Michael Moehn: Yes. Hey Nick, it’s Michael here. Good Friday to you. Yes, look, I mean, we obviously reiterated our range of $450 million to $472 million really focused on the mid-point of that range. The team is completely aligned on flexing what we need to flex here from an O&M perspective. We talked about a number of programs. I think the first part of the year that we put in place with respect to some hiring freezes looking at discretionary spending and looking at contractors, travel, all those kinds of things. And again, those programs are fully ramped up at this point and feeling good about it. We have a long history of this. You’ve heard us talk about this. I mean we’ve been doing a number of things really from an automation and technology investment perspective.
We’ve now fully deployed AMI [ph] and we feel we have distribution automation. We’ve done a great deal of stuff from the back office perspective in terms of accounting systems, HR systems, all of those are driving productivity improvements and we’re taking full advantage of. And I was sort of reflecting on the situation and thinking about 2020, that terrible COVID year, we only lost 15% of sales within about a week, and the team came together and really looked for tens of millions of dollars worth of opportunities that will really flex and continue to end up hitting our guidance for that year. I don’t see this as any different. We’ll continue to look for these opportunities. And ultimately, we’re going to make the decisions right for the long-term at the end of the day, but we do have the ability to flex out as we not as needed.
Nick Campanella: That’s really helpful and definitely acknowledge the ability to flex here, especially based on past. One more thing. Just you’re very clear, your 2024 equity needs are basically done outside of internal programs and maybe some DRIP, but just for 2025 and beyond, is $600 million a year still the kind of right number to be thinking about? I think that’s what you guys talked about in the fourth quarter?
Michael Moehn: Yes, yes, that’s correct. That still stands we delivered back there in February.
Nick Campanella: All right. Have a great day. Thanks.
Michael Moehn: Okay. Thanks for the questions.
Operator: Our final question is from David Paz with Wolfe Research. Please proceed with your question.
David Paz: Good morning.
Marty Lyons: Good morning, David.
David Paz: Could you maybe expand on the data center opportunities? I know you mentioned them, mentioning centers along with some other large customers. But just what opportunity are you seeing there, particularly on the investment side, and maybe any sense of the size of the projects that potentially could come down the pipe and just how much would an incremental investment from Ameren for a typical size project? Thank you.
Michael Moehn: Yes. Hey, good morning, David. I’ll start here. And certainly, Marty, I’ll probably chime in as well. But I mean, I think we have a strong value proposition, right, when it comes to serving both data centers and manufacturers. I mean, we’ve talked about this. We start from a really strong position just in terms of where our rates are, both on the Midwest and national average went well below. We presented a number of sites in both states that can ramp up quickly, sewer water transmission capabilities, et cetera. I’ve never seen state local regional leaders work together as they are right now, really trying to come together on a combined effort, offer various incentives to again, this is beyond just data centers, but manufacturers in general in terms of things around state and local we use taxes, development grants for workforce development, et cetera.
We have a number of incentives in place here that are available to customers based on location and size. As we sit here today, Dave, we’ve executed a construction agreement for one data center and it’s got an estimated 250-megawatt lows. That’s sizable for us. We haven’t seen this kind of load growth in a really, really long time. We should be serving that customer by 2026. And I would say, we’re actively working 1,000-plus megawatts beyond that. And so these are all in different stages at this point, they’ll come online differently. But again, I think as we think about the IRP and just adding the renewables and the dispatchable generation that we’ve been adding in the last few years, I mean, this is exactly what we need. And again, all of these projects probably won’t come to fruition, but some of them are really, really moving along nicely.
And beyond data centers, there’s just a tremendous amount happening in the manufacturing side as well. I mean, Boeing is the largest manufacturer here in the state of Missouri, started a $1.8 billion expansion here in Jefferson City is also doing a very large expansion, Illinois Wieland rolled products of $500 million expansion. I mean there are a number of projects here that continue – should continue to add to some significant growth. In terms of what that means from a capital perspective, obviously, it’s a net positive. I think we’re going to continue to step back and assess that. But it’s certainly great to see from an investment standpoint and certainly a customer affordability perspective, right? Because it’s going to make it obviously more affordable for all customers at the end of the day.
David Paz: Great. Thank you for that color. Maybe just sneak a quick one. I think you sounded like your tranche, the Tranche 2 initial concept map suggests that there will be some opportunities in your service areas. Any sense how to compare that to what the initial concept at Tranche 1 looks for you guys? Is it roughly the same in terms of potential dollar either size or dollars?
Marty Lyons: Yes. David, this is Marty. I’ll tell you, well, first of all, the map is encouraging as we shared. And I think if you look at our Slide 11 that we provided, you’ll see substantial proposed additional lines, both in our service territory and in Central Illinois as well as in the Eastern half of Missouri. And so that’s certainly exciting to see. We’re excited that the overall project portfolio was about twice the size of Tranche 1. You – everybody else, I’m sure recalls Tranche show 1 was about a $10 billion portfolio. We ended up having about 25% of that, as we talked about on the call and we were happy to be awarded some directly. We’re very proud to have won all three of the competitive projects that were in our service territory.
So we certainly feel good about the way Tranche 1 turned out. It’s too soon to really say what level of investments would be in our service territory from Tranche 2 for really a couple of reasons. One, I would say that the – while we’re excited about these projects that were in our service territory, as you well know, right now, the MISO is going through a process of getting input from stakeholders regarding these proposed projects. And we do expect that as MISO considers the input from various stakeholders that these project plans will be modified. So it’s premature there, number one. Number two, when MISO put out these Tranche 2, they really didn’t assign while they came up with an overall portfolio investment of $17 billion to $23 billion, it really didn’t put any particular quantification of investment value on any particular substations or lines, et cetera.
So really premature to even say how much these investment opportunities would be that are shown on this map. So for a couple of reasons, I think it’s premature to say how much of this would be in our service territory. And ultimately, how much would be brownfield or greenfield. So – but I think we will start to see iterations of this through time, and we’re excited that MISO seems to be very much targeting an approval of the Tranche 2 portfolio by mid-September. And so – and it should be pretty exciting over the next few months as we see how this unfolds.
David Paz: Great. Thank you.
Marty Lyons: Thanks, David.
Operator: We’ve reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I’d now like to turn the call back over to Marty Lyons for closing comments.
Marty Lyons: Great. Well, hey, I want to thank everybody for joining us today. We invite you to attend our Annual Shareholder Meeting, which is next week on May 9. And then Michael and Andrew, look forward to seeing many of you at the AGA Financial Forum in a couple of weeks. With that, thanks, and have a great day and a great weekend.
