Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (NYSE:PNW) Q3 2020 Earnings Conference Call - Final Transcript

Greetings and welcome to the Pinnacle West Capital Corporation 2020 Third Quarter Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host Stefanie Layton, Director of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Christine. I would like to thank everyone for participating in this conference call and webcast to review our third quarter 2020 earnings, recent developments and operating performance. Our speakers today will be our Chairman and CEO, Jeff Guldner; and our CFO, Ted Geisler; Jim Hatfield, Chief Administrative Officer; Daniel Froetscher, APS' President and COO; and Barbara Lockwood, Senior Vice President, Public Policy are also here with us.

First, I need to cover a few details with you. The slides that we will be using are available on our Investor Relations website along with our earnings release and related information. Note that the slides contain reconciliations of certain non-GAAP financial information. Today's comments and our slides contain forward-looking statements based on current expectations and actual results may differ materially from expectations. Our third quarter 2020 Form 10-Q was filed this morning. Please refer to that document for forward-looking statements cautionary language as well as the risk factors and MD&A sections, which identify risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our disclosures. A replay of this call will be available shortly on our website for the next 30 days. They will also be available by telephone through November 6, 2020.

I will now turn the call over to Jeff.

Great, thanks, Stefanie. And thank you all for joining us today. We continue to navigate through the extraordinary events of 2020 and so, as part of my operations update, I'll share with you our success in managing the hottest July and August on record in the Valley. I'll also provide an update on our regulatory dockets and our focus as we prepare for 2021. As Ted will explain our earnings expectations for the year are higher due to the significantly above average temperatures.

And so, first, I want to recognize our field team for doing an exceptional job in maintaining reliable service for our customers this summer. The extreme heat this year contributed to a challenging energy market across the entire desert, Southwest. The lack of available capacity and the resulting declarations of energy emergencies by other utilities across the west, served as a reminder of the importance of long-term resource portfolio planning, vigilance over day-to-day energy supply and responsible energy policy.

Our ability to avoid an energy emergency this summer was the result of careful long-term planning, resource adequacy, flexibility and innovative customer programs. We relied heavily on our base load and fast ramping assets including Four Corners, Ocotillo and Palo Verde, and those assets were ready when we needed them. Our fossil fleets equivalent availability factor which is the percentage of time that a fossil generation unit is available and ready to perform when called upon was 95.3% from June through September. And Palo Verde Generating