Xcel Energy Inc (XEL) Q1 2020 earnings call dated May 07, 2020
Corporate Participants:
Paul Johnson — Vice President, Investor Relations
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Brian Van Abel — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Robert C. Frenzel — President and Chief Operating Officer
Analysts:
Stephen Byrd — Morgan Stanley — Analyst
David Peters — Wolfe Research LLC — Analyst
Jeremy Tonet — JPMorgan Chase & Co. — Analyst
Alex Morgan — Bank of America Merrill Lynch — Analyst
Travis Miller — Morningstar — Analyst
Sophie Karp — KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Xcel Energy First Quarter 2020 Earning Conference call. Questions will only be taken from institutional investors. Reporters can contact Media Relations for inquiries and individual investors and others can reach out to Investor Relations. Thank you. Today’s conference is being recorded.
At this time, I will turn the conference over to Paul Johnson, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Paul Johnson — Vice President, Investor Relations
Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Xcel Energy’s 2020 first quarter earnings conference call. Joining me today are Ben Fowke, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Bob Frenzel, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This morning, we will review our 2020 first quarter results, share business developments and regulatory developments, discuss how we’re managing through uncertainty around coronavirus. There is an expanded list of slides today that accompany our call on our website.
As a reminder, some of the comments during today’s conference call may contain forward-looking information. Significant factors that could cause results to differ from those anticipated are designated in our earnings release and our filings with the SEC. On today’s call, we will discuss certain metrics that are non-GAAP measures, including ongoing earnings in electric and natural gas margins. Information on the comparable GAAP measures and reconciliations are included in our earnings release.
I’ll now turn the call over to Ben.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Well, thank you Paul, and good morning, everyone. As I report back on the past few months, my heart really goes out to the individuals and families impacted by the coronavirus, the devoted healthcare professionals so bravely serving our communities and the businesses across all sectors experiencing tremendous economic challenges. At Xcel Energy, we understand how critical our work is to the health and safety of our communities and local businesses. I’m so pleased with how our employees and industry have responded during this unprecedented time, working to keep people safe, delivering reliable service to customers and providing support to those in need as we’ve done for over 100 years. I also want to thank our employees for their dedication, spirits and creativity and find ways to support our communities and stimulate local economic growth.
Now turning to the quarter. We’ve gotten off to a solid start booking $0.56 per share for the first quarter of 2020 compared with $0.61 per share last year. We believe we can take actions that will allow us to weather the impact of COVID-19 and as a result, we are reaffirming our 2020 guidance. Brian will discuss the financial results in more detail.
At Xcel Energy, we’re taking significant strides to help our customers and protect our employees, while continuing to deliver critical energy services. Some of our actions include; we’re committing to not disconnecting residential customer service and arranging payment plans if they are having difficulty paying their bills. In Minnesota, we are proposing to reduce our accrued fuel forecast by $25 million to give immediate relief to our customers. We stepped up our charitable giving and are helping our communities during this time of need and we are working closely with our regulators and state and local leadership, identifying constructive solutions to support our communities and customers. We’re keeping our employees safe by implementing work from home policies, providing personal protection equipment and following CDC social distancing guidelines and enhancing cleaning practices, conducting temperature checks at critical facilities, segregating crews and staggering work times.
To ensure continued reliability, we’ve implemented business continuity plans, which allows us to prioritize work and are prepared to sequester critical employees on-site if necessary. From a financial standpoint, we’ve enhanced our liquidity and developed contingency plans to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. Finally, we expect to be part of the solution to help get the economy back on its feet by continuing to invest in our communities through our capital expenditure programs that create jobs and drive demand for equipment and supplies. While this is a fluid situation with considerable uncertainty, Xcel Energy has always shown a remarkable dedication to serving our customers during difficult times and this set of challenges is no exception.
Moving on to business development, we recently announced the opportunistic sale of the Mankato natural gas plant for $680 million. You recall, we originally proposed this acquisition as a fully regulated asset. However, when the Minnesota Commission rejected this proposal, we acquired Mankato as a non-regulated asset and stepped into the power purchase agreement. While we thought Mankato would provide significant long-term value, especially as we shutdown coal assets, we heard from several investors that having a non-regulated asset cloud at Xcel Energy story. As a result, when several potential buyers expressed interest in acquiring the plant, we decided to sell it and preserve our status as one of the very few fully regulated pure play utilities. And since the earnings were back-end loaded, we don’t expect the sale to materially impact our projections. And while it was not part of the rationale for the sale, the transaction will improve our liquidity in these uncertain times. We will use the proceeds to reduce funding needs and improve our credit metrics. In addition, we will book a gain, which we will use to fund charitable giving efforts, including supporting COVID-19 relief efforts throughout our communities.
Finally, we recently announced some important promotions as part of our succession planning. Bob Frenzel was named President and Chief Operating Officer and Brian Van Abel was named Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Bob has been our CFO for the past four years and has extensive experience in the industry prior to joining Xcel Energy, while Brian has had increasing roles in finance, including Treasurer, Financial Planning and Analysis and Corporate Development. Both Bob and Brian are extremely intelligent and talented employees who have been instrumental in developing and executing our strategy and delivering our consistently strong financial results. And while I don’t plan to retire anytime soon, these promotions reflect the deep bench strength and thoughtful plan we have at Xcel Energy.
So with that, let me turn the call over to Brian, who will provide more detail on our financial results and outlook, along with our actions to mitigate coronavirus impacts. Brian?
Brian Van Abel — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Ben, and good morning, everyone. We achieved solid results, recording $0.56 per share for the first quarter of 2020 compared to $0.61 per share last year. Majority of the quarterly deviation is driven by weather. We experienced warmer than normal winter weather this year compared with cooler than normal weather last year, which results in a $0.04 per share unfavorable comparison.
The most significant earnings drivers for the quarter include, lower O&M expenses increased earnings by $0.03 per share, our lower effective tax rate increased earnings by $0.03 per share. However, majority of the lower ETR is due to an increase in production tax credits, which flow back to customers through electric margins and tax reform impacts, both of which are largely earnings neutral. Offsetting these positive drivers were lower margins due largely to unfavorable weather, which reduced earnings by $0.03 per share and which offsets riders and regulatory outcomes. Increased depreciation and interest expense reflecting our capital investment program reduced earnings by $0.05 per share and other items combined decreased earnings by $0.03 per share.
Next, I wanted to discuss the potential impact of COVID-19 and the actions we’re taking to mitigate a range of outcomes. Starting with sales, our first quarter weather and leap year adjusted electric sales declined by 1.1%, while natural gas sales increased by 0.4%. The coronavirus crisis had a minor impact on first quarter sales. The economic shutdown started in mid-March, so we did not experience the full monthly impact. For March, our total residential sales increased slightly while C&I sales declined 4%, resulting in a total retail electric sales decline of 3% on a weather-adjusted basis. However, a better reference point on the monthly COVID-19 impact is what we saw in our preliminary April numbers in which almost all of our states were under relatively strict shelter-in-place orders.
Residential sales increased 3.2%, while C&I sales declined 13.7% and total retail electric sales declined 9.6% on a weather-adjusted basis. And keep in mind, we have a sales true-up mechanism for all electric classes in Minnesota and decoupling for the electric residential and non-demand small C&I classes in Colorado. This covers about 45% of our total retail electric sales.
And to help us prepare financially for the pandemic, we developed three sales scenarios as outlined in our presentation. The mild scenario assumed a severe impact through May followed by a relatively quick recovery in the third quarter. This results in a sales decline of approximately 2% compared to 2019. Our base case and the case in which we are reaffirming our earnings guidance around assumes a severe impact through the second quarter with the slower U type shape recovery with lingering effects for the rest of 2020. This results in the sales decline of approximately 4% on a year-over-year basis. And lastly, the severe scenario assumes a severe impact last through the third quarter followed by a protracted L type shape recovery. This is a challenging scenario with a deeper and longer bottom in our base case resulting in a sales decline of approximately 8% for the year.
We use these scenarios as we develop our contingency plans. We view the mild and severe case scenarios is having a low probability of occurring. We think the base case scenario is the most likely outcome or at least within the band around the sales impact we’ve outlined, we have incorporated a base case into our guidance assumptions. There is considerable uncertainty on what will actually occur, particularly the duration of the downturn and the lingering effects [Technical Issues] feel confident in our ability to mitigate what we view as the most likely scenario. And the April sales results came in slightly better than our forecast giving us greater confidence.
We’re also closely monitoring our bad debt expense and working with our customers on payment plans that are having difficulty paying their bills. While it is difficult to project where we’ll land, bad debt expense increased approximately $20 million in the 2008 to 2009 time period as a reference point. Additionally, our commission to Wisconsin, Texas and Michigan have issued orders to track and defer pandemic-related expenses. We’ve also filed for deferred accounting treatment of incremental COVID-19 related expenses, including bad debt in Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota.
We are implementing contingency plans to reduce our overall cost structure and mitigate the impacts of COVID-19. Some of these actions include cost reductions related employee expenses, consulting, variable compensation, deferral of certain work activities and the implementation of a hiring freeze. Based on our contingency plans, we now expect annual O&M expenses will decline 4% to 5% in 2020, which should offset the impacts of COVID-19 in the base scenario. We also have plans in place to ensure that we can implement additional contingency plans if the negative impact of COVID-19 exceed our base case scenario. However, there are limitations to what we can offset. We will focus on providing strong customer service and reliability and we will not make short term decisions that have a negative long-term impact on our customers and shareholders.
Turning to supply chain, the situation is fluid, but we have not had any material impact to our supply chain with the exception of our wind farms. In mid-April, we were informed of supply chain disruptions, which will likely result in delays in completion of two of our wind farms into 2021. We are monitoring the situation closely and are striving to complete the project this year. However, we have fully documented our activities since 2016 and have maintained continuous efforts since then. So we are confident these wind farms will qualify for a 100% PTC benefit even if they are completed in 2021.
And the last topic I want to cover on COVID-19 is liquidity. We are in a very strong position after enhancing liquidity in March by entering into a $700 million term loan with attractive terms and we issued a $600 million 10-year holding company bond. We now have available liquidity of approximately $3.1 billion. In addition, the sales proceeds from the Mankato plant will increase liquidity by approximately $650 million. And finally, we issued an equity forward last year, which we expect to settle later this year and will provide another, approximately $740 million in cash. In total, this will provide liquidity of nearly $4.5 billion. We also plan to issue $1.9 billion of operating company debt throughout the year. As a result of our enhanced liquidity, we have the flexibility on issuance timing to ensure the capital markets are accessible at attractive terms. For more detail on liquidity, please see our earnings release.
Next, let me provide a quick regulatory update. We have three rate cases pending and the coronavirus has not resulted in any material delays in regulatory proceedings. In New Mexico, we reached a constructive unanimous settlement that reflects a rate increase of approximately $31 million, ROE of 9.45% and equity ratio of 54.8% and acceleration of depreciation on the Tolk coal plant to reflect an earlier retirement. We’re awaiting a hearing examiner recommendation and commission decision. In Texas, SPS and intervening parties have reached an unopposed constructive settlement agreement in principle. We are working with parties to document and file the settlement, which we expect to occur shortly and we anticipate a commission decision in the third quarter.
In February 2020, we filed a natural gas case is Colorado, seeking a net rate increase of $127 million based on a ROE of 9.95% and an equity ratio of 55.8%. This is fairly early in the process, so there is not much to report, but the procedural schedule has been set with new rates expected to become effective in November based on statutory requirements.
In terms of earnings, there is considerable uncertainty around the coronavirus impacts. Therefore, we have implemented contingency plans to manage our cost structure and made regulatory filings that will help to offset the impact of COVID-19. As a result, we still expect to deliver 2020 earnings within our original guidance range of $2.73 to $2.83 per share based on our base case scenario, which we think is the most likely scenario. In addition, we can implement additional O&M contingency plans if the COVID-19 impacts exceed the base case. However, there are limitations to what we can offset as we balance the short-term and long-term for both our customers and investors. Our contingency plan did not offset the severe scenario, which would likely result in earnings below our guidance range, but we feel the severe scenario has a low probability of occurring.
With that, I will wrap-up. We have implemented steps to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. We sold the Mankato facility for a modest gain. We increased our dividend 6.2%. We reached constructive rate case settlements in New Mexico and Texas. We remain committed to delivering on our 2020 guidance and our long-term earnings and dividend growth within our 5% to 7% objective range. We continue to provide reliable energy service to our customers while ensuring the safety and well-being of our employees and communities.
Despite the near-term economic challenges, we are executing our strategy extremely well and we remain positive about the opportunities in front of us, for the benefit of our customers, communities and shareholders. And finally, we believe we can help rejuvenate our local economies and work with our regulators and state leadership to help our communities and customers recover from the crisis. We’re looking forward to being part of the solution.
This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we will now take questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We’ll take our first question from Stephen Byrd with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Stephen Byrd — Morgan Stanley — Analyst
Hey, good morning. I hope you all are doing well.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. You too.
Brian Van Abel — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Good morning.
Stephen Byrd — Morgan Stanley — Analyst
I wanted to just get an update at a high level in terms of the opportunity for additional PPA buyout, just — what are you seeing in terms of the opportunity, or is that sort of a little bit on pause just given the COVID-19 dynamics? I’m just curious, at a high level, what your views are on that opportunity?
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Great question, Stephen, because we’re all focused on COVID-19, but we’re still running a business and still looking for opportunities. Brian, do you want to give a little more detail?
Brian Van Abel — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, good question. So as we think about it, now we are in regular contact with our counterparties. Obviously, there could be potential here as you see what’s happening, and if any of them have an interest of selling, we’re certainly in regular contact. We have our proceeding of the Mower acquisition in front of commission and we hopefully see a decision on that in Q2 or Q3. But then we’re also looking at how we use the ERP and our IRP processes to help jump-start some of that too. Some of the discussions around our acquisitions in Minnesota, as you know, how can we better improve the process with the department, our stakeholders to ensure that we’re bringing forward and have a comprehensive discussion. So we’re certainly active on that stage. And we’ve talked before, it continues to be part of our plan, but we don’t include any of that in our base capital plan.
Stephen Byrd — Morgan Stanley — Analyst
Understood. And just maybe at a high level, in terms of resource planning, how do you think about the opportunity for further acceleration of renewables. I guess on the positive side, renewable cost keep dropping, we may — there is always a potential for tax credits to get extended, the wind credit got extended again last year. On the negative side, I guess, we have demand uncertainty from COVID. In Texas, we had uncertainty around the status of the energy sector overall. But how do you think about the potential for additional sort of renewables growth, additional shutdowns of some of your coal assets? Do you feel about the same as you felt before or are there reasons to be more bullish or more cautious? How would you think about that?
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Probably, I guess, the short answer is probably a little more bullish. The cost, as you mentioned, Stephen, continue to come down and so our steel for fuel strategy continues to be, I think, obviously, economically attractive. And I think the test of that was the ability to get our renewables improved in Texas and New Mexico and basically on economic terms. I think the other element too, Stephen, which makes me bullish is that — and this is where I think we can partner with our states and our commissions and state administrations to be part of the solution. We’re getting people back to work and that’s potentially accelerating some of our capital opportunities. And using that to bring on more renewables at a great price point that actually help save customers money and employees jobs, good jobs. So, not unlike what — when we had the great recession and I can you tell you many times that’ll have — people stop me, people are typically working in our labor unions and actually thank myself and really the company for continuing to go forward with projects, because that was the only job in town. And that’s something that we’re really proud of. And I think we can replicate that again.
Stephen Byrd — Morgan Stanley — Analyst
That’s helpful. I’ll pass it on. Thank you.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
We’ll take our next question from David Peters with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.
David Peters — Wolfe Research LLC — Analyst
Yeah. Hey, good morning guys.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
David Peters — Wolfe Research LLC — Analyst
I was wondering if you could just give a view of where you guys see yourself within your guidance range in any of this base scenario?
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Did you say where we are in the guidance range?
David Peters — Wolfe Research LLC — Analyst
Yeah.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Let me just — I guess I would say, take a look at our track record over the last 15 years, I think we’ve demonstrated that we can deliver within the earnings guidance range, typically that’s been at the middle or above. So we’re quite proud of that and we expect we’ll be able to do that this year. But if you look at what we’ve done in the past and our track record, on the first quarter earnings call, we don’t give any additional guidance whether we’re going to be the bottom, the top or whatever. So for the first quarter, we’re confident under the base case scenario it will be in the earnings guidance range. And as the months and quarters have roll-on, as we’ve done in the past, we’ll potentially get more color on it.
David Peters — Wolfe Research LLC — Analyst
Okay. And then just on the preliminary sales data for April, give a sense of which states are seeing more weakness than others just the understanding that you have decoupling in Minnesota and some protection to Colorado as well?
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
David, is the question about which states were affected? What is the divergence in the states for April, is that basically you’re asking? You are kind of breaking up on the line.
David Peters — Wolfe Research LLC — Analyst
Yeah. That’s right.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I’m happy to provide a little bit of color on that. I think, as we look at it, we saw the most resiliency on the C&I side in SPS, and probably the biggest impact on the C&I side in Minnesota and Wisconsin and in the Northern territories. So I think that’s [Indecipherable] certainly we’re watching it as we go over-time. A part of what we saw in Minnesota is we did have a combined heat and power plant, as we’ve talked about in our call before, go online in May of last year. So that’s part of what we see and we look at month-over-month. But overall, in our commentary, you know, greatest weakness in C&I side, in Minnesota and Wisconsin and less so in SPS in Colorado is roughly in the middle of those two.
David Peters — Wolfe Research LLC — Analyst
Okay. And then last question I had is just — I think, you said the equity forward that you expect to settle around year-end. But just on the Mankato sale, does that impact the equity plans at all either for this year or next, just kind of what you guys laid out last year?
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
No, it doesn’t. When I say no. We will use it to reduce our financing cost for this year. We don’t expect to not sell our equity forward. This year, we do plan to sell it. What Mankato does is, really it’s an infusion of cash of $650 million, and provide some additional headroom on capital investment if we have an opportunity to potentially accelerate investments and really help our communities and customers and the regulators accelerate some of this rebound from this crisis. So I think it gives us just an additional capital headroom. As we think about longer term, we think about our five-year plans. We will reevaluate that and overall financing plans as we get to Q3 and lay out a new five-year capital plan.
David Peters — Wolfe Research LLC — Analyst
Great. And actually the final question is the two renewable projects that you mentioned that could slip into ’21, which ones were that?
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Those are the two Minnesota farms that we’re looking at. But I would say we’ve done, as you would expect from us, right, we’ve taken a very conservative approach and then made sure we’ve got all the documentation since 2016 and we’ve maintained continuous efforts since then. So we’re highly confident even if they do slip a month or two into 2021, that will qualify for homes [Phonetic] and PTCs.
David Peters — Wolfe Research LLC — Analyst
Great. Thanks, guys. Take care.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Other questions?
Brian Van Abel — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Operator, can you advance to next question please? I know we have some people on the queue, so maybe we’re having some technical difficulties or is somebody on mute for us? Bear with us. Meanwhile, Paul Johnson will sing a song.
Paul Johnson — Vice President, Investor Relations
If you can hear me, you will be thankful that I won’t do that.
Operator
I apologize for the delay. We’ll take our next question from Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Hi, Jeremy.
Jeremy Tonet — JPMorgan Chase & Co. — Analyst
Hi, good morning. Thanks very much.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
Jeremy Tonet — JPMorgan Chase & Co. — Analyst
Thanks for having me. Thanks for all the color this morning, really helpful. Just wanted to start off, I guess, do you have any regulatory obligation for guarantees associated with the wind that could impact earnings because of the project delay into ’21. Here I just want to touch base on that point.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Can you take that one too Brian?
Brian Van Abel — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, no, I mean, in terms of — we have no obligations in terms of getting in service in 2020 and we’re certainly working towards that and that’s our goal to get them completed in 2020. But in terms of obligations, in terms of timing, we don’t. There are obligations in terms of an overall cost-cap. But we’re certainly working to mitigate any impacts on that as you start to see a delay in schedule. We’re certainly working with our suppliers and our plant contractors get those to ensure that we bring it in under the original order PUC cost-cap.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. So we’re pretty comfortable with that, Jeremy.
Brian Van Abel — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
In addition, the SPS wind projects, do you have a 100% PTC guarantee, but again, we think that those will get into construction by the end of the year and we’re very confident on 100% PTC.
Jeremy Tonet — JPMorgan Chase & Co. — Analyst
That’s great to hear. Thanks. And just a cleanup question. Slide 17, it seems like AFUDC equity ticked up a bit there. Just wondering if you could give a little bit more color on that.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. From our original guidance, it did, as you start to see some delays in some project and part of that was our Blazing Star 1 wind farm that we just put in service in April. That took, as we are in the winter time it took a little bit longer, so that’s part of it. So just kind of across the board, as you see part of it’s the wind farms and part of it’s some other investments that we’re making. And there’s also a little bit higher as we took steps to improve our liquidity, also a little bit higher AFUDC rates.
Jeremy Tonet — JPMorgan Chase & Co. — Analyst
Got it. That’s helpful. That’s it from me. Thanks.
Operator
We’ll take our next question from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Alex Morgan — Bank of America Merrill Lynch — Analyst
This is Alex Morgan calling in for Julien. Good morning. Can you hear me?
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
We can Alex. How you’re doing?
Brian Van Abel — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes, good morning.
Alex Morgan — Bank of America Merrill Lynch — Analyst
I’m doing well. How are you? Thanks so much for taking my question.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Well, if we were to know it is you, of course we’re going to answer your questions.
Alex Morgan — Bank of America Merrill Lynch — Analyst
Thank you. My first question is about your rate case filings that you have for this year. I was wondering if you have any updates on whether or not you could potentially push out Minnesota again or potentially push out Colorado and maybe how you’re thinking about using existing trackers to track that rate base instead.
Robert C. Frenzel — President and Chief Operating Officer
Hey, Alex, good morning. It’s Bob. Thanks for the question. We recognize that these are challenging times, and we do like to work with our regulators in advance in both Colorado and Minnesota. We have been investing in infrastructure and assets that our customers value and our regulators support. But like in the past, we do think there are mechanisms that will allow us to not file those rate cases and you can be assured that those conversations are happening with the staff and the commissions as applicable in the respective states. We’d like to not file those cases and we’ll probably have more information for you on the second quarter call later this year.
Alex Morgan — Bank of America Merrill Lynch — Analyst
Okay. Thank you. Understandable. My second question and my last question, it’s just about your CAGR over-time. I was wondering if you’re still anticipating the potential in the upper end of that long-term guidance. And thank you again.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. I think it’s a great question. Again, and I talked a little bit about it with an earlier question, but you look at what drives our 5% to 7% growth and it’s investing in projects and opportunities that are very much aligned with our states, our communities, our regulators, our legislators. So I don’t see that changing and I don’t see changes to our capital — capex forecast unless to the upside going forward. So that’s what drives our growth and that’s what we’ll get it from. You had mentioned two — we don’t have —
Alex Morgan — Bank of America Merrill Lynch — Analyst
Thank you so much.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
I think we have — one of the things I think we’ve done as a company is on sunny days prepare for the storming days and we’ve got great dry powder on our balance sheet. And Brian mentioned the other things we did. We also continue to invest in our system, keeping it strong and reliable. And so that allows you to weather situations like that and potentially come back stronger and a partner with our state as we look to jump-start the economy when we all get through this.
Alex Morgan — Bank of America Merrill Lynch — Analyst
Thank you very much.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
We’ll take our next question from Travis Miller with Morningstar. Please go ahead.
Travis Miller — Morningstar — Analyst
Good morning.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Hi, good morning, Travis.
Travis Miller — Morningstar — Analyst
Good morning. Thank you. And the question on the contingency plans. I think you might have answered this real quickly. But on the O&M side, how much of these contingency plans have you been able to accomplish so far when we’re talking about first in the four, five months of the year. And then, any change in the capex plan within those contingency plans? I think you just answered, no. But just want to clarify, the O&M side and then the capex side.
Brian Van Abel — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. Travis, thanks for the question. And Ben did answer the capital question. We really see no plans in our capex for this year. On the O&M side, no, this crisis is relatively recently, so we are working through all those plans and we have a plan for balance of the year in terms of implementing them. I mean, Ben said it pretty well, you often hear Ben and Bob talk about dry powder and that’s been used in the context of our financial dry powder with our strong balance sheet, our conservative dividend payout ratio. But we also have operational dry powder and we’ve invested in the system and then as in the good days. And as the time of crisis here we’re able to weather it and we look at, when we think about the O&M contingency plans we’re putting in place, whether it’s — we’ve implemented a hiring freeze. We’re looking at reducing employee expenses and that will happen over-time. We’re reducing consulting spend in our other programs. And as we think about it right, we’re targeting. As I talked about targeting 4% to 5% truly mitigate that base case scenario, but we do have the ability to flex up a little bit in cases it’s a little bit worse.
Travis Miller — Morningstar — Analyst
Okay. So evenly spread more or less throughout the year.
Brian Van Abel — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
That’s a fair assumption.
Travis Miller — Morningstar — Analyst
Okay. And then on the renewable development, how much are those delays project specific and how much are you seeing just across the entire industry supply chain issues or the other financing delays or construction delays, stuff like that, industrywide versus the couple of projects, you mentioned.
Robert C. Frenzel — President and Chief Operating Officer
Hey, Travis, it’s Bob. I’ll just comment. We work with our OEM vendors as well as our balance of plant providers to execute the schedules. We have seen some supply chain disruptions started when China shutdown for a while. We’ve had mild disruptions from other plants where we get some of our components. We think that’s an industrywide phenomenon. I think as Brian mentioned, we’ve been exceptionally diligent in tracking our costs. We are really comfortable with our ability to meet the Safe Harbor provisions for achieving 100% PTC. These are projects that were originally scheduled to be later in this year anyway. And so while we’re trying actively to get them completed in 2020, there is a potential they do slip into ’21. But I do think it’s stuff we’re seeing around the industry and also not only is it our vendors, but there is a logistics and a supply chain issue with ports and parts transport that we’re seeing. It’s not — I wouldn’t say it’s catastrophic by any stretch. It’s just mild. We just happen to have these later dated projects for us.
Brian Van Abel — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, and again it’s Brain. We’re very, very confident. I have worked with outside [Indecipherable] firms to know that we will pass the continuous efforts test.
Travis Miller — Morningstar — Analyst
Okay. Any difference you’re seeing between solar and wind in terms of what you just talked about with supply chain and other logistics?
Robert C. Frenzel — President and Chief Operating Officer
Right now, Travis, we’re only building wind farms on our own balance sheet. I haven’t seen or heard a lot of solar delays, there’s been a couple of public force majeure filings on some solar farms around the country. But I don’t think we could speak with any authority on the solar side.
Travis Miller — Morningstar — Analyst
Okay, great. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Operator
We’ll take our next question from Sophie Karp with KeyBanc. Please go ahead.
Sophie Karp — KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. — Analyst
Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
Sophie Karp — KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. — Analyst
I was curious if you could provide a little bit more color on the supply chain disruptions that we’ve been talking about, particularly with these two wind farms, what you guys have seen in the supply chain? And also, do you expect that the issues may, in fact, sort of other here is maybe traditional power generation, transmission and distribution businesses where it might affect the availability of parts and things like that as we move forward in the lockdown [Indecipherable] continue. Thank you.
Robert C. Frenzel — President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah, sure. Sophie, we haven’t seen any supply chain disruptions on any of our other components other than maybe toilet paper and hand sanitizer and face masks. But on the wind farms themselves, a lot of the components are manufactured in overseas and assembled here. And so depending on the progress of the pandemic and which country it’s hit and which factories has caused two, three, four week delays in various places, which compounded equals maybe a six or seven or eight-week delay on our projects. And that was enough to potentially push them across the goal line. We’re seeing not just constraints on the OEM side, but we do see logistics constraints around ports and air travel and shipping as well. And so that’s caused some of the problems. I can’t say that we’ve seen any other disruptions on any of our other components, we just haven’t. But those discrete items are stuff we’re watching closely. As Ben and Brian have said, we feel very confident in our ability to qualify for the PTC that are 100%. And we’re working diligently with our vendors and our transportation providers to get all the components here and get them constructed by the end of the year.
Sophie Karp — KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. — Analyst
Okay. Thank you. This is all from me.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude today’s question-and-answer session. At this time, I like to turn the conference back to Brian Van Abel for any additional or closing remarks.
Brian Van Abel — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes, thank you. And thank you for all participating in our earnings call this morning. Please contact our Investor Relations team with any follow-up questions and have a good day. Thank you.
Ben Fowke — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, everyone.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]