NextEra Energy - Q2 2023
July 25, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one your touch-tone phone. To withdraw from the question queue, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kristin Rose, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Kristin Rose (Director of Investor Relations)
Thank you, Anthony. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our second quarter 2023 combined earnings conference call for NextEra Energy and NextEra Energy Partners. With me this morning are John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of NextEra Energy, Kirk Crews, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of NextEra Energy, Rebecca Kujawa, President and Chief Executive Officer of NextEra Energy Resources, and Mark Hickson, Executive Vice President of NextEra Energy. All of whom are also officers of NextEra Energy Partners, as well as Armando Pimentel, President and Chief Executive Officer of Florida Power & Light Company. Kirk will provide an overview of our results. Our executive team will then be available to answer your questions. We will be making forward-looking statements during this call based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties.
Actual results could differ materially from our forward-looking statements if any of our key assumptions are incorrect, or because of other factors discussed in today's earnings news release, and the comments made during the conference call, in the Risk Factors section of the accompanying presentation, or in our latest reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, each of which can be found on the websites www.nexteraenergy.com and www.nexteraenergypartners.com. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements. Today's presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures. You should refer to the information contained in the slides accompanying today's presentation for definitional information and reconciliations of historical non-GAAP measures to the closest GAAP financial measure. With that, I will turn the call over to Kirk.
Kirk Crews (EVP and CFO)
Thanks, Kristin. Good morning. NextEra Energy continued its track record of solid execution, as reflected in our second quarter results. Adjusted earnings per share grew by approximately 8.6% as we deployed capital for the benefit of FPL customers and leveraged our competitive advantages to extend Energy Resources renewable leadership position. As the fastest growing state in the U.S., Florida has underlying population growth and an economy that continues to drive clear investment needs. For years, FPL's strategy has been simple: keep bills affordable, the grid reliable, and our customer service exceptional. With our most recent settlement agreement, FPL has a well-established capital plan with clear visibility through 2025 to deliver on this strategy.
This quarter, we executed our capital plan with new solar and transmission and distribution infrastructure investments, which led to a greater than 12% increase in regulatory capital employed versus the same quarter last year. As a result, FPL's earnings per share increased by $0.07 year-over-year. We progressed these capital initiatives while keeping customer bills affordable. We continue to run the business efficiently, with multiple opportunities to reduce and manage costs. We deploy smart capital that reduces O&M and fuel costs. We embrace innovation and new technologies. We identify cost savings through our various initiatives. Customers benefit from these actions, including bills that are among the lowest in Florida and well below the national average. FPL is uniquely positioned to extend its best-in-class customer value proposition and deliver long-term growth.
Energy Resources' more than two-decade track record of originating, developing, constructing, and operating renewables remains as strong as ever. This quarter, on the strength of new investments, Energy Resources grew adjusted earnings by over 14% year-over-year. We continue to see solid renewables and storage demand. Since our first quarter call, Energy Resources placed over 1,800 MW into commercial operations, and has added approximately 1,665 MW of new renewables and storage projects to our backlog, which now stands at roughly 20 GW, keeping us on track to achieve our renewable development expectations through 2026. Given all of our competitive advantages, Energy Resources is uniquely positioned to continue to lead the decarbonization of the U.S. economy and be the renewables partner of choice, supporting power, commercial, and industrial, and eventually, hydrogen customers.
We are pleased with the progress we have made at NextEra Energy so far in 2023. For over 18 months, we have operated in a challenging macroeconomic environment with various headwinds, and yet we have leveraged our competitive advantages to serve customers and deliver on our financial expectations. Through the first half of the year, both businesses have executed well, delivering adjusted EPS growth of approximately 11%. With FPL comprising more than two-thirds of NextEra Energy's business, our well-established capital plan through 2025 provides investors with long-term growth visibility. At Energy Resources, we are leveraging our competitive advantages to continue adding new renewables and storage to our backlog, providing clear visibility to our future earnings growth through 2026.... Combined, we believe we are well-positioned with strong visibility to deliver on our expectations and create long-term value for shareholders.
With that, let's turn to the detailed results, beginning with FPL. For the second quarter of 2023, FPL reported net income of approximately $1,152,000,000 or $0.57 per share, an increase of $0.07 year-over-year. The principal driver of this performance was FPL's regulatory capital employed growth of approximately 12.1% year-over-year. We continue to expect FPL to realize roughly 9% average annual growth in regulatory capital employed over our current settlement agreement's four-year term, which runs through 2025. FPL's capital expenditures were approximately $2,500,000,000 for the quarter, and we now expect FPL's full year 2023 capital investment to be between $8,500,000,000 and $9,500,000,000.
For the 12 months ending June 2023, FPL's reported ROE for regulatory purposes will be approximately 11.8%. During the quarter, we used approximately $78,000,000 of reserve amortization, leaving FPL with a balance of approximately $1,000,000,000. Our capital projects continue to progress well. As we indicated in our recent Ten-Year Site Plan, solar continues to be the lowest cost alternative for our customers. FPL placed into service roughly 225 MW of cost-effective solar in the quarter, bringing the total year-to-date solar additions to nearly 1,200 MW. Over the last 2 years, FPL has commissioned over 1,600 MW of new solar generation. With 2 and a half years remaining under the current settlement agreement, FPL expects to add roughly 3,100 MW of incremental solar through 2025.
FPL's solar investments allow us to serve strong customer growth while providing clean, affordable generation and avoiding volatile fuel purchases. Over the current four-year settlement agreement, we continue to expect FPL to make capital investments of between $32,000,000,000-$34,000,000,000. Of that total, we anticipate investing approximately $10,000,000,000 in new solar generation and approximately $14,000,000,000-$16,000,000,000 in transmission and distribution infrastructure. We remain confident in our total capital plan through 2025, as our cumulative capital investments of approximately $14,000,000,000 through June of 2023 are a little ahead of our original timeline. Our capital investment plan is well established, and by executing on solar deployment and transmission and distribution investments, we are enhancing what we believe is one of the best customer value propositions in the industry. I'll turn now to the Florida economy, which continues to demonstrate strong growth.
Over the past year, Florida has created roughly 412,000 new private sector jobs, and its unemployment rate continues to decline, currently standing at approximately 2.6%, which is nearly 30% below the U.S. average. Florida consumer sentiment improved roughly 14% compared to the prior year and remains above the U.S. average, while mortgage delinquency rates declined by 55 basis points compared to the prior year. Florida's GDP continues to trend upward and increased over 9% versus a year ago. During the quarter, FPL had solid customer growth, with the average number of customers increasing by more than 66,000 from the comparable prior year period. FPL's second quarter retail sales increased by approximately 0.3% year-over-year.
We estimate that weather had a slightly negative impact on usage per customer of approximately 0.3% on a year-over-year basis. After taking these factors into account, second quarter retail sales increased roughly 0.6% on a weather-normalized basis from the comparable prior year period, driven primarily by continued solid underlying population growth. Let's turn to Energy Resources, where second quarter 2023 GAAP earnings were approximately $1,462,000,000 or $0.72 per share. Adjusted earnings for the second quarter were approximately $781,000,000, or $0.39 per share, which is an increase in adjusted earnings per share of $0.04 year over year. Contributions from new investments increased $0.10 per share year over year. Contributions from our existing clean energy portfolio declined $0.06 per share.
This decline was mostly due to a large swing in year-over-year wind resource. This quarter was the lowest second quarter of wind resource on record over the past 30 years, while last year was the highest. The contribution from our customer supply and trading business increased by $0.09 per share, primarily due to higher margins in our customer-facing businesses compared to a relatively weak contribution in the prior year quarter. All other impacts reduced earnings by $0.09 per share. This decline reflects higher interest costs of $0.06 per share, half of which is driven by new borrowing costs to support new investments and half of which is due to higher interest rates. The remaining impact is due to a combination of other factors, including additional costs to support early-stage renewable development investments as we plan for growth in the latter part of the decade.
Energy Resources had a solid quarter of new renewables and storage origination, adding approximately 1,665 MW to the backlog. With these additions, our backlog now totals roughly 20 GW after taking into account over 1,800 MW of new projects placed into service since our first quarter call, which keeps us on track to achieve our renewable development expectations through 2026. Having shared our new expectations just 6 months ago, we are already within the 2023-2024 development expectations range and only need roughly 15 GW over the next three and one-half years to achieve the midpoint of the 2023-2026 development expectations range. As part of our backlog additions, this quarter, we signed our first contract for a standalone battery storage project co-located with an existing wind facility.
This 65 MW storage project is expected to serve our customers' growing capacity needs in the Southwest Power Pool and be available to monetize pricing arbitrage opportunities in this renewable-rich area of the country. As we have highlighted, we believe there are many more opportunities to monetize the value of our existing 29 GW operating renewables portfolio, including deploying co-located storage like we did here. We are excited to bring this facility into commercial operation. During the quarter, we continued to see solid demand for renewables and storage across power and commercial and industrial customers. After a period of underlying commodity price inflation, supply chain disruption, and trade policy risk premiums, we are finally seeing signs of stability, which will be helpful in our customer conversations.
We believe renewables remain economically attractive to alternative forms of generation and have positioned ourselves to meet long-term customer demand by expanding our significant pipeline of renewable projects. Today, we have a pipeline of roughly 250 GW of renewables and storage projects in various stages of development. This includes projects in early-stage diligence in our current backlog and is supported by roughly 145 GW of interconnection queue positions. When you combine our significant competitive advantages with our renewable pipeline, we believe Energy Resources is well positioned for growth in our renewables business for years to come. We also remain excited about the opportunity to serve hydrogen customers by leveraging our best-in-class renewables development expertise and early-stage development position.
Throughout the quarter, we continued to advocate for smart hydrogen policy that we believe would help the U.S. establish a robust green hydrogen market and drive increased renewables penetration. We also progressed our pipeline of potential green hydrogen opportunities by executing an additional memorandum of understanding to explore developing green hydrogen and related facilities that would integrate into our customers' operations and serve their energy needs. As all our hydrogen-related projects could potentially translate into additional new renewables, and with the appropriate regulations, begin to contribute to Energy Resources growth later this decade. Turning now to our consolidated results. For the second quarter of 2023, GAAP earnings attributed to NextEra Energy were approximately $2,795,000,000 or $1.38 per share.
NextEra Energy recorded approximately $1,770,000,000 of adjusted earnings and $0.88 of adjusted EPS in the second quarter. Adjusted earnings from the corporate and other segment decreased results by $0.04 per share year-over-year, primarily driven by higher interest costs. We continue to proactively manage interest rates in multiple ways. First, NextEra Energy has $16,000,000,000 of various interest rate swaps to help mitigate the impact of future increases in rates. Second, FPL has features in its settlement agreement to offset higher interest rates, such as reserve amortization and the ROE adjustment mechanism, which became effective on September 1, 2022, due to a sustained rise in the 30-year U.S. Treasury yield.
Our focus on continuous improvement through our annual Project Velocity productivity initiative has yielded over $725,000,000 in annual run rate savings ideas over the last 2 years, creating cost savings opportunities to help offset higher interest costs. As always, the current interest rate environment is taken into account in our financial expectations. Our long-term financial expectations remain unchanged, and we will be disappointed if we're not able to deliver financial results at or near the top end of our adjusted EPS expectation ranges in each year from 2023 to 2026, while at the same time maintaining our strong balance sheet and credit ratings. From 2021 to 2026, we continue to expect that our average annual growth and operating cash flow will be at or above our adjusted EPS compound annual growth rate range.
We continue to expect to grow our dividends per share at roughly 10% per year through at least 2024, off a 2022 base. As always, our expectations assume our usual caveats, including normal weather and operating conditions. Now, I'd like to turn to NextEra Energy Partners. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution were $486,000,000 and $200,000,000, respectively, reflecting weaker wind resource. NextEra Energy Partners remains well-positioned to deliver on its 2023 run rate expectations for adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution. Yesterday, to per common unit on an annualized basis, up approximately 12% from a year earlier. Inclusive of this quarter, NextEra Energy Partners has grown its LP distribution per unit over 355% since the IPO.
Since our last earnings call, NextEra Energy Partners completed its previously announced acquisition of approximately 690 MW of wind and solar assets. With this acquisition, NextEra Energy Partners' renewable portfolio is over 10,000 WM, further strengthening its position as the world's seventh-largest producer of electricity from the wind and sun. The partnership is well-positioned to execute on its simplification plans to become a 100% renewables-focused company. Regarding these simplification plans, in May, we launched a sales process for the Texas Natural Gas Pipeline portfolio and are pleased with our progress as we remain on track to sell the assets by later this year.
NextEra Energy Partners expects to use the proceeds from the planned Texas pipeline portfolio sale, together with the Meade Natural Gas Pipeline sale in 2025, to eliminate the equity buyouts on the three near-term convertible equity portfolio financings: STX Midstream, NEP Renewables II, and 2019 NEP Pipeline. Upon successful execution of the Texas pipeline portfolio sale, the partnership does not expect to require equity through 2024, other than opportunistic equity issuances under our at-the-market equity program to fund future growth beyond 2024. Now to the detailed results. NextEra Energy Partners delivered second quarter adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution of $486,000,000 and $200,000,000, respectively, reflecting the adverse impacts of weaker wind resource.
The adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution contribution from existing projects declined by approximately $99,000,000and $39,000,000, respectively, primarily driven by a large swing in year-over-year wind resource. This quarter was the lowest second quarter of wind resource on record over the past 30 years, while last year was the highest. New projects contributed approximately $49,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA and $5,000,000 of cash available for distribution. Second quarter results for adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution were positively impacted by the incentive distribution rights fee suspension and provided approximately $38,000,000 of benefit this quarter, partially offsetting the impact of poor wind resource performance.
As we previously shared, we expect strong double-digit growth in the second half of the year in adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution to support NextEra Energy Partners LP distribution per unit growth expectations range for the full year of 2023. Additional details are shown on the accompanying slide. From a base of our fourth quarter 2022 distribution per common unit at an annualized rate of $3.25, we continue to see 12%-15% growth per year in LP distributions per unit as being a reasonable range of expectations through at least 2026. As we've previously shared with you, we expect to grow at or near the bottom end of that range.
For 2023, we expect the annualized rate of the fourth quarter 2023 distribution that is payable in February of 2024, to be in a range of $3.64-$3.74 per common unit. NextEra Energy Partners continues to expect run rate contributions for adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution from its forecasted portfolio at December 31st, 2023, to be in the ranges of $2,200,000,000-$2,420,000,000 and $770,000,000-$860,000,000, respectively. As a reminder, year-end 2023 run rate projections reflect calendar year 2024 contributions from the forecasted portfolio at year-end 2023. As always, our expectations are subject to our usual caveats, including normal weather and operating conditions.
In summary, we believe that NextEra Energy and NextEra Energy Partners are well-positioned to continue delivering long-term value for shareholders and unit holders. At NextEra Energy, the plan is simple: Our two businesses are deploying capital in renewables and transmission for the benefit of customers, providing visible growth opportunities for shareholders. At FPL, we're executing on our well-established capital investment plan, which allows us to extend our customer value proposition. Florida's strong population growth drives smart capital investment, and running the business efficiently allows us to manage costs for the benefit of both customers and shareholders. FPL comprises more than two-thirds of NextEra Energy's business and provides a significant amount of visibility into capital deployment and earnings growth.
At Energy Resources, we're leveraging our more than 20 years of experience, competitive advantages to grow our market share and add to our now roughly 20 GW backlog, providing terrific growth visibility through 2026. We believe these competitive advantages will enable Energy Resources to serve power, commercial, and industrial, and eventually hydrogen customers. With an opportunity set of $20,000,000,000 of capital investment requiring more than 15 GW of new renewables, Energy Resources is well-positioned to be the green hydrogen partner of choice, potentially creating new opportunities toward the end of the decade. At NextEra Energy Partners, we're executing on our plans to sell our natural gas pipelines and simplify the business. We continue to add to our renewables and storage portfolio, which now stands at over 10,000 MW.
With the sale of the Texas Natural Gas Pipeline portfolio expected to be completed by the end of the year, NextEra Energy Partners remains on track to transition to a 100% pure-play renewables company while continuing to deliver LP distribution per unit growth for unitholders. With that, we're happy to answer your questions.
Operator (participant)
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, press star, then 1 your touchtone phone. If using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw from the question queue, please press star, then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question will come from Steve Fleishman with Wolfe Research. You may now go ahead.
Steve Fleishman (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Yeah. Hey, good morning. Thanks. Hope you're all well. First, just on the quarter, the customer supply trading business continues to do well, and you mentioned higher margins. I think Constellation's been talking about that, too. Could you just talk more about what you think is driving that in the supply business?
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Yeah, sure, Steve. This is John Ketchum, good morning to you as well. In the customer supply and trading business, we've just seen a lot less competition, number 1. Number 2, remember, most of the business activity that we do in that group is customer-facing business. Our full requirements business, for example, where we're working with municipalities and cooperatives to help provide their power needs and arrange the capacity and ancillaries and other regulatory requirements they need to manage their business, particularly up in the Northeast. That business is, because it's had a lot less competition, it has benefited from significant margins.
Please, you know, one of the points I want to make is, you know, these arrangements that we enter into in the full requirements business are, you know, typically two or three years, and we're immediately going out back-to-back, hedging those positions. Feel great about the risk profile, and again, terrific margins that really match up well with our skill sets, our competitive advantages, and our core operations. That's really the main driver. I also want to remind folks that when you think about our customer, and supply business, we run it at a very, very low VaR. For example, the last quarter, we ran that business, you know, roughly, you know, at a 2% VaR.
It's very, very small business, you know, risk exposure overall, you know, for PMI.
Steve Fleishman (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Next question, just.
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Steve, one other point I want to make, too, on the customer supply business is that that business, historically, you can go back 10 years, and the customer supply and trading business, including this year, has never contributed more than 10% of NextEra Energy's net income. I think that's important to keep in mind as well. You know, we have a lot of complementary businesses. Obviously, FPL has done well. We have other complementary businesses that Energy Resources on top of our renewable business, but that business has always stayed under 10%, and that's one of the commitments that we make to the rating agencies, and that's true this year as well.
Steve Fleishman (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Okay, great. Just, maybe just the latest you're hearing on the hydrogen, green hydrogen rules from Treasury, both kind of timing and any color of where they are on some of the key, you know, issues like matching and additionality? Thanks.
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Yeah, we, you know, we have been very vocal around the hydrogen regulations that need to come together. There's been a debate for those that aren't familiar with it, between whether we have hourly matching or annual matching. For us, it's very simple. As part of a hydrogen project, you buy an expensive asset called an electrolyzer, which everyone is familiar with. If you have hourly matching, the net capacity factor, the number of hours a day that you use that electrolyzer are probably less than half a day in most parts of the country. If you have an annual construct, we're able to use that electrolyzer around the clock, so it's really easy math.
I mean, when you have an expensive capital asset and you can use it around the clock, the price of green hydrogen is going to be a lot lower than if you can only use it less than half the time. The industry has come forward with a very constructive proposal, which would have the hourly matching construct not kick in until 2028. You'd have annual, until, you know, that time period. We also have supported the fact that you have to have additionality if you're gonna go qualify for annual.
If you're qualifying for annual in the hours that the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining, to power the electrolyzer, behind the meter, and you are buying off the grid, well, you're buying from an additional renewable asset that has been constructed and developed to provide electrons to that newly built hydrogen facility. From an NGO perspective, you're getting additional decarbonization benefits on the grid. We think we've been very constructive in what we have come forward with. We think it's really important because we wanna send the right price signal to OEMs to ramp up production on electrolyzers, because electrolyzers being produced at scale is going to be critically important to declines in green hydrogen prices over time. That's where we are.
In terms of your question around timing, we expect Treasury to probably come out with regulations now. We're hoping for August, but it's starting to sound more like September or October. Again, you know, we have built a, you know, significant hydrogen pipeline. Parts of it, you know, work under either construct. You know, that pipeline is well over $20,000,000,000, and we have the land team out, and we've had them out, you know, very aggressively lining up land positions for our hydrogen portfolio. You know, the nice thing about that, and Kirk said it in the remarks, that pipeline's now about 250 GW when you include early due diligence sites. Nobody in our industry has a pipeline like that. Nobody.
What's terrific about it is it can be used for dual purpose, because hydrogen customers are just a third customer class to sell renewables to. If it, the site doesn't work for hydrogen, it'll work to, you know, for our power C&I customers. Feel like we're really well positioned, and hydrogen view is one of those things that can really provide a nice boon, boom to the development expectations that we've already laid out for you. We're eager to see what the final regulations say. I also want to remind folks that hydrogen has a long development cycle, the contribution that we'll see from hydrogen investments, you would expect over the latter part of the decade.
Steve Fleishman (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Last question, just on the Texas sale. I think you said you still expect to get it done by year-end. When would you need to or expect to or need to kind of announce transaction to make the year-end? Just how should we think about the recent data points we've seen, like the TransCanada, the TC Energy selldown, Columbia sell down, and Cove Point? I know they're different assets, but just in the context of views on valuation of NET. Thank you.
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Yeah. Thank you, Steve. Let me take those in order. In terms of timing, you know, we would hope to be in a position, you know, in end of the third quarter, early fourth quarter, you know, in order to support that end-of-the-year sales timeline that we have earmarked. In terms of valuation, we view these assets as unique. You know, again, as a reminder, the Texas pipelines provide 25% of the natural gas supply to Mexico, you know, through contracts with Pemex. The other pipeline assets that support the Texas pipeline are fully integrated with that pipe, and they provide gas to Mexico through Agua Dulce, which is a, you know, a very liquid trading point.
If you look around that area, these are very, very strategic for a number of players. You know, again, as you well know, it's hard to, it's hard to compare one pipe comp to another. But again, you know, we remain, you know, pleased with the progress that we continue to make on the sales transaction.
Steve Fleishman (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Okay, great. Thank you.
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Thank you, Steve. Oh, and Steve, I think I said 2% on the VaR. I meant $2,000,000 on the VaR for PMI, just to correct that.
Steve Fleishman (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question will come from Shar Pourreza with Guggenheim Partners. You may now go ahead.
Shar Pourreza (Senior Managing Director and Sector Head for North American Power, Energy, and Utilities)
Hey, good morning, guys.
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Morning, Char.
Shar Pourreza (Senior Managing Director and Sector Head for North American Power, Energy, and Utilities)
Good morning. Let me just as we kind of look at, you know, the latest renewable portfolio transactions, the valuations have come in fairly noticeably. Do you guys see any opportunities to kind of leverage NEER's platform and either picking up the existing assets or developer books, especially sort of given, you know, what seems to still be a tight financing and supply chain position for some of your competitors, while you're seeing improvements with yours?
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Yeah, we are. I mean, you know, first of all, let me just comment on the, on the valuations that you see. I mean, I think that. Look, I'm not going to be critical of some of the, some of the assets that have come to sale, but, you know, if you read through the through the lines and into the details of the structures of those transactions, those are not what I would characterize as high-quality renewable assets. When you look back at what we have developed over the last 20 years and what we continue to develop, are very high-quality renewable assets. Most of them are busbar. They're with, you know, high credit counterparty off-takers. They're well situated in areas that benefit from our data analytics around transmission congestion, wind resource, solar resource.
Because we have 20 years of experience, you know, I like to believe and, you know, look, we're not perfect, but, you know, we don't make some of the same mistakes that you see some of the other developers make. I feel like we're much better positioned. Our portfolio is in much better position than some of the other markers that you have seen. I'd be very, very careful in how you assess portfolio to portfolio because they're very, very different. The second thing I would say is, we look at all third-party M&A opportunities that come available, and we feel like we do have all the competitive advantages of, you know, some of which you mentioned. We buy cheap, we build cheap, we operate cheap, we have a cost of capital advantage.
We have, you know, a terrific team that really understands how to optimize the value of existing assets. That's the key piece. Repowering assets is something we've always had a very strong track record at. It's something that the rest of the industry has struggled with, and that gives us a real leg up in terms of being able to see value that others don't. Then, as Kirk mentioned on the call today, you know, we have a benefit, the, and, you know, and an organic asset that nobody else has, which is the largest fleet in North America that we operate. So we have the ability to not only repower those existing assets, but to find ways to pair them up with storage and take advantage of the standalone storage ITC.
As you all know, storage used to only be a unique opportunity to pair with solar. The rules have changed with the standalone storage ITC under IRA, so now we can pair it with wind, we can build it standalone. We're making a lot of progress in that area. We announced one project today where we're starting to see an opportunity, particularly in MISO and SPP and ERCOT, where capacity values and reliability are being priced higher than we've seen them, you know, in the past, given some of the shortfalls that they have in those markets. That just happens to coincide with where most of our wind is.
Given the massive existing fleet that we have, which very importantly includes an existing interconnection agreement, our ability to go and pair those assets up with solar or to repower them is unique in this industry, given the two-decade head start that we have. That's a value that we try to bring to M&A opportunities as well, when we exercise our other competitive advantages, including our cost of capital advantage.
Shar Pourreza (Senior Managing Director and Sector Head for North American Power, Energy, and Utilities)
Got it. Perfect. Then, John, it's been a little bit quiet, and it hasn't really been a focus for a lot of investors, but is there any sort of updates around the FERC case as of today? Any change in stances, you know, indicated by the disclosures? Any opportunities to settle? Thanks.
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Yeah, thank you, Shar, for the question. No new developments. There's really no new news there. You know, again, we would expect, just based on historical precedent with the FERC, that we would, you know, hear back where they have a reasonable, you know, belief, that they should investigate probably sometime, you know, in the first quarter of 2024.
Shar Pourreza (Senior Managing Director and Sector Head for North American Power, Energy, and Utilities)
Perfect. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Thanks for the time. Fantastic. Appreciate it.
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Thank you, Shar.
Operator (participant)
Our next question will come from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Bank of America. You may now go ahead.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Senior Research Analyst)
Hey, good morning, John. Good morning, team. Thank you, guys, very much. I wanted to come back to the cadence of the backlog additions. Just looking at, you know, 2023, 2024 versus 2025, 2026 there. Can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing out there in terms of the ability to execute in kind of the nearer-term sense, to execute against that first bucket versus the latter here? Especially, give us a little bit of an update on IRS clarity and what that means for the willingness to commit to close on contracts here, especially maybe now that you have that in hand on transferability, et cetera. How do you think about maybe biasing towards the later years there, just given where we stand already?
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Yeah, good question, Julien. Let me just start with take that in chunks, because, you know, everyone knows our development expectations are 2023-2026. Let's just start with the first two years, and then we'll talk about the second two years. For 2023 through 2024, we're in great shape. We're already within, you know, the range, you know, as we had expected to be. On 2025 and 2026, you know, if you go back to the beginning of 2022 and you add up where we are, you know, today, we've already added 12 GW, you know, just in the last 6 quarters. That puts us in great shape against 2025 and 2026, because now we have 15 GW to get to the midpoint. If you kind of work backwards from...
you know, 26, that's three and a half years, to get 15 GW. We feel like we are, you know, really in great position and, you know, on track on that build. I think there's some real tailwinds that we're going to start to see come forward. I want to explain some dynamics, you know, just around what we've seen in the renewable industry, you know, which was part of your question, Julien. Let's just go back to 2022. I mean, in 2022, we saw, you know, a lot of supply chain issues that started to surface. We saw UFLPA, we saw circumvention. That caused some delays.
It also caused a shortage of supply because some developers were scrambling for panels that they thought they could get into the country, which, you know, I think for a short period of time, drove prices up. The great thing is that all those 2022 projects that got delayed into 2023 are now starting to go into commercial operation. That's a really good news, the good news for customers, because those customers that were digesting that 2022 build and waiting for those projects to go COD on the 2023, are now coming back to the market. We're seeing really strong demand, you know, from those folks as we start to look forward. The other benefit of that is, as you see, UFLPA issues start to get worked through.
We're not seeing the UFLPA holdbacks that we used to see. We're making a lot of progress on that front. When you take that into account with the clarity that we're now seeing around circumvention, we finally have this bright line rule with the 6-part test. As long as you meet 4 of the 6 and you're importing from Southeast Asia, you're okay. What we've seen is a relaxation in pricing as a result of that. Now the risk premium that was being charged last year by the import market is starting to come down.
The other terrific phenomenon that we're seeing around solar pricing is that Southeast Asia still sets the price for panels, you know, in the U.S. As that risk price premium is starting to come down, Southeast Asia really wants a big part of the U.S. market. Why do they want a big part of the U.S. market? They sell panels for $0.20 everywhere else, right? They've been selling panels for $0.40, roughly, you know, in the U.S. They have a lot of room to move. As that risk premium comes down around UFLPA and circumvention, it's forcing prices down in the U.S. At the same time, you're seeing a lot more U.S. supply come online, through new module facilities are getting announced, also through cell facilities that will come along with it.
The bottom line is, when you look at the solar picture, it's favorable from an equipment price standpoint, because I think you're starting to see a lot of capacity, come online, that is going to force prices down over time, particularly as you see the U.S. market evolve. It's no secret with some of the economic data coming out of China that, you know, some of those Southeast Asian markets are under pressure with capacity, excess capacity positions, and so they've got batteries and panels they need to find things to do with. Battery prices are coming down as well. We're finally seeing a relaxation in battery prices.
really struggling to see really struggling in the EV market in China, which has created very much an excess capacity around batteries. We're finally starting to see some relaxation there. I think there's been more of a movement around traditional lithium-ion and some of the rare mineral exposure you see there, sodium and other battery forms. Very encouraged about the landscape there. On the wind OEM side, you know, the wind folks are really one of the only ones that can reap the full benefit, you know, of domestic content and the full manufacturer incentive. Feel really good about, you know, where wind sits as well.
I think as you start to look forward, and we started to move through these supply chain issues we saw in 2022, with these projects coming online in 2023, combined with excess capacity globally around the supply chain, feel great there. Let me talk about transferability for a second. There's been a lot of discussion, and I've heard a lot of questions about folks saying, "Well, how's transferability, you know, going to be accounted for, and is it going to be, you know, part of the FFO and the FFO to debt metric?" We feel very good, and we've told investors for a long time that we feel very good, that it's in accordance with GAAP. It flows through the tax line for tax credits that get transferred to be included.
We feel good about where that is heading, and that we'll end up with in a, in a good place there on that FFO to debt question that has surfaced around transferability. When you put all those pieces together, as we've worked through some of these headwinds that we've had, feel very good about where things are heading. Let's just face it, we're just getting started. Renewables are here to stay. They're not going anywhere. While we might, you know, the development process isn't always going to be a straight line, we're in terrific shape and feel, you know, very optimistic about the future.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Senior Research Analyst)
Right. Thank you. Actually, John, to that point, though, a lot of the dynamics you just talked about are very, like, real time, if you will, versus, you know, kind of trailing into the quarter itself. How do you feel about just that contracting acceleration here in the back half? I mean, a lot of the points you made would really argue that you could see an uptick versus kind of something that was more on trend in the last quarter.
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Yeah, you know, a lot of it is going to depend on, as I said before, these 22 projects continuing to come online in 2023, and those customers that had a little bit of fatigue, so to speak, you know, around those delays, coming back to the market, which we're starting to see. That'll be the wild card. We feel good about how the rest of the year continues to shape up.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Senior Research Analyst)
Got it. We'll stay tuned on that front. All right. Excellent.
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Yeah.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Senior Research Analyst)
Thank you, sir.
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Julian, one other thing to add to that is hydrogen. We get the right rules there, you know, again, you know, I can't stress it enough. I mean, we, you know, we've always only had two customer classes for renewables. It's been power sector, it's been the CNI sector. Now, with the right rules, we have the potential to add a third customer class, which is the renewables for hydrogen customers, and that's exciting as well.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Senior Research Analyst)
Yep. Yeah. Stay tuned, maybe a quarter or 2 after you get those rules to really see that flow through in that third customer class.
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Yeah, I think that's right. You know, remember, those projects have longer lead time development cycles, so in terms of the contribution that investors should expect, it's going to come in the latter part of the decade.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Senior Research Analyst)
Excellent. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question will come from David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. You may now go ahead.
David Arcaro (Executive Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Oh, hey, good morning. Thanks so much for taking my question. Maybe shifting a little bit to NEP. I was wondering, you know, I know in terms of the financing outlook, you don't need equity for some time here, but I was wondering if you could just give any latest thoughts on alternative financing approaches, to hit longer-term growth projections at NEP?
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Yeah, I mean, for NEP, you know, first of all, you know, the focus is on, you know, the simplification strategy, which we shared with the market back in May. You know, we have said that, you know, our expectation as a result of that is, you know, we don't, you know, assuming a successful execution on that sale, that we don't expect to have equity requirements in 2024, other than opportunistic equity issuances under our ATM to help finance growth beyond 2024.
If you look, and you can see in the slides, you know, here, that we have a lot of flexibility under our current metrics, you know, with the agencies in terms of the ability to add additional, what I would call traditional debt-based capital market, financing, you know, mechanisms to accommodate the growth going forward. We are very busy, you know, looking at the back end, you know, three steps that we have and some ideas around, you know, how we are going to address those as well. When we move on from the simplification, transaction, that's going to be the next point of focus. We're not, you know, but we're not waiting, you know, we're continuing to look at that.
Look, there continues to be a, you know, a strong bid for, you know, an interest in renewable assets long term, particularly when you think about the opportunity to do that with the world's leader in renewable development, with the competitive advantages that we have, the 20 GW backlog, the growth visibility that NEP has going forward, all very promising. You know, we continue to engage in those discussions as well as we think about the future.
David Arcaro (Executive Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. Got it. Thanks for that color. Also, I just had a question related to the transmission constraints that we've seen in the industry, but you made the comment about a very large interconnection position, 145 GW. I was just wondering if you could speak to the transmission queue challenges, and do you think that could potentially be a constraint on growth for the industry at any point? Or how much visibility do you have into hitting longer term growth targets with that massive queue that you've got in place?
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Let me take that in two pieces. One is the 145 GW that you're referencing, David, around the 250 GW pipeline that we have, where we have with the 145 interconnection positions secured. I would challenge you to find anybody in the industry that has even close to that number of projects with interconnection capacity. Don't forget, given the demand we're seeing in the market, if you have a site ready to go with interconnection capacity, that's the hard part. Finding the customer right now is not the hard part. That's why we have such a focus on making sure that our early stage development program is right on track, and I feel just terrific about, you know, where we stand there today.
Let me take the second piece, though, that you have, which is just about transmission in general. You know, we are not waiting. We are taking the transmission and interconnect issues into our own hands, and we're doing that through NextEra Energy Transmission. We are laser focused on competitive transmission build-out around where our renewable assets are going and where they're going to be built. You know, we announced a project last quarter, you know, another $400,000,000 opportunity in CAISO. I'm not going to talk about them today. We have a number of various other transmission projects, you know, on the board right now that we are evaluating. That business is going terrific.
Again, you know, the bottom line message for investors is we're not waiting, we're taking that into our own hands. That's why we bought GridLiance, that's why we continue to make investments in that space. You know, we intend to solve those problems ourselves as we go along.
David Arcaro (Executive Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Excellent. That's helpful. Thanks so much for all the color.
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Thanks, David.
Operator (participant)
Our next question will come from Carly Davenport with Goldman Sachs. You may now go ahead.
Carly Davenport (VP of Equity Research)
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Just wanted to go back to the supply chain, and thanks for the commentary there in the earlier question. Just in terms of rate of change from a supply chain perspective relative to recent quarters, are you seeing any divergence between trends in wind projects versus solar projects?
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
I mean, in terms of wind projects, you know, let me just make a couple comments there. I mean, we do almost all of our businesses with GE. You know, we've done a little bit with Siemens, and, you know, I know there's been some press on Siemens recently. We don't have any of the Siemens Gamesa turbines in our fleet. I just want to make that very clear. As we think about supply chain, around wind versus solar, remember that, you know, wind turbines are made, you know, almost exclusively in the U.S. You know, they'll be direct beneficiaries of the manufacturing incentives and we hope domestic content.
They have a couple of paperwork things they have to work out with Treasury, which, you know, hopefully will get there, you know, on in terms of what kind of information they have to share with their ultimate customers and giving away the secret sauce on margins and all those things. They continue to work through those issues. Wind just, you know, doesn't have the same exposure in issues that we've had to deal with solar, you know, or around UFLPA around circumvention.
Again, you know, as I said earlier, those issues around solar, which really, you know, plagued the industry back in 2022, have been things that we've been working through, in 2023, and now we're starting to see a lot more capacity show up, not only in the U.S., but, in other markets as well. So, you know, we are capitalizing, you know, on all those opportunities and leveraging our buying power, as you would expect us to do.
Carly Davenport (VP of Equity Research)
Great. That's helpful. The follow-up is just a quick one on kind of the cost environment. Seems like it's starting to improve a bit, but still challenging for many. Can you just talk about how you're managing costs in this environment, and kind of what levers exist that are available to pull, if needed, to continue to execute at a high level from an earnings perspective?
John Ketchum (Chairman, President and CEO)
Yes, thanks, Carly. you know, we spoke on our last call about, and I know you're familiar with this. We run a cost savings initiative every year at the company. This year, we called it Velocity, that we ran it under the same name last year. We challenge every one of our business units, it's a bottoms-up process, to come up with cost savings ideas for how we run our company. We've had amazing success through that program over the last 10 years. The last 2 years, in fact, if you look at it, we've been able to identify over $700,000,000 of cost savings initiatives both at FPL and Energy Resources.
We're constantly looking for ways to continue to take cost out of the business, whether it's O&M, whether it's G&A, and how do we leverage technology. You know, technology is a big piece of it as well. We recently, you know, launched a massive generative AI program that we think also leveraging all the skills that we have around technology that we've been able to build over the last 10 to 15 years, to really leverage AI in a way we never have in terms of how we run the business as well. All those things, I think, are gonna contribute to cost declines over time for the business. We're laser focused on cost. You know, the development business, you know, when you're selling a commodity, electricity, it's a game of inches.
You got to be better than the next developer in line in terms of buying equipment cheaper, building it cheaper, operating it cheaper, financing it cheaper. We have, you know, with the A-minus balance sheet, you know, terrific cost capital advantage. When we put all those things together, you know, we feel great about our competitive position, our market share, and how we continue to progress our renewable development program.
Carly Davenport (VP of Equity Research)
Great, thanks for that color.
Operator (participant)
Our next question. Pardon me. This concludes our question and answer session. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.