Eversource Energy Wolfe Research Utilities, Midstream & Clean Energy Conference 2026-Virtual

Boston. Mean streets of Boston.

All right. Hardscrabble streets. Yeah.

Well, thanks, Steve, for having me here. I'm Joe Nolan. I'm the CEO of Eversource Energy in Boston. We have the best service territory probably in the world. We serve all the hospitals, universities. We have a lot of the defense contractors. We serve from the Canadian border to the New York border. We are able to ride through very difficult times in our area because we have such a blue-chip base of clients. We did experience some challenging times with the regulatory climate in Connecticut. A year ago, the governor, everybody was fired on the commission. We have five new commissioners. Very stable environment. We've been really focused on getting back to basics. We are a pure-play pipes and wires company, strictly regulated. We have exited the wind business.

I'm pleased to report that last week, the final wind turbine was installed, so 65 out of 65 turbines are installed. Our partner that's constructing it, Ørsted, has stated that we will be COD by the end of the year. We're very excited about that. In addition to that, we did have a water business. People always like to ask me to say water because they make fun of my accent. We did have a water business. Aquarion Water that I had some challenges on the sale of that with the previous regulatory commission. I'm pleased to report we did sell that. $2.4 billion, $1.7 billion of cash came in. That was very pleasing to the rating agencies. Three rating agencies, all of them gave us upgrades. We're very pleased with our credit metrics. We've got a nice cushion in there now.

We're not worried. We were owed over $1 billion in Connecticut for storm costs, and I'm pleased to report that we achieved 96% of our ask.

We still have an opportunity to get the remaining $40 million, but we did get $960 million in storm costs. We filed last Friday, the securitization plan for that, and that cash will be coming in the door. That's another significant opportunity. That's a great tool that we have in Connecticut. We also have it in New Hampshire. We were owed about $500 million in storm costs in New Hampshire. That money, we'll get that probably within about a year. That's a little bit further behind than Connecticut. Again, additional cash. This is over $1 billion in cash coming in the door. We're very, very pleased with that. In terms of opportunities, we have a five-year capital plan of $26.5 billion that we've shown everybody here.

But in addition to that, we just won last week a project with Iberdrola to build a line up to Canada. This is in our regulated space. That line's $2.2 billion. $700 million of that is ours. We're very pleased. That will be added to the plan. In addition to that, we have an opportunity, we're working with our regulators in Connecticut for AMI. That's a billion-dollar opportunity, not in the plan. We're working through to make sure that we can get timely recovery, and we feel good about that. The Eversource story is a much better story today than it's ever been. We do have a rate case right now in Connecticut with Connecticut Light and Power. We are in there, very productive dialogue with our regulators and with PURA. We will start hearings in February, and we are very optimistic about that outcome.

The last piece I know is probably on all of your mind is the FERC issue. The FERC did come out with an order that we've been waiting for 13, 14 years. It was an order that we think has got a lot of flour in it. But we will see a new rate. We've filed our 205. We'll see a new rate by November 30, effective of billing on December 1. We're optimistic that will be a good number because we basically use the same formula that FERC used to apply a very low rate. As you know, money in 2012, 2011 was practically free. It's not free today. I think we know how much that's costing and impacting our business. With that, I'll stop, Steve, and we can go where you want to go.

Yeah, what we're pleased at is the commission has gone from three commissioners to five commissioners. These are five professionals. Everybody in the space is a professional. Two of them are former legislators that worked on the energy and the environment legislative committee. They know the business very well. We have a good relationship with them. Another one was a former investment banker, Edward D. Smith, Trustee, Eversource Energy, understands regulated business, and he's very engaged. Then we have the chair, who came out of the Office of Consumer Counsel that we've had a working relationship for many years. What's different today than it was from before is that all five commissioners sit on the bench, all five commissioners engage in the dialogue. There's a lot of give and take, and we're able to have this dialogue. Then the final commissioner is a woman that has taught at NARUC for many, many years.