

Yes. So I’ll let Rod talk about the first part, and I’ll let Kimberly talk about the second part.

It’s Rod. Regarding FERC, as we did in the previous series of settlements, we need to file the FERC series settlement. Can you hear me now, Shar?

Much better.

Good deal. As was the case with prior SERI settlements, we will file the proposed SERI settlement with the LPSC. Nevertheless, it will still be subject to FERC approval, and there will be subsequent filings with the FERC in that regard. So we still have work to do. All of what we’ve shared is still subject to approvals, but it will be a methodical process, and it will begin with what we submit to the LPSC for their consideration on the 14.

I would like to add that we are pleased with how these results came together and...

Yes. And we talked about this at Analyst Day, Shar, that our stakeholder engagement strategy was far more deliberate and far more discrete in terms of the stakeholders that we brought together to put us in a position to have this settlement. The outcome was a function of each of the interested stakeholders having an opportunity far earlier in the process to weigh in on this conversation. While we are pleased that we’re able to get to this point, our work continues because, as Drew mentioned in his earlier comments, this simply sets the stage for us to be able to execute on capturing the growth with far greater clarity. But it is a stakeholder engagement driven process that includes our regulators, our customers, and policymakers. We’re really at just the beginning and certainly excited about what’s now possible with clarity on where Louisiana has had that same strategy playing out in the other states. So we can now focus on the growth story.

And Shar, from a capital perspective, certainly, we’re pleased to be at this point, we’ll let the process play out. And then we would expect to give a full update in EEI in November as we typically do.

Great. Looking forward to that. And then just lastly, obviously, the 2024 assumptions picked up. You talked about low growth more coming in 4Q, you’ve got the O&M benefits also kicking in, in the back end. It sounds like you’re kind of ahead of schedule for 2024, but I don’t want to lead the witness, is there kind of any read-through to 2025 as we’re thinking about bridging from 2024 to 2025.

Yes. We shared our outlook at Analyst Day just a few weeks ago, and I think that is the best place to point. We continue to be on track for this year and as Rod said, we’re setting ourselves up to continue to deliver on what we provided in our last update a few weeks ago.

Okay. I appreciate it. Thanks guys. See you soon.

Alright. Thanks Shar.

Hi, good morning.

Good morning.

Just wanted to come back here to Louisiana. Could you outline more on the scope of your FRP and SERI settlements? Does this leave anything else critical to be addressed for either matter at this point?

As a general matter, the settlement addresses the formula rate plan extension and terms and conditions of the go-forward regulatory construct. It resolves prior issues. There are eight or so related dockets that are also cleaned up, most of them dealing with historical administrative proceedings. The SERI settlement is in a different posture, but essentially, it clears the deck of the major litigation between Entergy and the commission and its stakeholders.

Got it. Clears the deck, great to hear. And just moving on here for that August 14 LPSC meeting, do you expect the commission to vote on both settlements or just discuss the details or if the latter, when do you think they might vote?

On the 14th, we anticipate that the commission will review the proposed settlements put forward by the staff regarding the FRP and the settlement related to SERI and its associated dockets. We believe the commission will address all of these items. Additionally, as Drew mentioned, for the Louisiana Public Service Commission's consideration of the gas LDC sale, the staff has already submitted a report recommending approval of their portion of the sale. Therefore, this may also be discussed on the 14th. We expect a thorough agenda for the commission that day.

Got it. Very helpful. And just real quick one to revisit, I guess, as the data center opportunity set that sits before you, any updates to provide there as far as, I guess, just what potential opportunities you see the pace of, I guess, opportunity set, if that's accelerating? Just any color would be great.

Yes. We laid out at Analyst Day that nothing we presented in terms of our outlook included anything other than AWS. As Drew alluded to, the 5 to 10 gigawatt opportunity was not something we were speculating around. It’s in our pipeline because we’re having actual conversations with prospective customers in that regard, who, as we laid out, we’re taking advantage of a lot of the structural advantages of the Gulf Coast, including the low energy rates that we provide, and certainly, the constructive regulatory environment that has been supportive of economic development and growth in our regions. We expect that at the appropriate time, we’ll be able to give details, but we’re bullish about the prospects because of all the advantages that we laid out at Analyst Day and, on top of that, our stakeholder engagement strategy, making sure that all the right stakeholders are at the table quite early in the process.

Got it. Thank you for that.

Thanks, Jeremy.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Congratulations on the progress you’re making in these proceedings. I am curious about the SERI settlement. Is it consistent with the other commission settlements regarding the allocational or proportional split to Louisiana?

The short answer is yes. The SERI settlement that’s proposed is consistent with the settlement constructs in the other jurisdictions, Mississippi, Arkansas, and New Orleans.

Okay. Great. Understood. And then I was wondering, just considering that settlement in the Louisiana FRP, how do those line up against your earnings projections here? Does that shift or solidify where you are within the range? And then also on the cash flow side of things, is this consistent with what you would have expected in terms of the cash flow forecast going forward?

Yes. Thanks, David. The settlements for both settlements are all considered in our EPS and our cash flow outlooks that we’re affirming today. So I would think about that from that perspective.

Alright. Sounds good. Thanks so much.

Thanks, David.

Hi, good morning, team.

Good morning, Paul.

Yes. Very great to see the productive settlement talks. I knew you’d all be hard at work while I was hanging out on the beach. So good to see that for those two. I guess two totally unrelated questions. The first is on the renewables RFP update. Could you see more utility-owned assets there? I know that’s been a priority for you. Is there a good way to think about and kind of measure the progress as we go forward on these RFPs about how much is embedded in the plan versus kind of upside to the plan?

Yes. We shared our capital view a few weeks ago, which gave you sort of owned renewables, and then I believe there was a slide that also showed the breakout there. As we go through the RFP, we’ll be able to see as they announce what comes through there, and we’ll provide periodic updates at EEI and other places about how those are performing.

We expect to have a large RFP in the fall for Louisiana.

Okay. I’ll stay tuned for that. And then the other was just on hardening. I know you’ve been very vocal for years about hardening. I just want to see if there’s any kind of potential amendment changes in philosophy for the Texas plan. I know you have Phase 1 in there, whether it’s an amendment to Phase 1 or pull forward of your thoughts for Phase II. Just any perspective you could provide?

Yes, that's a great question. We've been considering this in the context of before and after Beryl. After a storm, it's important to evaluate our current situation and actions. Before Beryl, we submitted a resiliency plan in Texas that aligns with existing rules and prior legislation, reflecting our key priorities. There were a few aspects we hoped to see included in the legislation, particularly regarding the inclusion of transmission and our ability to expedite the replacement of current assets, as not receiving a return can negatively impact our credit and slow our pace of progress. Now that we have made the filing and are in the post-Beryl phase, we have the chance to engage with our stakeholders and determine if we should proceed with this plan or consider alternative options. This discussion is now open, and we look forward to exploring the possibilities. Additionally, there will be another opportunity in the upcoming legislative session to address issues we were unable to tackle previously. With that, I’ll hand it over to Ron to see what else is on your mind.

Yes. I’ll just reiterate the point that Beryl provides an opportunity to revisit the public policy backdrop to our capital plans. Not only just in Texas, as Texas as a state revisits the resiliency conversation with the urgency of Beryl, but other jurisdictions are certainly paying attention to some of the lessons learned as well. While Louisiana is well on its way with its resiliency plan, so much of the attention has been paid to reference New Orleans in its ongoing conversations, and we know empirically there they were paying close attention to the experiences in Houston. It is an opportunity for us, both at the technical conference as well as our ongoing conversations with the council between now and the end of the year, to revisit the scale, scope, and efficacy because we’re still very much in the middle of a storm season. So the unfortunate storm, from a customer standpoint, provides an opportunity for the states and other stakeholders to revisit the resilient conversation with whatever new information the lessons learned from Beryl.

Great. Thank you both very much for the color.

Okay. Thanks, Paul.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. On the industrial sales growth specifically, just wondering where you are tracking for the year. I know you expect new customers in the fourth quarter, are all these customers on track? And just trying to get a sense of where you stand versus your long-term 8% to 9% industrial sales growth outlook.

Yes. We’re still on track through the end of the year for what we’ve provided about 4% for the full year, with most of that coming late in the year. There are a couple of large industrials that we expect to come on. We do have those customers on minimum build-type contracts such that if they are delayed, we still have some protection from a bottom-line perspective because of how they’re contracted. We believe we’re still on track, and then we continue to see a strong pipeline throughout the forecast period that supports that growth trajectory that you referenced.

Great. And then secondly for me, on the pension lift-out, just wondering how much you’re reducing the volatility of your pension plan, the pricing you got versus par, and if you see opportunities to do more lift-outs?

Yes. We were pleased with the outcome of that lift-out. As I said, the net pension plan is funded now at 96%, and we continue to find ways to reduce volatility. We use smoothing mechanisms in our regulatory jurisdictions to help reduce that volatility as those costs on the regulated side are recovered through rates. As far as weather, we could do another pension lift-out; obviously, the math on that and the ability to execute on that would have to work, but we think that we are in a good place with where we are currently and what we’ve done to derisk our pension plans.

And I’ll add, in the appendix, there’s a sensitivity chart for pension, which is 25 basis points for every 25 basis points plus or minus $0.01 is kind of what our sensitivity is at this point, which is a lot lower than where it used to be, to Kimberly’s point.

Great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thanks, Michael.

Hi, everybody. Regarding the lessons learned from Beryl, what do you think is the best way to address the issues around vegetation outside of your right-of-way hitting electric lines in Texas and more broadly in your service territory? Any color or initial thoughts around how to address that potential problem?

Yes. It’s Rod. The best way to address it is to be proactive and to communicate. It’s embedded in our capital plan that has been across the jurisdictions. It’s also part, not only of our reliability capital plan but also the resiliency capital plan. The conversation for us around stakeholder engagement includes making it clear to our stakeholders exactly how those investments are benefiting customers. I think the opportunity we have here is to accelerate the asset component of resiliency. That’s what’s different from our normal reliability conversation, but we’ve been particularly in the areas where we serve in South Louisiana and certainly Southeast Texas, vegetation has long been both a challenge and an opportunity for us. From a regulatory construct perspective, what created the problem for customers in Hurricane Beryl were trees outside of the right-of-way. What do we mean by right-of-way? That is the area from where our facilities are situated. How many feet outside of where our facilities exist do we have the capacity to trim those trees or vegetation? I think when you’re paying attention to the regulatory processes in Louisiana and Texas and beyond, you’ll hear more of a conversation around extending the right-of-ways, allowing us to trim in a further area surrounding where our facilities are located to provide greater margin for when those winds come and those trees and other vegetation get into the facilities that disrupt service for customers.

The capital statements, when we go back and build to modern standards, there is the potential to widen the right-of-ways or deal with that. If you were able to go from an aged frame transmission structure to a vertical transmission structure, that does reduce the target area a little bit for the trees that come from outside the right-of-way. It’s not perfect; like Rod said, you got to go trim, and you may need to widen the right-of-ways because those trees are pretty tall. You just don’t have that many feet in a lot of areas in our service territory, particularly many tall pine trees out there. But some of it can be mitigated with design and acceleration of resilience investment.

On the expansion of rights-of-way, would that require a legislative solution? Or is there other mechanisms to effectuate that stated objective?

Yes, we’d have to get permission from the commissions to extend the right-of-way. That’s basically rulemaking that sets the terms and conditions under which we operate under our franchise. And so that is a commission-by-commission, state-by-state conversation. But yes, we would go to the commission to seek an expansion of the existing right-of-ways.

And then maybe even a right-of-way by right-of-way combination. We may have to go back to each individual right-of-way and renegotiate.

Okay. And then just one last on this. In terms of the length of your right-of-way? Is there an average number that you’re citing? I think the 18-inch is for one of your peers. Do you see that barring geographically in terms of the distance that you have in certain high-risk locations?

Yes. That’s a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction conversation. It’s usually articulated in numbers of feet away from existing facilities. That’s on top of what I’m sure is going to be a conversation about more resilient poles that hold up better, not just the tree trimming around the facilities. Resiliency is about more resilient facilities themselves that could perform better, not just against wind but against the trees themselves. Yes, it’s usually in feet and varies jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

Right. And urban versus rural? We have in the city of New Orleans some pretty tight right-of-way elements and tree trimming requirements, not unlike some other urban environments. So we’re very familiar with some of those challenges.

Thanks for the color.

Alright. Thanks, Ryan.

Good morning. Thank you.

Good morning.

On the AWS facility, what type of regulatory approvals or filings or anything else related to that are necessary before or to get continued shovels in the ground?

One of the big advantages that allowed us to move at the speed of their expectations was getting pre-approval. For us to put shovels in the ground, the Mississippi Commission, with the support of the Mississippi legislature, have already reapproved the CCN process for us to begin the design build-out to serve AWS.

Okay. And was there a CapEx or a rate base number associated with that?

We haven’t given a specific number associated with that customer. You can see the update at year-end, and there’s additional renewables, for example, for Mississippi to support the clean energy associated with that customer, but we haven’t broken out a specific CapEx for that specific customer.

Okay. And that wasn’t part of the CCN.

No. As Ron said, the CCN process was handled through working with the Mississippi Commission in the state as well.

Got it. Okay. And then real quick, you mentioned in answer to an earlier question about legislative session potential around some Beryl and other storm-related issues. What are the possible outcomes legislatively? What are you thinking about there? Or did I misinterpret that?

No, you heard it correctly, and I think Drew also mentioned it in Texas. The legislative session for us in the last couple of years has focused on giving the commission of Texas the ability to create rules to support resiliency spending. In the last legislative session, which occurs every odd year in Texas, specifically the 2023 session, we, along with other stakeholders in the state of Texas, made significant progress in facilitating resiliency spending. However, some items, like the accelerated replacement of transmission facilities within the resiliency plan, were not addressed in the ideal manner we had hoped for. This gives us the opportunity to revisit this legislation in the 2025 legislative session with the backing of the commission and other stakeholders in Texas to enhance what has already been done to support accelerated resiliency spending by utilities.

Okay. Got it. So it was just Texas in terms of the comment about legislative.

That’s correct.

Okay, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks, Travis.

Thank you, Greg, and thanks to everyone for participating this morning. Our quarterly report on Form 10-Q is due to the SEC on August 9 and provides more details and disclosures about our financial statements. Events that occur prior to the date of our 10-Q filing that provide additional evidence of conditions that existed at the date of the balance sheet would be reflected in our financial statements in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Also, as a reminder, we maintain a web page as part of Entergy’s Investor Relations website called Regulatory and Other Information, which provides key updates of regulatory proceedings and important milestones on our strategic execution. While some of this information may be considered material information, you should not rely exclusively on this page for all relevant company information. And this concludes our call. Thank you very much.