And the team has done a really nice job adapting to a variety of weather conditions extreme weather and ERCOT and actually milder than normal weather in most of the rest of the country. But I think the underlying trends are a function of the creative products and the marketing channels. I’d like Scott to comment on that. So, you get a feel beyond just the numbers of how the team actually executes dynamically to meet customer needs.
Scott Hudson : Yes. Thank you Jim, and thanks for the question. We did see strong margins and growth across all of our customer segments and geographies in the quarter-over-quarter. On the residential side in ERCOT, which is a large concentration of what we do, Jim mentioned, the summer campaigns that we had very successful across six brands we have in the markets across multiple different products, our seasonal discount product, which helps flatten the customer bill with the discount in the summer for the customer is very popular. And then on the retention side, we have an advanced analytics team that actually identifies customers that we give customer credits to. We call them comfort credits and that’s also a way to retain customers in these very extreme summer periods.
That’s a program we’ve had in place for several years, but we continue to refine. On the C&I side, what we see is that really strong margin performance. When there’s volatility in these markets and power costs are up and down, this is really an opportunity for us for really providers at scale that have reliable generation and sophisticated commercial capabilities. So we saw some nice margin expansion both in ERCOT and in the Midwest and Northeast market. So those are just a few examples to give you a flavor, but to Jim’s point, we’re always looking to optimize our customer counts, our margins, our risk capabilities along with the customer experience. And it really is that optimization that allows the business to be consistent and stable.
Jim Burke : And David the thing I would conclude on Scott’s remarks, which we’re spot on with how we think about the business is the customer could be put under a lot of pressure with volatile pricing. With the hedging strategies, which we’ve described before are pretty conservative about the way in which we procure to handle extreme weather. Our goal is to insulate the customer as much as possible from those kinds of bill shocks. That helps franchise value in the long run. It helps the customers sort of get through the seasonal events. But it does take resources to be — to hedge at that level. It takes capital you have to post collateral at times. You have to be a little bit more conservative on how you think about some of your pricing structures.
But I think it pays off in the long run. And that’s why the business not only had a really strong financial quarter they grew accounts in the quarter. Growing accounts in the quarter as being one of the largest market share participants is not an easy thing to do. But if you’re providing that stable value proposition to the customer, the customers do respond well. And I think that’s where we shine better is when we’ve got this kind of volatility that’s when the model I think really differentiates itself.
David Arcaro: Yes. Excellent. Yes, I appreciate that color. And thanks for the clarification on the trajectory into 2024. And could I ask just does the retail contribution as you look into 2025 and the indicative midpoint guidance there? Does it stay flat into that year off of $24 million?
Jim Burke: David, we haven’t put anything out specifically on retail, but we’ve given you a sense of where we see 2025 on a combined entity. But, yes, we see it staying fairly flat. And most of the delta that we’d expect to see if any in 2025 would be more driven by where the generation segment is. We’re highly hedged in 2025, but we have to carry more open there. So you might see a little bit more variation there than we’d expect to see in retail.
David Arcaro: Yes. Got it. Understood. And just to push out even further just any directional thoughts on 2026 how much might be hedged at this point and just directional trend off to 2025?
