We put out estimates as part of our various workshops with the commission what the rate impacts will be. Now, our estimates of rate impacts were through 2024 and then–you know, December, we’re through 2026 because it was a five-year plan, but in general we’ve always described that we’re targeting rate increases at our–in line with or below the annual rate of inflation. Now, it’s been five years since the last rate case, so it’s going to be a cumulative increase, but our stakeholder well understand that that will be reflecting our cumulative investments over that time frame. Given the very high inflation in 2022, we’re obviously optimistic we’ll be able to be under–well under inflation, given how high it was broadly . We’ve been able to describe our investment plans as well as our cost reduction programs in a lot of detail, so it’s not going to be a lot of surprises because we had those workshops about our capital plans in 2020 and through May of ’21, and then again in December of last year, so.
They will still be lively cases – they always are, it’s the first one in five years, but we do think it’s pretty straightforward, focused on reviewing our investments, the categories I mentioned, and the cost savings that we’ve delivered, and there will be the usual discussion around ROE of course and elements like that. Hopefully that covers the question, Shahriar.
Shahriar Pourreza: No, it does, it does. That’s helpful, thank you for that. I want to just slightly tweak the prior caller’s question here. It’s good to see the capex roll to ’27, but I’m just thinking about even directionally, the profile of the EPS growth beyond the ’25 guide. The latest capex gets you to around 6% implied rate base growth. Is there more to squeeze on the O&M side or is more dependent on the Kansas case and the IRP update? I guess put differently, what are the drivers that would push you in and out of your current 6% to 8% guide as we look ahead?
David Campbell: It’s a great question, Shahriar, and we’re not introducing 2026 or beyond guidance today, as you know, but the drivers are, as you know, over time we’re going to be really related to rate based growth, how we fund that, and we’ve got a strong balance sheet to support our investments, and of course our ongoing cost savings. Now we’ve consistently, really since the STP was first introduced, have laid out cost targets consistent with what we’ve shown through 2025. We think that we’ve got a good system and our employees do a terrific job driving efficiency in our business. The kind of step function changes in costs that we have are not going to be sustainable over the long term, but annual productivity gains and seeking to drive those are certainly going to be important.
As you noted, it’s going to be rate base growth, how we fund it and the O&M cost savings. We’re going to update our IRP this year, that’s going to have some impacts on our plans with respect to renewables. As I mentioned, the southwest power pool is getting tighter both because of incremental demand but also because of a change in how reserve margins are calculated and an increase in reserve margin requirements, so capacity needs are higher. Demand trends have been strong, we’ll start seeing impacts from electrification as well as we get to the latter part of the decade, so a lot of moving parts but, like other utilities, a lot of it comes down the fundamental drivers of rate base growth, demand growth, how you fund it, and O&M. We feel good about those drivers in our service territory and we look forward to providing the update once we’ve gotten through the IRP update, as well as our rate cases.
