Portland General Electric Company - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• Q3 2025 non-GAAP EPS of $1.00 modestly beat S&P Global consensus ($0.99*) while GAAP EPS was $0.94; revenue of $0.952B missed consensus ($0.984B*) as stronger load was offset by power cost normalization and higher D&A/interest expense [functions.GetEstimates]*.
• Industrial/data center-led growth remained the core driver: total load +5.5% YoY (+7.3% weather-adjusted) and industrial +13% YoY in Q3; management raised 2025 weather-adjusted load growth to 3.5%-4.5% (from 2.5%-3.5%) and reaffirmed adjusted EPS guidance of $3.13–$3.33.
• Regulatory milestone: OPUC order for Seaside BESS yields ~$42M annual revenue requirement (9.34% ROE) and is in rates Oct 31, 2025; constructive outcome de-risks recovery while an earnings test caps excess returns.
• Near-term catalysts: finalization of 2023 RFP contracts by YE 2025/Q1 2026 (over 1 GW solar + storage shortlisted), potential data center tariff in March that could expand margins, and continued AI-enabled capacity unlocks (80 MW near-term) via GridCARE partnership.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Data center and high-tech demand sustained: “industrial customers ... grew their energy usage by over 13%,” supporting total load +5.5% YoY (+7.3% WA) in Q3 and an updated 2025 load growth outlook of 3.5%-4.5%.
  • Constructive regulatory outcomes: Seaside ARM approved with ~$42M annual revenue requirement, 9.34% ROE, and inclusion in rates 10/31; MOU-driven approach mirrors Seaside in the pending Distribution System Plan ARM.
  • Cost control and execution: O&M savings added ~$0.06 to EPS vs Q3’24; non-GAAP EPS of $1.00 excludes $0.06 of business transformation and optimization costs as PGE executes its affordability program.

• What Went Wrong

  • Revenue miss vs Street: $952M vs $984M consensus* (≈−3.2%); power cost normalization and mix offset higher volumes (net variable power costs were a headwind in the bridge) [functions.GetEstimates]*.
  • Higher depreciation/interest from rate base growth: D&A and financing reduced EPS by ~$0.23 vs Q3’24 as capital plan scales.
  • Lower PTC benefits lifted tax expense YoY, partially offsetting operational gains (press release notes lower production tax credits).

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Portland General Electric Company's third-quarter 2025 earnings results conference call. Today is Friday, October 31, 2025. This call is being recorded, and as such, all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer period. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the numbers one-one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star one-one again. If you do intend to ask a question, please avoid the use of speakerphones. For opening remarks, I will turn the conference over to Portland General Electric's Manager of Investor Relations, Nick White. Please go ahead, sir.

Nick White (IR Manager)

Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that we have prepared a presentation to supplement our discussion, which we will be referencing throughout the call. The slides are available on our website at investors.portlandgeneral.com. Referring to slide two, some of our remarks this morning will constitute forward-looking statements. We caution you that such statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from our expectations. For a description of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, please refer to our earnings press release and our most recent periodic reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, which are available on our website. Turning to slide three, leading our discussion today are Maria Pope, President and CEO, and Joe Trpik, Senior Vice President of Finance and CFO.

Following their prepared remarks, we will open the line for your questions. Now, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Maria.

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today. We delivered another strong quarter in Q3, and we maintain our laser focus on execution, driving value, and advancing our five strategic priorities. Starting on slide four. First, investing in customer-driven clean energy goals. Second, working to keep customer prices as low as possible. Third, supporting data center and high-tech growth in the region's economic development. Fourth, reducing risk through operational execution, system hardening, and wildfire policies, and fifth, promoting an investable energy future. Our industry and Portland General Electric are seeing tremendous growth. Since 2019, high-tech manufacturing and infrastructure investments have resulted in over 8% industrial growth, which is expected to only increase, driving our overall load growth of 3% through the end of the decade. Portland General Electric's customers and our region remain focused on clean energy.

We are also focused on affordability as we work to keep our cost structure flat and customer prices as low as possible, in turn providing stable, competitive returns to shareholders. I'll cover the progress we've made in each of these five priorities before highlighting this quarter's results. Clean energy. Given the dynamic policy and market environment for clean energy, our state and company are accelerating to meet the moment. Earlier this month, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek issued an executive order aimed at accelerating renewable energy development before federal tax credits expire, an important step that supports continued progress toward the state's goals. This dovetails with the multi-pronged procurement strategy PGE deployed in July to maximize the approximate 30% federal tax credits that directly lowers costs for customers.

As part of the 2023 RFP, we undertook a price refresh to capture the impacts of the One Big Beautiful Bill and trade tariffs, which culminated in an updated shortlist filed with the Commission earlier this month. The shortlist reflects a rigorous least-cost, least-risk approach designed to yield reliable, affordable outcomes on timelines responsive to evolving legislative requirements. In parallel, we sought community-based renewable energy and bilateral PPAs for energy and capacity, which are yielding additional projects. Finally, we took a critical step forward in the 2025 RFP, which also launched in July. All bids have been received, and we are now evaluating projects and building towards contract execution in 2026. Every element of our strategy prioritizes reliable delivery of energy to customers while maximizing the window of federal clean energy tax credits.

To date, we have secured over $1 billion of PTCs and ITCs for our own clean energy portfolio, and we estimate as much as another $1 billion from long-term third-party energy contracts. This is just one part of our approach that enables clean energy affordability, allowing our customers to receive the full benefit of high-value clean energy resources at the lowest cost possible. The customer affordability commitment, our multi-year management program, continues to deliver great results. This work touches every corner of our company as we focus on safe, reliable service while keeping customer prices as low as possible. Joe will cover more about our progress in detail shortly. We continue to see significant load growth, with total load of over 5% compared to the same quarter last year.

Our industrial customers, led again by data centers and semiconductor manufacturers, grew their energy usage by over 13% as these customers expand their existing facilities and develop new sites. This builds upon over a decade of high-tech manufacturing and infrastructure expansion in the region. We're continuing to plan and execute alongside our customers as they scale and ramp their operations. The passage of Oregon's data center legislation, which will be implemented through regulatory proceedings concluding next March, provides rate-making clarity, improved cost allocation, and importantly, margin expansion from PGE's fastest-growing industrial customers. Building on this supportive policy, we're investing in new transmission and utilizing a combination of system upgrades. These include dynamic line ratings, AI data analytics, and customer-sided solutions to maximize new investments and leverage existing infrastructure.

PGE recently completed a project with AI startup GridCARE that leverages flexibility in data center usage, applying generative AI forecasting to unlock additional system capacity. We also achieved a first-of-its-kind solution alongside distributed storage provider Calibrant Energy and digital infrastructure provider Align Data Centers. The agreement will deliver a battery system to Align's campus, enabling the facility to come online and scale operations years earlier than previously expected. High-tech manufacturing and digital infrastructure are important contributors to the strength of Oregon's economy. I'd like to reiterate that for Portland General Electric, this load growth isn't theoretical. For years, we have been meeting this significant and growing customer energy usage quarter over quarter. Today, we're working with regulators and parties to ensure that costs are fairly allocated across customer groups. Industrial growth is helping us spread fixed costs of our system across a larger base, support affordability for all customers.

Risk management. Wildfire season has officially ended in our service area. Our comprehensive year-round mitigation programs continue as we work to deliver results, hardening the system, enhancing situational awareness, and deploying technology to protect our communities and improve reliability. We recognize that more is needed to address the collective risk presented by wildfires and extreme weather. We remain committed to working with policymakers to find meaningful answers to these complex issues. Wildfire risk is a societal-wide problem, and we are working on operational, legislative, regulatory, and other outcomes to deliver societal-wide solutions. An investable energy future. Lastly, an update on our regulatory proceedings and proposed update to our corporate structure. Last week, we received the order on the Seaside Alternative Recovery Mechanism for the largest standalone battery on our system.

The order represents a constructive outcome and was supported by the memorandum of understanding reached with the parties back in the spring. This is an important step forward in our ongoing cooperation with the regulatory stakeholders. We appreciate the careful consideration of the Commission and the collaboration with staff and interveners. The Distributed System Plan arm remains on track, and we continue to expect resolution in the first part of next year. The proceedings for PGE's proposed creation of a holding company and transmission company are also progressing as expected. The docket now includes a procedural schedule with a target date of June 2026. The proposed holding company update aligns PGE's corporate structure to industry standards. Both the holding company and the transmission company enable improved financing flexibility that will yield benefits for customers and shareholders.

We look forward to continued engagement with stakeholders to reach outcomes that encourage investment in Oregon and advance our customers' and state's long-term goals. I'll now turn to slide five for our financial results. For the third quarter, we reported GAAP net income of $103 million, or $0.94 per diluted share. On a non-GAAP basis, net income was $110 million, or $1.00 per share. This compares to third quarter 2024 GAAP net income of $94 million, or $0.90 per diluted share. Similar to Q2, our non-GAAP results exclude business transformation and optimization expenses from the customer affordability commitment and updates to our corporate structure. Results this quarter underscore the mission of our company and my commitment to executing with discipline, advancing our strategy, and delivering value to customers, communities, and shareholders.

Our team is laser-focused on execution and results, finishing 2025 strong and building off our momentum of our continued success in the years ahead. With that, I'll turn it over to Joe. Joe.

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

Thank you, Maria, and good morning, everyone. Q3 was another solid quarter and reflects the strength of our strategy. We are serving significant demand growth and executing our cost management program with discipline and focus. Turning to slide six, total load increased 5.5% overall and 7.3% weather-adjusted compared to Q3 2024. Residential load increased 2.2% quarter over quarter but increased 6.7% weather-adjusted. Residential customer count increased by 1.2%. Commercial load increased 1.3% overall, or 1.9% weather-adjusted. Industrial load again saw significant growth, with Q3 demand increasing 13%, or 13.2% weather-adjusted, led again by our diverse group of data center and high-tech customers. Given our robust load growth we've observed in our forecast for the Q4 demand, we are updating our weather-adjusted 2025 load growth guidance to 3.5% to 4.5%. Now I'll cover our quarter-over-quarter earnings drivers.

We experienced a $0.44 increase in total revenues driven by a $0.16 increase from our 5.5% demand growth and a $0.28 increase due to our higher average price of deliveries from improved recovery. A decrease from power cost of $0.24 driven by a $0.38 from favorable power cost in 2024 that reversed for this comparison, and a $0.14 benefit from the cost-to-serve load in Q3 2025 driven by stable market pricing and power cost recovery timing. A $0.06 EPS increase from lower operation and maintenance expenses driven by our continued benefits from our cost management work as our teams drive efficiencies and realize savings across our business. A $0.23 decrease from impacts in support of our ongoing rate-based investments and execution of our financing plan made up of $0.14 of depreciation and amortization, $0.05 of dilution, and $0.04 of interest expense.

A $0.07 increase from other items, including a $0.11 increase from our prior year deferral reserve that did not recur, and $0.04 of various miscellaneous items. Lastly, a $0.06 decrease from business transformation and optimization expenses bringing our GAAP EPS of $0.94 per diluted share. After adjusting for this impact, we reach our Q3 2025 non-GAAP EPS of $1.00 per diluted share. Turning to slide seven for our capital forecast, our plan continues to focus on expanding our transmission capabilities, optimizing our distribution system, and maintaining a reliable generation fleet. As Maria highlighted, the 2023 RFP continues to advance towards resolution, and we are pleased with the over 1 gigawatt of solar and battery projects on the updated final shortlist. We have requested OPUC acknowledgment in the fourth quarter, and we continue to expect the projects will be in service by the end of 2027.

We will update our CapEx plan for the incoming 2023 RFP projects as those negotiations finalize and contracts are executed in the coming months. Overall, these projects bolster our rate-based growth trajectory as we serve the significant demand we're experiencing and support Oregon's clean energy goals. Onto slide eight for our liquidity and financing summary. Total liquidity at the end of Q3 was just over $1 billion. Our investment-grade credit ratings and outlook remain stable since the last quarter. We continue to see strength in our cash flow metrics, including a trailing 12-month CFO-to-debt metric of above 20%. For financing during the quarter, we completed our ATM pricing activity for 2025 in support of our base equity need for the year. In August, we drew $49 million, and earlier this month, drew an additional $72 million, both for rate-based investment and general corporate purposes.

We now have $137 million of equity priced but not drawn under our ATM, which satisfies our needs through the end of the year. We will carefully assess our equity needs for the 2023 RFP projects as negotiations proceed and will provide financing clarity in tandem with our final CapEx expectations. We are also continuing to work closely with key stakeholders on the proposed holding company formation aimed at creating important flexibility as we seek the most efficient financing options for our customers and shareholders. This structure can help reduce costs and create optionality in how we fund critical grid investments with the potential to displace future equity needs for both base and RFP CapEx. As we look back at our progress over the last three months, or three quarters, and turn to Q4, we are proud of our results and discipline execution.

We are optimizing our business while advancing important regulatory items, all while remaining laser-focused on serving the growth in our area and delivering value to our customers and shareholders. In Q4, we expect the continued impacts of load growth, moderately favorable power cost, CapEx-supported financing, and benefits from our cost management work. Given our results through Q3 and line of sight to Q4, our plan remains on course. We are reaffirming our 2025 adjusted earnings guidance of $3.13 to $3.33 per diluted share. Our progress in 2025, underpinned by our rate-based investment pipeline, sustained confidence in our service territory, and sharpened operational performance, has also solidified our long-term expectations. Therefore, we are reaffirming our long-term EPS and dividend growth guidance of 5% to 7% and our long-term growth guidance of 3% through 2029.

As we look to the balance of the year and beyond, we are excited to continue delivering on our strategic plan: safe, reliable, and efficient service, advancing the priorities of our companies, communities, and region, and maximizing value for our customers, communities, and shareholders. Now, Operator, we are ready for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. The first question will come from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

Good morning, Julien Dumoulin-Smith.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Research Analyst)

Good morning, team. Good morning, Maria. Thank you, guys, for the time. I appreciate it. Let me just start off on this energy deliveries trend here. I mean, 3.5%-4.5%, that's a solid trend for full year. Obviously, we've seen some gyrations over the years, but given what you're describing here, data center-centric driven, how does that impact or revise any kind of longer-term thoughts? What are you seeing on this front? Clearly, adjacent states also seeing kind of positive revisions as well.

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

Thank you. Julian, yes, we've been very fortunate to have both robust and diverse semiconductor manufacturing in this region and a growing number of data centers. Most of the data center forecasts that we have are folks that already have built out their facilities, as well as those who are turning dirt and have existing sites. Our pipeline is really solid and reaffirms that we're confident in our 3% long-term growth.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Research Analyst)

Got it. Okay. No gyrations yet. Understood. Maybe if I can come back to the holdco outcome, how do you see that progressing here? I mean, any updated thoughts on this front in as much as that could impact, obviously, Joe, the financing strategy as you think about heading into 2026 and being a month out? Separately, just any feedback in that process, etc. Obviously, it's a big deal as you think about 2026 priorities.

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

Sure. Let me take the holdco timing and what we're seeing from our parties, and then Joe can talk a little bit more about financing. We're getting lots of questions on the transmission company in particular. Discussions around what's jurisdictional to the OPUC versus what's jurisdictional to FERC. I think it will take us a while to work through all of these questions, but we are getting very few questions with regards to the holding company. This may give us a window of opportunity to separate the filings, probably maybe extending the transmission company filing a little bit and pulling in the holding company filing. I would note that our filing is very similar to others in the region, and Northwest Natural, a little while ago, was able to conclude their holding company filing earlier than the statutory allotted time.

Joe, do you want to talk a little bit about financing because this provides us with some opportunities?

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

Yeah. Julien, good morning. As it relates to the holding company, we anticipate, understanding the filings proceeding, that we will operate the holding company and use it as financing very consistent with how virtually all the other utilities in our sector have been operating that holding company. Under the right scenarios, we agree we will have the ability to displace certain equity needs. Currently, we have strong financing metrics. I mentioned that we're above CFO. Our metric on CFO today is above 20%. We'll be thoughtful as we work towards the RFP outcomes and the holding company project or process matures, as Maria mentioned, to really align that to our financing plans as we have more clarity.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Research Analyst)

Excellent. Thank you guys very much. Appreciate it. Just quickly, lastly, on the refresh and the 2025 RFP, obviously ongoing in parallel here, what's the scale and scope? I mean, the refresh seems to be fairly similar in opportunity set for you guys, but you've got these things in parallel. I mean, could we see an acceleration, or how do you think about the timing given the way that this has all kind of been backed up, if you will, as you think about forward-looking CapEx ultimately translating?

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

First of all, I just want to remind us of why we're doing this. With the one big beautiful bill, we continue to have investment tax credits and production tax credits that have been very important to reducing the overall cost of clean energy and battery storage on our system. As I noted, between our projects as well as third-party contracts, it's about $2 billion of roughly what we can estimate a benefit that we've brought back to this region. We're refreshing the 2023 RFP. As you noticed, there's a lot of tariff issues. We have a PPA-focused RFP as well as the 2025 RFP. Joe, any more you want to talk about in terms of timing of when we can see resolution?

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

Julien, I think really what you get to, you sort of talked to size here of the two RFPs. Obviously, this RFP, the 2023 we mentioned, has just over a gigawatt of power between the solar and the batteries. We use as a foundation for this RFP and the 2025 RFP that we're accelerating the IRP action plan that was filed that last updated at midpoint would say overall we need 4,000 MW before the end of the decade. Understanding you have to back out. This 2023 RFP result and some PPAs. I mean, you would expect that as you work to the next RFP, both in size and the timing, hopefully to accelerate, you could see something of a need of 2,000 MW, something maybe even a plus there. We'll have to see.

There's a lot of factors to that, again, what other PPAs get entered into, how demand moves, how the clean energy policy and plans evolve. It would expect to be a more meaningful and robust RFP than the one that we have currently that we're working to contract.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Research Analyst)

All right, guys. I'll leave it there. Thank you so much. Have a nice weekend.

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

Thank you, Julien.

Operator (participant)

The next question will come from Sophie Karp with KBCM. Your line is open.

Sophie Karp (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my question. A couple of things. Is there a scenario where you get your holding company but not the transmission company? Just given that you're saying that questions seem to be concentrated on the transmission company side?

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

Good morning, Sophie. As it relates to that, and I think it's more a matter of timing, is there a scenario where the holdco and the transco approval process gets separated and the holdco occurs more promptly? I think the answer is yes. Under the right circumstances, we could see that occur. We would anticipate over time that ultimately both are approved, but could see a longer path on the transco. Just as we relate to our finance, each is a very different financing functionality. For us, the holdco, we think, drives more value both for the customers and shareholders more currently, and the transco does have a little more time. Therefore, it's okay to have a little more time to evolve.

Sophie Karp (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

That is super helpful. Just the most strategic question on the transmission, right? It kind of gets those tails into the transmission company conversation. What would it take for you to direct CapEx and your efforts away from generation RFPs and more into transmission? Is there a case to be made that this is a better approach for growth, right, just given recovery mechanisms or demand, a variety of factors that you may consider?

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

Currently, as you can see in our plan, we have $1.8 billion in transmission spend, including 2025. I do think we have a relatively balanced growth to your question, if there would be a reason to shift more towards that transmission. If that really facilitated the needs of our customers and the clean energy plan and also drove to affordability, that could be a case where we would drive more to transmission. Right now, we are driving to serve the overall needs of our customer, which has really been a balanced transmission and generation approach.

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

Long-term, and as well as in the past, what we have found is that it's really important to have a robust competitive environment for generation build. We need to continue to move forward to drive customer prices as absolutely low as possible.

Sophie Karp (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Sounds good. Thank you.

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

Thanks, Sophie.

Operator (participant)

The next question will come from Gregg Orrill with UBS. Your line is open.

Gregg Orrill (Executive Director and Equity Analyst)

Thank you.

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

Good morning, Gregg.

Gregg Orrill (Executive Director and Equity Analyst)

For questions on the year-to-date, on the financing plan, just what are your assumptions within the growth rate guidance as it relates to your commitments around RFPs and assumptions around tax credit monetization versus equity? How do you think about that?

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

Sure. As it relates to the financing plan, this is. We assume a 50/50 financing structure on the RFPs currently, and that is net of tax credit monetization, which has historically been at this 30% credit. This year alone, we've monetized about $150 million of tax credits to offset our financing needs. To your comment, our historical—I apologize for using another 50%, right?—our outcome on RFPs has historically been at about a 50% of the overall projects.

Gregg Orrill (Executive Director and Equity Analyst)

Okay. Maybe another question as well. What are your thoughts around the extension of the reliability contingency event framework, and how's that proceeding?

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

Currently, within the PCAM filing, we are having discussions on the RCE. The reliability contingency event we feel has been a pretty consistent and effective tool to date. We continue to focus and dialogue with them. Would we like something like that to proceed to further align the energy cost? Yes, because it helps support our overall approach to a more efficient pricing of energy. That's an open dialogue right now. I don't know that I really want to handicap it. I know that it's more of a broader discussion on how to address energy costs here. I will just say it is a nice tool. It works effectively for us now, and we'll continue to work towards it as modern and effective an energy recovery mechanism as we can with our regulator.

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

Greg, let me add a little bit to that. The events that we saw in January of 2024 were also impacting other utilities in the region, and we saw similar issues across the entire Pacific Northwest and West Coast in terms of energy markets. We're pretty similar in terms of the impact of those storms to other utilities. Longer term, we are working towards joining the energy day-ahead market with the California Independent System Operator. We're expected to go live with that in October of next year. That will very much change our overall energy procurement. I'm not so sure that the PCAM mechanism with the RCE will be the best going forward. We're going to need to align the state's policies to the broader market as we are doing more scheduling of energy and optimization versus energy management and purchases.

Gregg Orrill (Executive Director and Equity Analyst)

Thank you. Thank you for the caller.

Operator (participant)

The next question will come from Shar Pourreza with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

Morning, Shar.

Constantin Gonciulea (Analyst)

Hi. Good morning. Good morning, team. It's actually Constantin here for Shar. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe just a little bit of cleanup. Just with the kind of quarter-up 5% load growth and the full-year step-up, is that significant enough to incorporate into financial plans? What's the threshold for some of this higher load growth to start making more impact within the base financial plan?

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

Good morning, Constantin. Yeah. As it relates to the load growth, to your question of how does it drive more to the plan, it'll be as we clarify and get the tariff as it relates to margin. Right now, the new data center tariff is on the regulatory side to get drawn out. Being able to take advantage of that growth at a more balanced margin will do two things. One, it will balance out the cost to our residential and other customers. Two, also to the extent you see this growth, it will incrementally drive further value. For us, we're a bit in a wait and see. We expect that tariff. We'll get that tariff when we get that tariff. That will be a nice measure point to be able to capture some value. I believe that's scheduled for March.

Constantin Gonciulea (Analyst)

Okay, that's kind of when you would start incorporating some of that into the forward-looking financial plans?

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

I think that's the place where you'd start to be able to identify to the extent that you continue to see that growth, you would start pricing that growth a little bit differently, and you'd be able to start to determine if there's incremental value there.

Constantin Gonciulea (Analyst)

Okay. Perfect.

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

Because you'll have a clear cost structure.

Constantin Gonciulea (Analyst)

Just one follow-up on the 2025 RFP process. You noted that there's some lessons learned being incorporated there. Given the cyclical nature of the RFP process and generation needs, is there any changes in the framework that we should be thinking in terms of long-term assumptions, like volumes, ownerships, just in light of the 2023 outcomes?

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

I don't think as it relates to the ownership and anything like that, no. I mean, we continue to work with the Commission on a multi-pronged approach here. I do think the key message, if you ask me right now, what is it for 2025? It is we've accelerated the process, right? The change this time is instead of having a consecutive RFP process, we have a concurrent process that is looking to optimize the credits that are out there. That's part of this design. We will continually work to balance the procurement both between ownership and PPAs. For right now, the main change is to drive as much of the benefit as we can tax credit-wise out of these projects. That can either lead to the acceleration of projects from what is the requested date within the RFP.

Other than that, I don't think we'll see any other changes other than to continue to just work with all the constituents to continue to align to the market.

Constantin Gonciulea (Analyst)

Excellent. Perfect. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question will come from Paul Fremont with Ladenburg. Your line is open.

Paul Fremont (Managing)

Thank you very much. You gave sort of $150 million of tax credit for 2025, and I think you've talked about sort of $2 billion. Can you give us sort of an annual estimate of what tax credits you expect to realize?

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

What we're really looking at is anywhere from 30% upward of renewable energy projects, battery storage. We will continue to focus on maximizing all available ITCs and PTCs. We make a determination on which one based on the net present value. Batteries and solar tends to lean a little bit more towards ITCs, and wind tends to lean a little bit more towards PTCs. This is an important way that we're bringing federal dollars back to reducing customer prices for renewable energy and creating investment opportunities with the state of Oregon and regionally.

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

Paul, just to add that, there is a bit of a cyclicality as we have these cash flows. As we have these projects, the ITCs will come through for the RFP. Obviously, what we are talking about here, and you're seeing the cash flows this year, are both the remaining ITCs that came from the Constable project last year and then the ITCs from the Seaside project this year. On an annualized basis, the foundation that we come from is the PTCs as related to our wind projects, call that around $50 million a year. The cyclicality would be the ITCs that come from RFP projects, at least. That's currently the way cash flows.

Paul Fremont (Managing)

With respect to wildfire, action by the legislature last year, I think there was a proposal that would have created a fund of $800 million. Is that an amount that you would feel is adequate, and is that what you would like to see the legislature do to create sort of a wildfire fund of $800 million? What other action would you hope for out of the legislature?

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

Sure. We're still actively engaged with legislators and stakeholders across the state and the region. This isn't just a legislative strategy. It's also a regulatory strategy as well. This next coming year, we have a short session. It's just about five weeks. There are a number of statewide priorities, meaning that we could see more results out of the legislature in 2027 versus 2026. On the regulatory side, we continue to work with regulators and staff on solutions. First of all, starting with all of the work we do operationally to reduce wildfire risk. That's all detailed in our wildfire plan, and obviously, the recovery associated with that, as well as standard of care, and then also mechanisms for self-insurance and other sorts of things.

Paul Fremont (Managing)

Great. Last question for this year, can you give a sense of whether you are expecting to experience any regulatory lag in terms of earning your authorized ROE? If there is lag, how many basis points would you expect that to be this year?

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

Using our sort of approach this year with the Seaside battery approach as well as the cost management, we've tried to put some downward pressure to squeeze that lag. We believe we're down to something around 70 basis points or less that we expect to see here and into the future as we balance a selection of regulatory filings and cost management.

Paul Fremont (Managing)

I'm sorry. You said 3 basis points?

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

No, I said 70 basis points.

Paul Fremont (Managing)

70 basis points. I'm sorry. Okay.

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

Yes. Just as a reminder, that is a compression from what we had experienced historically.

Paul Fremont (Managing)

Right. You would expect then to achieve on a go-forward basis sort of a maintenance of that level, that 70 basis points go forward?

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

Yeah. We expect to do that. We expect to continue to apply downward pressure on that as it relates to our cost management work as it continues to mature. We expect to see at least somewhat of a little bit more compression there as we execute and get fully into the cost management program in 2026.

Paul Fremont (Managing)

That could be, in other words, that could be diminished, let's say, to what level?

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

We haven't disclosed to what that level is. I mean, the way we look at it is a balance too. Where we think to next year using the DSP as our regulatory approach as well as the cost management and others. We sort of think of it as a basket of items to help us continue to drive within our earnings range. It is a goal of ours to just be as tight as we can.

Paul Fremont (Managing)

Thank you very much. That's it for me.

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question will come from George Sanoulis with Mizuho. Your line is open.

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

Morning, George.

George Sanoulis (Equity Research Associate)

Thanks for taking my question. Morning. I know the DSP was filed in July, but I'm just wondering if you had any preliminary discussions with parties ahead of that filing. Given the Seaside proceeding resulted in a balanced outcome, do you think we could see that in the Distributed System Plan proceeding?

Joe Trpik (SVP of Finance and CFO)

Good morning, George. As it relates to the DSP consistent with the Seaside filing, we did have an MOU. We do have an MOU in place with them. The MOU does govern the DSP as well. POV, just as a reminder, the reason we took the approach with the DSP here was really to drive clarity for parties, right? The DSP is a filed and accepted docket that lays out sort of our action plans for the distribution. We felt that you get to the clarity to say we'll have a case that focuses on projects that are agreed to have benefits for the customers.

Using that and then looking to Seaside, the Seaside, we felt that the MOU really and having an MOU and spending the time before really allowed us to have a focused dialogue and have a constructive dialogue and outcome when we look to both the testimony and some of the intervenor interwork. We would expect that to continue here with the DSP.

George Sanoulis (Equity Research Associate)

Great. Thank you for the clarity. Can you talk a little bit about how you plan to utilize GridCARE, what initial tests you've done or you plan to do, and when you expect to see measurable impacts to unlock additional system capacity?

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

Sure. First of all, we're really excited about the opportunity that we've seen with our partnership with GridCARE. It comes out of the work that we've done with other startups and innovative companies out of Silicon Valley and Stanford School of Engineering. The program essentially takes an enormous amount of data, AI analytics. It actually takes compute that exceeds most capabilities and for which we actually went to Stanford to do the work. Right now, we have about 80 MW unlocked, but that's just in a pretty narrow portion of our system. We would expect to advance. I would also say it's not just the AI analytics. It's also the dynamic line ratings, which gives us much more information on temperature and wind speeds that can unlock additional capacity.

Having battery storage in different places across our service territory further enhances the work that we're able to do to get the maximum amount of capacity out of existing and new transmission infrastructure.

George Sanoulis (Equity Research Associate)

Great. I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

I show no further questions in the queue at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Maria for closing remarks.

Maria Pope (President and CEO)

Thank you. Thank you all for joining us today. We appreciate your interest in Portland General, and we hope to connect with you soon. In particular, I assume that we will see many of you at EEI shortly in Florida. Thank you very much. Have a great day and a nice weekend.

Operator (participant)

This does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.