DTE Energy Company - Q4 2022
February 23, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Brent, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the DTE Energy Fourth Quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question at that time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star one. Thank you. It is now my pleasure to turn today's call over to Barbara Tuckfield, Director of Investor Relations. Ma'am, please go ahead.
Barbara Tuckfield (Director of Investor Relations)
Thank you and good morning, everyone. Before we get started, I would like to remind you to read the safe harbor statement on page two of the presentation, including the reference to forward-looking statements. Our presentation also includes references to operating earnings, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. Please refer to the reconciliation of GAAP earnings to operating earnings provided in the appendix. With us this morning are Jerry Norcia, Chairman, President, and CEO, and David Ruud, Senior Vice President and CFO. Now I'll turn it over to Jerry to start the call this morning.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Thanks, Barb, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. I hope everyone is having a healthy and safe year so far. This morning, I'll start by giving you a recap on our outstanding 2022 business performance, provide highlights on how we are well-positioned for 2023, and give an overview on the robust opportunities in our long-term plan. Dave Ruud will provide a financial update and wrap things up before we take your questions. I'll begin on slide 4. We delivered another solid year for all our stakeholders in 2022, which included delivering strong financial results, continuing our excellent track record of creating shareholder value for our investors. I continue to be impressed by our amazing team that delivers exceptional service to our customers and to each other.
I always say that employee engagement is the secret sauce that drives our success at DTE. Our team continues to operate at top decile engagement levels as measured by Gallup. This engagement was recognized by earning the Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award for the 10th consecutive year and is evidenced in the way our team shows up every day. Our team continued to deliver for our customers in 2022. I am very proud that DTE Gas is ranked first in residential customer satisfaction as measured by J.D. Power. This recognition signifies our strong commitment to our customers. We also undertook a number of initiatives to continue to improve electric reliability. We see that paying dividends for our customers. We invested more than $1 billion in our electric grid last year to help improve reliability for our customers.
In 2022, the electric grid operated without incident 99.9% of the time. Across DTE's electric service territory, customers experienced 21% fewer power interruptions in 2022 versus 2021, and the average outage duration time was down more than 40%. In communities where DTE completed some of our most focused work on the grid's more challenged infrastructure, customers experienced up to a 70% improvement in reliability. 2022 was a record year for investment in our grid, and the result was stronger reliability. In addition, our field crews continued their focus on grid resilience and trimmed more than 6,500 miles of trees. As we continue on our accelerated tree trim program, it's clear that as we invest in a grid, our customers benefit with improved performance and more reliable power.
For our broader community, we continue to be the largest producer of and investor in renewable energy in the state of Michigan. We also added significant additional MIGreenPower customers through our voluntary renewable energy program to continue on our path to decarbonization. In 2022, we invested $2.5 billion with Michigan businesses, creating and sustaining more than 11,000 jobs across the state. On the investor front, 2022 was another strong financial year. We delivered operating EPS growth of over 10% from our 2021 original guidance midpoint, and we are well-positioned to continue to deliver the strong performance and premium growth that DTE is known for. You know, we received an order from the Michigan Public Service Commission on our electric rate case last November.
Although there were a lot of positive aspects to the outcome for which we are very grateful for, we were disappointed by the projected residential sales volume in the final order. Accordingly, we have implemented a series of one-time O&M actions to address this challenge that will support us delivering the midpoint of our operating EPS guidance range, consistent with the early outlook we provided in November. Dave will go into a lot more detail on the O&M actions that we are taking. DTE and the MPSC share a mutual interest in bringing affordable, reliable, and cleaner energy to our state and our customers. The residential sales volume will be reviewed in our recently filed rate case. For 2023, our operating EPS guidance delivers 7% growth from the original 2022 guidance midpoint, and our long-term EPS growth target is 6%-8%.
We are confident in our ability to deliver that growth for our investors. Let's turn to slide 5. We are making significant customer-focused investments to build the grid of the future and invest in cleaner generation while modernizing the gas transmission and distribution system. We increased our 5-year utility capital plan by 20% or $3.5 billion over last year's plan. Over the next 10 years, we plan to invest $45 billion in our two utilities. The focus of these investments continues to be infrastructure renewal and cleaner generation at DTE Electric. While at DTE Gas, our plan includes main renewal and base infrastructure investments as we accelerate the modernization of the gas transmission and distribution system. I will highlight some of the successes at our electric company and go through the details of our electric capital plan on the next slide.
In 2022, we made significant progress on our path to cleaner generation and a more reliable grid. We continued the strong growth in our MIGreenPower program, signing two of the largest utility renewable contracts in the country with Ford Motor Company and Stellantis. We have currently 2,250 MW subscribed to this program, supported by 900 businesses and 85,000 residential customers, and it continues to grow daily and exceed expectations. In 2022, we retired two coal plants. The shift from coal to natural gas and renewables supports cleaner energy and helps further reduce O&M costs. Our diverse energy mix helps us reduce fuel costs as well and allows us to maintain flexibility to adapt to future technological advancements.
Our five-year plan for cleaner generation is $2 billion higher than the previous plan, including $1 billion for voluntary renewables and $1 billion for solar related to our Integrated Resource Plan. We increased our distribution infrastructure investments by $1 billion to continue to modernize our electric grid to prepare for increased extreme weather and load growth that we're anticipating from EV adoption. Let's turn to slide seven and go into additional details on what supports this plan. Supporting our 5-year utility capital plan is the Integrated Resource Plan we filed in November with the Commission. The IRP accelerates our generation transformation to achieve carbon emission reductions at DTE Electric of 85% by 2035, 90% by 2040, and net zero by 2050. This is a significant acceleration from our prior plan.
This filing provides updates on our path for decarbonization and our commitment to continue providing cleaner, more reliable, affordable energy to our customers. The IRP supports the Michigan economy and tax base with power generated in our home state, invest $9 billion over the next 10 years into Michigan's economy, reduces the cost of our clean energy transition by $1.4 billion from our prior plan. We will pursue a settlement in this case. We will have an outcome in the second half of this year. The IRP and our investments in cleaner generation are supported by the Inflation Reduction Act or the IRA. The IRA includes a lot of positive elements for DTE that benefit both our utility and non-utility businesses. We continue to focus on customer affordability as we go forward with our robust investment plan.
Our commitment to a continuous improvement culture gives us confidence we will maintain our affordability goals. The IRA will help enable affordability throughout our plan. Just a couple of weeks ago, we filed a rate case that underpins investments in system reliability, grid modernization, and cleaner generation investments. We intentionally did not request a base rate increase during the COVID pandemic to assist customers with affordability. Since 2020, we invested more than $8 billion into the electric system while keeping base rates nearly flat. In order to continue to make progress that our customers expect and account for the significant investments we have made in the grid and cleaner generation, the electric company needed to file a rate case. After 4 years of essentially no base rate increases, we are requesting an increase that would go into effect at the end of 2023.
This request supports investments in Michigan to improve reliability and deliver clean energy while maintaining affordable rates. The majority of the request in this filing is attributable to capital investments, sales reductions, and the cost of debt. We are committed to working with all interested parties to pursue a settlement that strikes the right balance between continuing to increase reliability and providing cleaner energy for our customers, all the while maintaining affordability. We also filed for an Infrastructure Recovery Mechanism or an IRM in the case. Modeled after our DTE Gas IRM, the electric IRM would allow us to recover the cost of grid infrastructure investments between rate cases. It is our objective that as the IRM grows over time, it would help stretch the time between rate cases as it does for DTE Gas. Let's move to slide 8 and discuss DTE Gas.
At DTE Gas, we are continuing main renewal for reliability improvements and further greenhouse gas emission reductions. As well as replacing aging transmission equipment, we successfully completed 220 mi in 2022 and have a target of 200 mi in 2023. We are targeting a reduction of 65% of our greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and net zero by 2050. As I mentioned earlier, DTE Gas is ranked number one in residential customer satisfaction, of which we are very proud, and thank our DTE team for this tremendous accomplishment. Let's move to slide nine to discuss DTE Vantage. We continue to make significant progress in project development. In 2022, we placed an RNG project and another Custom Energy Solutions project in service. In 2023, we are placing three new RNG projects and one Custom Energy Solutions project in service.
We also recently executed a new long-term fixed fee agreement with Ford Motor Company for its new electric vehicle and battery manufacturing complex. This complex, which is expected to be in service in 2024, will be Ford's largest EV manufacturing facility in North America. DTE will invest over $200 million to provide steam, hot and chilled water to Ford and electricity to Tennessee Valley Authority. We are consistently growing earnings by over $15 million annually with capital investments of $1 billion-$1.5 billion in the five-year plan. This is underpinned by federal and California low carbon fuel standards and the IRA, which supports a very robust pipeline of projects in both the RNG and Custom Energy Solutions areas. We remain confident in continued growth at this segment. With that, I'll turn it over to Dave to give you a financial update.
Dave, over to you.
David Ruud (EVP and CFO)
Thanks, Jerry, and good morning, everyone. As Jerry said, we completed another very successful year in 2022, and we are well-positioned for 2023 and future growth. I'll start on slide 10 to review our 2022 financial results. Operating earnings for the year were $1.2 billion. This translates into $6.10 per share, placing us at the high end of the guidance range that we had increased during the year. You can find a detailed breakdown of EPS by segment, including a reconciliation to GAAP reported earnings in the appendix. I'll start the review at the top of the page with our utilities. DTE Electric earnings were $961 million for the year.
This was $97 million higher than 2021, driven by the non-recurring $90 million pre-tax tree trim deferral that we did in 2021 to further accelerate our reliability improvement. We also had the accelerated deferred tax amortization in 2022 that was implemented to delay our rate case filings and avoid increasing customer-based rates. These earnings increases were partially offset by higher rate-based costs and residential sales that were lower in 2022. Moving on to DTE Gas, operating earnings were $272 million, $58 million higher than 2021. The earnings variance was due to the implementation of base rates and cooler weather, partially offset by higher rate-based costs. Let's move to DTE Vantage on the third row. Operating earnings were $93 million in 2022.
This is an $83 million decrease from last year due to the sunset of the REF business at the end of 2021, partially offset by higher Custom Energy Solutions and RNG earnings in 2022. On the next row, you can see energy trading earnings were lower year over year, primarily due to the performance of the power portfolio. This was partially offset by strong physical gas performance. Energy trading earnings were $14 million for 2022. Finally, corporate and other was favorable $1 million year-over-year. Overall, DTE earned $6.10 per share in 2022, representing 10% growth from our 2021 original guidance midpoint. Another strong year, putting us in a great position for the future.
As we have stated in the past, we attribute this continued success to our proven planning process, which includes a detailed 5-year plan that is constructed with lean and invest plans across the portfolio. Let's move to slide 11 to discuss this process before we review 2023 guidance. As we have discussed before, our most senior executives meet weekly to review our financial plan for the current year and the following year. In this robust planning process, we develop a base plan, plus lean and invest plans that we can implement if we realize risks or opportunities throughout the year. Before we receive the rate case order in November, we had a base plan that achieved our growth targets, taking into account all the macroeconomic headwinds we were seeing, including increased interest rates and inflation.
Since receiving the order on the rate case, we've enhanced our plan to address the additional challenge, and we are implementing actions from our lean plan, including a number of one-time cost reductions that are not sustainable over long-term. These initiatives are all in areas where we have achieved success in the past, like during the start of the pandemic and during the last recession. These actions include delaying hiring, reducing our contractor workforce, deferring maintenance work in the short-term, and limiting overtime accordingly. Through taking these actions, we remain confident that we will achieve our financial goals for the year without sacrificing safety, reliability, or customer service. Let's turn to slide 12 to discuss our 2023 operating earnings guidance. We are well-positioned to deliver another successful year in 2023.
Our operating EPS guidance midpoint of $6.25 per share provides 7% growth from our 2022 original guidance midpoint. Growth at DTE Electric will be driven by distribution and cleaner generation investments and supported by the O&M reductions I just described. DTE Gas will see continued customer-focused investment in main renewal and other infrastructure improvements. DTE Vantage growth will be driven by a strong development pipeline in RNG and Custom Energy Solutions projects. At Vantage, as we go through 2023, we will see the timings for the earnings as back-end loaded toward the third and fourth quarters as new, already secured projects come online. At Energy Trading, earnings guidance is $20 million-$30 million for the year. I do want to point out that forecasted earnings are expected to be negative in the first quarter and reversing through the year.
This is primarily due to the accounting recognition of contracts in our power physical business that have revenue based on fixed prices over the term of the transaction, then these transactions are hedged upon execution. The recognition of the fixed price revenue we receive for energy in these contracts does not vary month to month, while the recognized cost of energy is variable based on the energy curve that is highest in January and February. This timing variance in Q1 could be a loss of $20 million-$30 million, will unwind through the remainder of the year. Overall, we continue to feel confident about our 2023 guidance across our businesses, we are well-positioned for future growth. Let's turn to slide 13 to discuss our balance sheet strength. We continue to focus on maintaining solid balance sheet metrics.
Due to our strong cash flows, DTE has little to no equity issuances in the plan. We have a strong investment-grade credit rating and target an FFO to Debt ratio of 15%-16%. We increased our 2023 dividend by 7.6%, continuing our track record of over 100 consecutive years of paying a cash dividend. Let me wrap up on slide 14, and then we'll open the line for questions. In summary, we achieved great success in 2022 across all of our business lines. We have a solid plan for 2023, targeting 7% operating EPS growth from our 2022 original guidance midpoint. A robust capital plan supports our 6%-8% long-term operating EPS growth, while delivering cleaner generation and increased reliability for our customers.
DTE continues to be well-positioned to deliver the premium total shareholder returns that our investors have come to expect, with strong utility growth and a dividend growing in line with operating EPS. With that, I thank you for joining us today, and we can open up the line for questions.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Hey, Dave, and Brent, before we open it up for questions, I would just like to let the community, investment community know that we had one of our largest ice storms roll through our service territory yesterday and across the whole state of Michigan. We've got over 400,000 customer outages at this point in time, and I want to give a shout-out to our people. Over 2,000 people are in the field today, first thing this morning, dealing with this in a safe and trying to restore customers safely and as quickly as possible.
We understand, certainly the inconvenience that this causes our customers, but again, our goal with several thousand people in the field this morning is to restore our customers, as quickly and as safely as possible. With that, let's open up for the first question, Brent.
Operator (participant)
At this time, I'd like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question is from the line of Shahriar Pourreza with Guggenheim Partners. Your line is open.
Constantine Lednev (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Hi, good morning, team. It's actually Constantine here for Shah. Congrats on a great quarter.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Good morning.
David Ruud (EVP and CFO)
Hey, Constantine. Thanks.
Constantine Lednev (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Certainly appreciate the disclosures around the lower revenue approval. Can you maybe just talk about the changes that are now embedded in that reiterated 2023 guidance and maybe just contrasting with prior years? I think you called out around $100 million of contingency flex. What would be a good proxy for 2023, specifically as we think about lean actions? What portion was built up in 2022, like weather and reinvestment versus more recurring and prospective reductions?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
As Dave mentions, when we had prepared our plans in the fall prior to the rate case, we had adequate contingency in our plans and had anticipated some of the headwinds from interest expense and inflation. When we received the rate order, it created an incremental approximately $120 million challenge to our plan. We dove deep into our lean plans and started to exercise our lean plans immediately, which is a practice that many of you are familiar with that we undertake. The areas that basically we pursued were delaying hiring, reducing contra-contractor workforce and placing our employees into those roles, reducing overtime significantly, and deferring maintenance work without sacrificing safety or quality of service.
As you know, when we have years where we experienced favorable outcomes like last year, we start to invest heavily in our maintenance practices. This year we'll be drawing on those banks, if you will.
David Ruud (EVP and CFO)
I, and I'll just add that as soon as we knew that this rehearing was a possibility or that we saw the sales, we went into action building our plans. Now we're tracking this, you know, daily and a lot of times and weekly. You know, we're executing on our plans really well so far this year.
Constantine Lednev (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Excellent. Following up on the parent guidance and hotel debt, as you mentioned, it looks like 2023 is relatively flat to 2022. Can you talk about the interest rate assumptions and refinancing needs that you're embedding at this point? Utility bonds continuing to hover in the high fives range. Is that fully embedded in both the 2023 guidance and the reiterated 6%-8%?
David Ruud (EVP and CFO)
Yes, it is. At the highest level, we've incorporated increasing interest rates in our plans for our five-year plan. At the holding company, right, we don't have any retirements in 2023 other than this $800 million of outstanding term loan. For that we've entered into some floating to fix to make sure we reduce any exposure to interest rate volatility in 2023. Then in 2024 and 2025 and beyond, you know, we've conservatively modeled rates in our plan and, you know, look for opportunities to kind of bring that in even more favorably as we go forward.
Constantine Lednev (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Excellent. Last quick one, just housekeeping on the DTE Vantage side. Have you seen any shifts in economics and valuation in the business as it relates to specifically the non-solutions businesses like RNG? We've seen a lot of new entrants and private equity engagement on that front. Kind of, does that make it more or less attractive versus development like carbon capture or any other emerging solutions?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
I can start, and Dave can add. Certainly we're seeing very aggressive values for RNG transactions. That's encouraging in terms of value for our assets. We are starting to look at a handful of opportunities in carbon capture and storage, especially with the IRA, providing significant tax credit uplift in that business. We're looking at very small projects to sort of get our get our feet wet, if you will, in that process with our expertise in storage and pipeline work as well as processing. Dave, do you want to add to that?
David Ruud (EVP and CFO)
I agree. I think all I was gonna add is that the IRA has made some of these projects more attractive. We do see some additional competition. We also have some of our own landfill gas projects that we can work for conversions that can be very attractive for us in the future too.
Constantine Lednev (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Just any thoughts on capital rotation within that business or more kind of tone the water approach?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
At this point in time, there's no definitive plans for capital rotation. We're constantly looking at those types of opportunities. You know, we've got a track record of rotating capital out of our non-utility businesses and helping to fund some of our utility work. At this point, you would notice that we have very little equity needs. We're trying to certainly match up sort of financing needs with potential rotations in the future. We'll see more to come on that as we go. Certainly always open to anything that creates accretion opportunities for our investors.
Constantine Lednev (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Excellent. I'll leave it there.
Operator (participant)
Your next question is from the line of Nicholas Campanella with Credit Suisse. Your line is open.
Faye Elliott (Analyst)
Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. This is Faye for Nick today. Just the first question.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Morning, Nick. Or the morning.
Faye Elliott (Analyst)
Yep. First question is on the regulatory strategy, as you mentioned, to continue practice of pursuing settlement with all stakeholders. Could you just update us on this front and how should we view this new rate case filing just different from the last one filed earlier last year? Also recognizing PSC's comments on the rehearing process, I think although the request was denied, the commissioners believes that DTE comes in with very constructive approach and willing to negotiate. And also just on the electric side, I think mostly rate cases have been conducted through litigation. Can you just help us better understand the new electric rate case filing strategy with these backdrops?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Sure. You know, our intent, we've got two major regulatory initiatives this year. One is the Integrated Resource Plan that will conclude in the second half of this year, and then our electric general rate case that will conclude in December. We are very interested in settling both, and I would say that in the first instance with the Integrated Resource Plan, many of the parties that are involved are very interested in settlement discussions. We've had our first set of discussions, which are encouraging, and we seek to settle that case, which is the Integrated Resource Plan. Later this year, we will start those conversations for settlement around the electric rate case.
We do have a history of settling gas cases in many of our renewable regulatory filings, as well as our cost recovery factor filings and GCRs have been settled in the past. We know how to do this and have done it, and we will pursue it in these two major regulatory initiatives this year.
Faye Elliott (Analyst)
No, thanks. This is really helpful. Thanks for all the colors. Just quickly on the 2023 guide, you provisioned for midpoint. Given all the mitigation strategy, can you just comment on just how should we think about the, I think it's what's timely call on the, on the storm cost?
David Ruud (EVP and CFO)
Any weather conditions that could throw you off this midpoint, how much or how should we think of, have you conditioned, provisioned for that?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Certainly the contingency that we walk into the year with is exactly for these purposes, whether it's deviations in weather or we do carry a storm budget as part of our base plan. Of course, if storm costs exceed plan, and that's what contingency may be used for, or it may be used for weather variations. I would say that we have adequate contingency at this point in time, based on what we've seen so far in the year. As we consume contingency, as I mentioned before, we go into deeper lean actions to try and restore contingency, especially as we head into the summer season, which is really our biggest opportunity to create value for our shareholders.
That's when we really want to make sure that most of our contingency is intact.
David Ruud (EVP and CFO)
No, it makes sense. Really appreciate the colors here. Thanks.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question is from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Bank of America. Your line is open.
Heidi Hehkan (VP of Equity Research)
Hi. Good morning. This is Heidi Hehkan for Julien. Thank you for taking our questions, and congrats on today's results.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Morning, Heidi.
David Ruud (EVP and CFO)
Hi, Heidi.
Heidi Hehkan (VP of Equity Research)
Thank you. Just the first question, kind of coming back to the 2023 O&M cuts. You mentioned historic success in executing on these cuts with COVID and the last recession. Do you perceive any risk, I guess, at this time around, once again executing on O&M costs given, A, the inflationary cost backdrop we've seen, and then B, a bit higher scrutiny from Michigan regulators across Michigan utilities on vegetation management efforts, particularly with the 2022 storm docket? Thank you.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Yes. Let me start with vegetation management first. You know, we've got our largest vegetation management program that we've ever had historically in our company. You know, back in 2013, we were investing about $65 million a year in vegetation management. Several years ago, we came up with a creative solution with the commission to basically more than triple the investment in vegetation management. This year, for example, we will invest over $200 million in vegetation management. We actually agreed to amortize those costs over time in order to smooth out the impact to our customers, but still give the customers, our customers the benefit of reliability improvements.
As I mentioned in my comments, I think the Commission would agree that we've had significant impact on reliability, where we have taken on very aggressive tree trimming, as well as a hardening of the system by replacing poles and wires and transformers. Very significant investments in the grid. Where we've completed that work, we've had significant improvements in reliability. We feel good about the work that we're doing. We were always looking for opportunities to do even better, and we believe that that's what the process that the Commission has initiated is really about, is really finding joint opportunities to accelerate and improve processes to make our investments even more effective than they have been. I'm excited about that.
In terms of cost reductions, your first question, you know, we are undertaking many of these one-time actions in order to accommodate, you know, the challenge that we received late last year. We feel pretty confident executing those. We know they are one time. They're not sustainable. Things like not hiring people or suspending hiring. We do need to replace critical positions in our company over time. Not to say that there's not potential efficiency opportunities that we will pursue. Some of this could stick. I mean, that's the opportunity that we're faced with. A lot of these actions are one time and not sustainable in nature. Also deferring maintenance work.
We can do that for short periods of time, but certainly cannot do that, for long periods of time. Hopefully that helps.
David Ruud (EVP and CFO)
As we built these plans, we were very careful to ensure that we weren't going to impact, first of all, never impact safety. Nothing that would impact reliability or our ability to deliver for our customers. These plans are built with that in mind. It should fit well, even though they're unsustainable for in the future, should fit well with what we're trying to continue to do for our customers.
Heidi Hehkan (VP of Equity Research)
Understood. Thank you. That's helpful. Just kind of switching gears a bit here. I know we've seen some recent headlines detailing, for example, plans for large scale battery manufacturing facilities in Michigan to service electric vehicles. Just kind of wondering what you are seeing in terms of new industrial load and if any of that will kind of accrue favorably to DTE in terms of higher electric load.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Certainly. I, you know, last year, General Motors announced a battery plant, and battery operation, assembly operations in our service territory, and certainly we're really excited about that. In the past year, we also saw Our Next Energy announce a new battery plant in our service territory. In addition to that, the University of Michigan announced a multi-billion dollar investment program right next door to our headquarters for an innovation center, which will drive economic growth and development in the city of Detroit. Most recently, the Henry Ford Hospital is rebuilding their hospital campus in downtown Detroit, with a multi-billion dollar investment as well, which will create new jobs, new economic development activity. Those are some of the big ones that I mentioned. There are so many others.
I, in my time at DTE. This has probably been the most active economic development period that I've seen. We're pretty excited about growth both in the industrial and commercial sector, which ultimately, as you know, will drive growth in residential investment as well, and commercial investment to support those industries.
David Ruud (EVP and CFO)
Great. Thank you. That's a great color there. Thanks for your time this morning, and congrats again.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question is from the line of Agnieszka Storozynski with Seaport. Your line is open.
Agnieszka Storozynski (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Good morning, guys.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Hey. Good morning, Agnie.
Agnieszka Storozynski (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Good morning. Going back to the rate case strategy, I know that we are maybe overanalyzing this, I mean, you have another rate case filing, a big one this time. Are there any lessons learned from the previous case that you've embedded in this filing? Any changes in the strategy, some, you know, I don't know, outreach to the Commission and the staff ahead of it? That's one. Number two is, how are the residential sales trending, you know, vis-a-vis the, well, the past rate case and the current rate case? I mean, are you seeing any deterioration in sales versus what you had expected?
Lastly, you mentioned, I think as far as the gas rate cases, that you might elongate the time in between the rate cases. I'm just debating this myself, if that's the right strategy, given that that maybe increases the amount of the ask in the next rate case if you stay out. Just trying to have some lessons learned from the outcome of the last rate case on the electric side.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Sure. Let me start with Angie, the lessons learned, and I'll have Dave talk about sales, and then we can talk about the gas rate case strategy as well. You know, as we reflect on the outcome, certainly the major issue there was, you know, sales volume forecast. Again, Dave will talk about how our sales are tracking, but they're essentially tracking as we had expected. But I, you know, this will be resolved in the next rate case. Sales will not be a mystery. That's point number one. That was the biggest fundamental deviation, if you will, in this last rate case.
Again, we dug deeper than that, Angie, and said, "How can we improve what we file?" We've taken another really deep inspection and review of all of our filings to make sure that they're well supported, well understood, continue to be well understood, in order to get better understanding with the staff and the Commission and other interveners as to what is it that we're trying to accomplish with this significant investment profile that we have directed at our grid as well as our renewable assets. A lot of work went into what I would say continue to improve and continuously improve the quality of our submissions. That's something that we did.
We spent a lot of time ahead of the rate case creating context, not only for the Commission, but also for some of our interveners, as to what are these investments pointed at, and why is this fundamental? If we look at the ice storm that rolled through our territory today, I would say it certainly further reinforces the need to invest in our grid as we see these climate change patterns start to take shape. We've had three or four major events in our service territory and across the state of Michigan over the last 5 years, which points to weather becoming more and more violent in our service territory. We have to have a grid and invest in a grid that will stand up to all of that. Secondly, we also are seeing significant electrification.
You know, we've got EV attachments increasing rapidly in our state, and we need to have a grid that's prepared for that. We've spent a lot of time, Angie, creating context, not only with our regulator, but also with interveners and legislators, ensure that there's a deep understanding. We're gonna continue that process all year to ensure that the context for what we are trying to accomplish is well understood and not misunderstood. I will say that the capital part of our program has never been in significant question by the commission or even the interveners. That's a positive. I would say that the administration and legislators are very supportive.
I believe that this work that we will do throughout the year, to continue to create context at all levels of government and with our regulator will be very helpful. We seek to settle. I would say that as well. Dave, do you want to talk about sales for a minute?
David Ruud (EVP and CFO)
Sure. Jerry. As Jerry mentioned, our sales are tracking pretty well to our forecast and I think end-to-end to what we have in the filing. I think what will be the benefit going into this filing is we'll have some more stability. 'Cause if you saw our sales and particularly our residential sales from 2022 versus 2021, they were down about 3% with people returning to work. As we look to our forecast and in our test year, it's down a little under 2% from that level. So far in the early months, we're seeing that we're tracking like right on that level. We think we'll come in at a forecast that will be a lot more agreeable as we go forward.
Overall from, you know, pre-pandemic levels to where we are in our test year, it's up, you know, about 1.5%-2% too. I think it's all triangulating really well.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
In terms of the gas rate case, Angie, we're looking to file late this year, is the current plan.
Agnieszka Storozynski (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Mm-hmm.
Agnieszka Storozynski (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Yeah, just one follow-up. One is you mentioned all of this outreach. I mean, Again, I want to believe, but what I'm trying to say is that this rate case, this next electric rate case happened in such a proximity to the decision in the previous rate case that I'm just, again, wondering how, you know, how could you have embedded the lessons learned in such a short period of time? That's one. Number two is, and probably even more importantly, so, you know, over the years, you guys have always had this early earnings look, right, guidance, and then it would gradually increase through the course of the year.
You know, as we look from afar, we're just wondering if conservative sales forecasts were partly the reason why you were able to historically beat numbers, i.e., should we, you know, assume that the current guidance is also conservative even given the outcome of this electric rate case?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Let me start with the first question, how did we start on these lessons learned. We started that really early in the summer. You know, we always get feedback from the staff through their questions and through their commentary, and we started to really sharpen our focus on improving quality of submissions going into this rate case. We were working on this rate case months and months before, probably 6 months before we even got the results in November. It did start, and then I think it intensified once we got the result.
The outreach certainly intensified after the result in November, 'cause we felt the need to create context for the fact that, hey, you know, we've stayed out of a rate case for four years, and we've invested $8 billion, and the feedback we're getting is there's very strong support for that investment. Unfortunately, we had a mishap with the sales forecast in the last rate case, I think that will get corrected, and there'll be strong support for the investments that we're making and continue to make. That would sort of summarize the rate case part of it.
In terms of the forecast, I would say, as Dave said, we are tracking right towards the midpoint at this point in time, and that's our goal. All of the cost initiatives that we have undertaking, Dave and I review them weekly, and the rest of our team is reviewing it out daily, and we're right on top of that plan. We feel good about where we're at. We're also looking to restore contingency, as it gets consumed, sometimes by weather. That's where we're at. We're confident in hitting our midpoint at this point in time, as we look at our outlook.
Agnieszka Storozynski (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. Thank you.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Thank you, Angie.
Operator (participant)
Your next question is from the line of David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
David Arcaro (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Oh, hi. Good morning. Thanks so much for taking my question.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Good morning.
Operator (participant)
Hello.
David Arcaro (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
I was wondering if, let's see, on the IRM that you are proposing in the electric rate case, how long could that lead you to potentially consider staying out of rate cases to the extent you're successful in getting that applied here?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Well, you know, the positive side of the IRM is that we've been talking to the commission about it for years. As you saw in the last rate case, they invited us to file one. There's strong alignment in terms of creating that IRM. We think that, as you know, and our gas company has simplified greatly the regulatory process for capital that's not disputed, if you will, that needs to be invested. It's going to be primarily directed. Actually, not primarily, it will be directed at the grid. That's what the IRM will be used for, and it will build over time. It's going to take a few years before it starts to have an impact on the timing of rate cases.
To give you an example, as we built it up in the gas business, it allowed us to stay out for twp and three years at a time. That's certainly the case this time. We've stayed out for at least several years already in the gas company. We expect that to happen with the electric business. As we build confidence in the IRM, we'll start with modest amounts going into the IRM, as you've seen in our rate case filings, and that'll build over a three-year period. We'll get used to working together on that, 'cause it does take some time to, you know, build confidence, in the execution as well as the management of the IRM.
We're taking a page out of the gas playbook to build up this IRM and achieve our goals of making the necessary investments as well as trying to put time between rate cases. It'll take a few years, is my answer, before we start to see a significant impact on timing of rate cases.
David Arcaro (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. Got it. That makes sense. I appreciate that context. Was curious, obviously, the decline in natural gas prices that we've seen is a, is a nice tailwind for customer bills. When, just based on, the kind of storage levels, and the seasonal use of that gas, when would customers potentially see the lower prices flow through into rates?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
They're seeing it right now. As a matter of fact, I was talking to the president of the gas company the last couple days. We're going to lower the factor by about $1 here the next little while. We're seeing prices come down quite nicely from their peak.
David Arcaro (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. Could that lead to a year-over-year decline overall in the fuel portion of gas, or is that gonna take still some time to kind of flow through the higher priced gas that might have been collected last late last year?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
I think we've already seen a year-over-year decline, and it'll continue to decline. We've made a series of reductions already in the last several months in our gas prices, you know, our gas recovery cost factor, and the most significant one is coming here very shortly. It's about a $1 decline in price.
David Arcaro (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. Okay, great. Thanks so much. I appreciate it.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question is from Michael Sullivan with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.
Michael Sullivan (VP of Equity Research)
Hey, good morning, everyone.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Good morning, Michael.
Michael Sullivan (VP of Equity Research)
Hey, hey, guys. Maybe just wanted to flip over to the IRP. I think we have intervener testimony coming up in the next couple of weeks here. Just what should we expect from that? In terms of settlement timing, what should we think about as coming first between the IRP and the electric case?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
I'll start by saying that, you know, the expectations that we see is they'll be, you know, challenged to the timing of some of our retirements, you know, especially the Monroe Power Plant. I think you'll see that. We won't be surprised by that. We will also perhaps see some desire to increase energy efficiency. I think some parties will challenge natural gas as a future reliability source. Of course, we've got strong views on that, you know, natural gas enables a large build-out of renewables as technology continues to improve around providing base load generation. I think those will be the issues, if you will. There's strong support for a large portion, I believe, of our IRP.
At least that's our early indication that it's received favorable reviews informally, if you will. We look forward to the testimony that'll be filed. In terms of timing of settlements, we expect that the IRP will be settled first just because it was filed before the rate case. Just the timing of testimony and process puts the rate case a little behind the IRP in terms of the opportunity for settlement discussions. That's how we expect the process to unfold.
Michael Sullivan (VP of Equity Research)
Okay, great. That's helpful. Maybe a question for Dave. Just in terms of the FFO to Debt, you target the 15%-16%. Can you give us an indication of where 2022 finished up? To what extent, you're still waiting on deferred power fuel cost recovery into this year?
David Ruud (EVP and CFO)
Yeah, that's a, that's a good question. Yeah. 2022 ended up right around 15%. As you mentioned, the big driver of that being a little lower was the fuel cost recovery. We had our Power Supply Cost Recovery was, you know, a use of cash for us in 2022, but will be more of a source of cash as we're recovering the majority of that in 2023. We'll see our FFO to Debt be a little bit higher, a little bit better in 2023.
Michael Sullivan (VP of Equity Research)
Okay. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question is from the line of Andrew Weisel with Scotiabank. Your line is open.
Andrew Weisel (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, good morning, everyone.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Good morning, Andrew.
David Ruud (EVP and CFO)
Hi, Andrew.
Andrew Weisel (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
I appreciate the detailed answers to the previous questions. You covered a lot of what I wanted. Just two follow-ups maybe from me then. First, in terms of the sales forecast, obviously, that was a big difference of opinion in the last rate case. Does that change have any impact on the IRP and the long-term outlook for capacity resource needs?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
We had built that in, Andrew, into our IRP forecast. You know, now, of course, what we do in an IRP is we provide for scenarios for demand increases. You know, both, the largest demand increase opportunity is really EV attachments and some of the economic development activity that we expect in the near term. You know, we try to build an IRP that not only addresses point estimates, but also a range and scenarios and forecasts. That's something that is required by the IRP filing guidelines. I think we think it's a very wise thing to do because it, you know, obviously over, you know, a period of 20 years, there can be significant amount of variability in demand forecasts. We provide low, medium, and high type forecasts.
Andrew Weisel (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. You're still in that range, essentially?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Yes. Yes.
Andrew Weisel (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, great. Lastly, on equity, the sources and uses of cash page, slide 17 shows zero or a little dash, I suppose, for new equity. In one of the earlier slides, you talked about up to $100 million per year. How likely is that to remain zero? Is that a function of the timing of CapEx or the $1.3 billion convertible last year? Just trying to understand why that's zero and not something greater than 0.
David Ruud (EVP and CFO)
Yeah. Our goal there will be to keep that as low as possible, obviously. How we generate cash and how we, how we get cash through our plan will be one of the big drivers of that and how we use it in CapEx. You know, we see in our plan, you know, minimal equity issuances, you know, hopefully in that around 0, but could be in the 0-100 range as we go forward.
Andrew Weisel (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. zero for the entire three-year period is a realistic possibility?
David Ruud (EVP and CFO)
It's a possibility. I would expect some internal equity issuances that we have through our internal sources, though.
Andrew Weisel (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, great. Thank you, and good luck with the restoration efforts this morning.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Thanks. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question is from the line of Anthony Crowdell with Mizuho. Your line is open.
Anthony Crowdell (Senior Analyst)
Jerry, good morning. Good morning, Gabe.
Speaker 12
Hey, Anthony.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Good morning, Anthony.
Anthony Crowdell (Senior Analyst)
You guys keeping warm, I hope?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
We like the cold, Anthony, you know that. We don't like ice, but we like the cold.
Anthony Crowdell (Senior Analyst)
Well, again, I hope the restoration efforts go quickly. I'm sure it's a grind for all the workers out there. Fingers crossed.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
We're really proud of our people out there. They're out there braving these elements, and we just hope for their safety and good health and certainly the same for our customers.
Anthony Crowdell (Senior Analyst)
I'm sure we all take for granted the service we get provided in our electric system and gas. Just two quick ones. One, on the IRM filing or request. I apologize if I have this wrong. Has DTE requested that for the electric segment before? Just if so, what gives you know, optimism that this time maybe it gets approved?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
You know, the last time we did it, Anthony, we requested a really large IRM amount, you know, and this is like over a handful of years ago. You know, this time it was, you know, it felt at that time, the feedback we got, that maybe it was too big of a request, and we were trying to make it big enough to stay out of rate cases immediately, you know, that so that there would be an immediate benefit to us and many other interested parties not having to have rate cases every year. Well, this time we've taken a different approach. We've made it smaller in the early years, which may have us, you know, may create a little more work as you're in for both rate cases and reconciliations in the early years on the IRM.
Over time, it'll start to put distance between rate cases as we grow it. I think it'll give the party, all parties involved confidence that we're executing well on the IRM. That's why we took a little different approach this time. We feel that it'll be successful. We socialized it ahead of time before we filed and got very strong positive feedback. We feel good about it this time.
Anthony Crowdell (Senior Analyst)
Well, do you guys ever estimate or provide what the cost is to file a rate case? If I think of all the DTE personnel that have to go around aggregating data, you know, all the tests running, you add all that up. Is there a value that you guys have put on that maybe an IRM... Again, you guys have been very clear that very modest in the beginning, it will take years before you start seeing able to delay rate filings. What's the potential savings that a customer sees if, you know, you're able to delay a rate filing?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
I would say, you know, there are of course, the costs of, you know, sort of prosecuting a case, if you will, for us and for our interveners and for the commission. We'll reduce that, and I think that'll be significant, you know. I think the more significant piece, Anthony, will be the fact that once we have certainty of an investment profile, from a supply chain perspective, we can start, you know, pre-ordering materials and working out supply arrangements that are much more efficient over the long term, over, you know, 3-5 years, and lining up our contractors where the bulk of the cost is and extracting value from them on behalf of our customers.
I would say the beauty of the IRM that we saw in the gas business is you can start lining up major supply chain and initiatives and also contractors to extract efficiencies. You know, when you can commit to somebody for five years, there's a huge incentive to for them to respond to our efficiency initiatives. That's where I see the millions of dollars of potential savings in capital and the ability to accelerate our work.
Anthony Crowdell (Senior Analyst)
Great. Just lastly, DTE Vantage, I love the guidance you've given out, I believe, till 2027. Can I think of the growth from 2023 to 2027 as linear or is it more back-end load? Like, just any clarity on the growth in earnings at DTE Vantage?
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
You know, typically we're targeting that $15 million-$18 million, Anthony, of growth advantage to support that forecast. That's what the team is tasked with each and every year. Sometimes they beat it, sometimes it's lower, but overall, it averages out to about $15 million-$18 million a year of income growth. A lot of it is, you know, we can look to it coming because we've got these landfill projects that are under our current control, that we can convert to RNG. We've got a nice line of sight, at least over the next two or three years into project development.
Anthony Crowdell (Senior Analyst)
Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Again, best of luck on the restoration efforts.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Thank you, Anthony.
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, that is all the time we have for questions today. I would now like to turn the call back to Mr. Jerry Norcia.
Jerry Norcia (President and CEO)
Well, thank you everyone for joining us today, and I'll just close by saying we had another strong year in 2022, and I'm feeling really good about 2023 and our position for the long-term future. I hope everyone has a great morning and stays healthy. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.