New Jersey Resources Corporation (NYSE:NJR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Steve Westhoven: Yes. Certainly, it’s a positive impact, right, but we’ve got to wait for how exactly it’s going to be implemented. We said during the call there that we’ve embedded a 30% ITC, but there’s certainly upside again, on the way it’s described, but we’ve got to wait for implementation to city, how that’s going to play out. Also, there’s subsidies in the IRA for hydrogen development as well, which is positive for our business. We’ve talked about the carbonized fuel delivery at the utilities for quite some time with our hydrogen plant, bringing those costs down or productive. There’s subsidies for battery storage. So all these things are trending very positively for our business and specifically how it aligns with our strategy, but we’ve got to wait for those details to really come through to put those into a presentation or put some numbers to them.

Roberto Bel: But maybe just from a financial perspective, all we have in our numbers right now is the assumptions that ITC will go to 30%. In the others, we may get on top of that of our new projects will be incremental.

Richard Sunderland: Understood. That’s very clear. And sticking with CEV here, if you look at the CapEx relative to your 2020 Analyst Day plan, you’re still certainly spread. I know you spoke just a minute ago about New Jersey and PJM and some of the timing there. But I guess, at a high level, thinking about your post-2024 growth, when do you need those 2 plans to start converging, I guess? When do you need CEV’s development return to that kind of initially contemplated run rate?

Steve Westhoven: So the way I’d answer that question is that we reaffirmed our 7% to 9% growth rate this morning. So we’ve got a strong portfolio of businesses, we’re able to make investments and we feel confident that we’ll be able to do so. We’re in a good position, and we’ve got a lot of tailwinds associated with IRA and other things that are taking place. So not to get into specific CapEx numbers in 2025, which we certainly don’t project out that far. But generally speaking, in our planning, we feel confident that we’ll be able to hit our numbers.

Richard Sunderland: Fair enough. And then if I could slip one more in here. On the NJNG side, you’ve spoken a little bit about the R&D efforts in the past. Just curious what’s in the plan right now and how this might change going forward.

Steve Westhoven: So I’ve got Pat Migliaccio here. He’s a blast from the past coming back to the investor call. So I’m going to turn it over to Pat as COO of the utility. Pat?

Pat Migliaccio: So pursuing opportunities on both the RNG supply and the investment side, and we’ve reflected some modest assumptions in our capital plan for both ’23 and ’24.

Richard Sunderland: And any sense on if there might be an acceleration there? Any potential on that over, say, the next 12 months?

Pat Migliaccio: Whether and if we have no information, we’ll update you at that time ago.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Bank of America.

Sam Schwartz: This is Sam Schwartz on for Julien. I was wondering if you could just kind of walk us through the latest you’re seeing on supply chain availability for your solar projects. Do you have the panels on site that you need to be at ’23 projects? And just broadly speaking, how much of the capital is procured for ’23 and ’24?

Steve Westhoven: So I’ve got Amy Cradic on the call, and she’s the CEO of our nonutility businesses, and she’s going to take that question. Amy?

Amy Cradic: We’re in a good position for the capital projects that we have moving forward from a solar panel perspective. We’re not seeing any — we don’t have any risks or concerns in the near term. we’ll continue to monitor the supply chain situation, but we’re in a good spot.