Michael Sullivan: Okay. Thank you very much.
Gale Klappa: You’re welcome, Michael. Our next question comes from Durgesh Chopra with Evercore ISI.
Gale Klappa: So, Durgesh, you’re going to sing fly Eagles, fly for us?
Durgesh Chopra: That’ll put you to sleep. I’m not a great singer. But I will be singing after they actually win in a few weeks here. Okay. Thanks, Gale, for giving me time. I was going to ask you a question on the price of Samson 1 versus Maple Flats that you’ve answered. So, that’s good. Maybe just — are you seeing — we’ve heard a lot about transformer shortage and just general material storages. I think you talked about the panels already being in-house. But can you just generally talk about materials, construction materials? And are you seeing some tightness there, specifically issues with transformers or any other equipment?
Gale Klappa: Yes. Great question, Durgesh. Let me say this. A couple of years ago, we actually were in a position where we thought we would be very protective of our customers and our franchise if we did a double order of transformers. And that has served us pretty well. I think everyone is a bit tight. It’s kind of we feel reasonably in good shape with where we stand.
Scott Lauber: We feel like we’re in good shape. We’ve been working with our suppliers every week. Probably the one that’s across the industry is more of those pad-mount transformers. But we’ve been working and we are able to continue with all our construction and our capital work. So, we don’t think there’s any issues, but we’re watching it very closely. Hopefully, things will loosen up here. But the pad-mount transformers along with some meter sets have been probably the tightest things for us, but we’re watching everything.
Gale Klappa: And so far, so good.
Durgesh Chopra: I guess, are you sourced for the balance of the year in €˜24? Is that how we should think about it when you’re talking about the two-year kind of preorder?
Scott Lauber: I think we’re sourced through the year next year. What we did is some of our larger transformers that we need for substations, we went out and did some ordered way ahead of time, just to get into the queue. Those are the transformers that Gale was talking about. So, there’s different sizes of transfers. Those real large ones, we get out there a year ago to put orders out ahead of time.
Gale Klappa: And Durgesh, one of the reasons we did what Scott just described is the large economic development projects that were coming to fruition here. For example, I mean, we’ve talked a lot about but they are up and running and ramping up and Komatsu was finished and is now operating their new headquarters and manufacturing — state-of-the-art manufacturing plant. So a number of the major economic development projects, which we knew would require large transformer sets we prepared for that in advance, which was really good.
Durgesh Chopra: Got it. Guys, thanks so much. I appreciate the time.
Gale Klappa: Go Eagles.
Durgesh Chopra: For sure. Go Eagles.
Operator: We’ll take our next question from Andrew Weisel with Scotiabank.
Andrew Weisel: First question is another one on Samson 1 here. It’s early, but how do you think about the potential to invest in some or all of the next five phases? I mean that alone could be more than half of the five-year budget, or would you prefer to diversify your projects?
Gale Klappa: Well, we’ve really followed a philosophy of diversification. However, you never say never. We will see if the performance on Samson 1 is as we expected, and we’re certainly open to looking at portions of future phases. But we have not made any decision on that whatsoever. It’s certainly a possibility. And I’m confident if we wanted to be a continued partner in any of those future phases, we would have the opportunity to do so. But, we’ll balance that against what we see as the performance in Samson 1 and against our thinking about diversification, both solar, wind and region.
Andrew Weisel: Do we know the timing of when Samson 2 is going to be at that decision point?
Gale Klappa: It’s under construction now, but I don’t have an in-service date, but we know it’s under construction now. So my guess is it’s in the next 12 to 18 months max.
Andrew Weisel: Okay. Great. Next question on a similar front here. The year-over-year EPS walk shows positive $0.10 from PTCs. Are you able to quantify what percent of your total earnings relate to renewable tax credits at the Energy Infrastructure segment?
Gale Klappa: Xia might be able to give you that. I can — we can tell you what the earnings from our renewable investments were. We can start at $0.28, which is what we delivered in terms of the investments in our infrastructure projects. So, you wrap in the PTCs, you wrap in other revenues. And Xia, we got to about $0.28 a share for 2022 from the Infrastructure segment.
Xia Liu: Correct. And we don’t have the breakdown between PTCs and operating revenue, but the majority of the $0.28 million is from PTCs.
Andrew Weisel: Okay. Great. Thanks. Then one last one, if I can. The new battery pilot sounds exciting, but I’m interested in your other science project, the hydrogen blending. You briefly mentioned on the last call that initial results were encouraging. Are you able to give us any additional updates on that project?
Gale Klappa: Yes, they were very encouraging. And within a matter of weeks now, I think before the end of February, the Electric Power Research Institute, which really was the main technical organization helping to drive the project and helping to analyze the project. The Electric Power Research Institute will have a full report available on all the analysis. And we expect that report to be out in the next few weeks. But, again, very encouraged from the standpoint of both the efficiency of what we saw, no degradation of the equipment, and you name it, and it was — as Scott said, the engineers were giddy. And that’s scary actually when the engineers
Scott Lauber: Enjoy the project.
Operator: We’ll take our next question from Anthony Crowdell with Mizuho.
Anthony Crowdell: Good afternoon, Gale.
