Maria Pope: Richard, one of the things as you look at our external statements, I think it’s important that we acknowledge that there’s a couple of things going on. The first is you can see the amortization of deferrals from the, ice storm, wildfire events, prior PCAM years and other things are increasing that O&M line. But so our ongoing wildfire prevention work, all of the mitigation we do, the interaction we do with the US Forest Service and Local Entities, really around vegetation management and others. And through this rate case, there were some really important mechanisms that were put in place. That combined with what Joe was speaking of in terms of the ongoing alignment, reduction in our costs, quite frankly, just driving efficiencies, using technology better.
You can see we’ve had plant availability most recently at the 96 percentile, what rate and our first data rate was just 1.7%. That was a huge contributor particularly to the third quarter. We can see in our distribution system, work order output is a 12% improvement year-over-year. We’re seeing for customers’ better crew alignment and scheduling restoration priorities. And our duration of impacting events was an improvement of 13% and overall 1.3 million customer minute outages — excuse me, customer outage minutes were saved just from 2022. So there’s a real impact not only to our cost structure and to better operations, but to serving our customers more reliably with power that they come to expect as we’ve seen increasing amounts of extreme events throughout our area.
Richard Sunderland: Understood. That was very helpful color. Maybe zooming out to a high level, and Maria, you brought this up in terms of the wildfire work. But could you speak a little bit to sort of what you’re focused on and what your work with the industry is focused on in terms of wildfires overall. It’s an industry issue. It’s been obviously hugely topical this summer and for prior years. Just curious if there’s anything you can share in terms of where you and EI are focused on this front currently?
Maria Pope : Sure. It’s a good question. And let me turn first to ourselves internally. We have absolutely improved our practices, better use of technology and some truly cutting-edge technologies where we are able to share that access with other parties, whether it be forest agencies and the national the state and the local entities where we’re working in conjunction on vegetation management. The Ag bill that’s working its way through Congress, I think, is a really good example where we’ve — includes timber and debris removal on an expedited basis. We’ve also had permit reform in particular with the U.S. Forest Service, reducing permits from several years down to months and really accelerated our collaboration and our improved practices.
As we look forward at the state level and the federal level, clearly, we need to do more. It’s a high priority across the industry, and as well as with regulators. And so I think you’ll see increased actions coming that really support the ongoing reliability and important service that utilities provide.
Richard Sunderland: Got it. Thank you. And maybe one last one for me. The state and federal work excited around the semiconductor industry. And then your latest IRP update is that all harmonized? Or is there even some elements of this that have emerged that are additive to that outlook as you recently refreshed it?
Maria Pope : So I think the use of the word harmonized is a really interesting term. We are seeing the pace of change. And clearly, the programs that we’ve seen come out of the federal government Department of Energy that supports transmission, better use of a smart grid and our partnerships between tribes, all the way to NVIDIA are really making a difference. But you take a look at the CHIPS Act and then what the State of Oregon has done through the semiconductor task force and the legislatures appropriation of $240 million of matching funds. You can find on the state website the 15 companies that we’ll receive funds ranging from just a couple of million dollars to $115 million. Those projects, some of which are included in our forecast, but the majority are not.
And if you look at that list, about 85% of those projects are actually in the Portland General Electric service territory. So for the next decade, it is a tremendous opportunity for the company for the region and is also combined with a pretty extensive workforce support and investments in our universities really focusing in on an important reshoring of our technical strength as a country. And just as a reminder, 15% semiconductor manufacturing is in this region. So it’s a real strength for our state and for the company.
Richard Sunderland: Great. Thank you very much for the time today.
Maria Pope: Thank you.
Joe Trpik: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith of Bank of America.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Hey, good morning, team.
Maria Pope: Hey, Julien.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Hey, thank you guys. Appreciate it. Perhaps let’s pick up on that last question there quickly. How do you think about tying the sort of the timeline between having a more normalized 2% here in the current year to getting up to some of the higher level that you talked about earlier, just a moment ago with some of the benefits from the CHIPS Act and at the same time still having that 2% long-term. I mean, sort of how do you see the profile of that sales growth and the confidence for I think previously when we connected some really strong commentary around customer growth, sustaining itself in addition to sales whether just sales growth, sustaining itself here in the medium term? I don’t want to put words in your mouth.
Maria Pope: Yeah. No, no, it’s interesting. We look at it as building blocks and I think there’s rarely been a period of time of so much change and opportunity. So first of all, we’re a state and a region that has benefited from immigration, and while that has paused, most recently, we continue to see really strong blocking and tackling economic growth across our service territory. What we also are seeing is increased data centers and the continued digital expansion. One of the things that’s important about that is that many of those facilities are built, but not yet built out. And so the infrastructure is there, and you’ll see the capacity built out over the coming months and quarters. And then finally, the longer term and really significant opportunities comes in the manufacturing side of things.
And this is everyone from silicon manufacturers all the way down to semiconductor manufacturers to those who are really helping with the tools and cutting-edge development like Lam research or metro graphics or others. And there’s quite a bit of opportunity that some of which we can see today and are already serving, and much of which will come out over the number of quarters, years, and actually even through the decade. It’s truly game changing for the state as well as for us as a utility to be able to serve such growth.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith: Yeah. Maybe just to clarify that. You’re not pulling back on any of your earlier confidence in light of the 2023?
Maria Pope: No. We aligned our 2023 number really with our long-term guidance of 2%. I think it’s a — we feel very confident in the 2% number and I think my comments underlie optimism for even higher growth than that.
