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Xcel Energy Inc (XEL -1.91%)
Q3Â 2019 Earnings Call
Oct 24, 2019, 10:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good day and welcome to the Xcel Energy's Third Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. Questions will only be taken from institutional investors. Reporters can contact media relations with inquiries and individual investors and others can reach out to Investor Relations. [Operator Instructions]
At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Paul Johnson, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Paul Johnson -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Good morning and welcome to Xcel Energy's 2019 third quarter earnings conference call. Joining me today are Ben Fowke, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Bob Frenzel, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In addition, we have other members of the management team available to answer your questions.
This morning, we will review our 2019 third quarter results, discuss earnings guidance, update our financial plans and objectives and also update you on recent business and regulatory developments. Slides that accompany today's call are available 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 described 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 and electric and natural gas margins. Information on comparable GAAP measures and reconciliations are included in our earnings release.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Ben.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Paul, and good morning everyone. Let's start with earnings. Today, we reported third quarter earnings of $1.01 per share compared to $0.96 per share last year. Three quarters of the year behind us, we are on track to deliver earnings in the upper half of our guidance range. Consistent with our third quarter tradition, we've updated our investment plan, which now reflects $22 billion of capital expenditures over the next five years. This represents rate base growth of 6.7% of 2019 base year. Our updated capital forecast is of course driven by our investment in renewables, as we continue the clean energy transition. The forecast also includes investment in our Advanced Grid initiative, expenditures to improve the customer experience, additional investment in the transmission system to maintain asset health and reliability, and a natural gas combined-cycle plant and our Sherco facility to ensure reliability as we retire coal plants.
This represents a base capital forecast and we are also confident that there are likely additional upside investment opportunities not included in this base plant. We're also initiating 2020 guidance of $2.73 per share to $2.83 per share, which is consistent with our 5% to 7% long-term EPS growth objective. We are very excited about our plan which provides customer value, delivers attractive returns for investors and keeps customer bills low.
Next, let me update you on our PPA buyouts and wind projects. In September, the Minnesota Commission denied our proposal to acquire the Mankato combined-cycle plant as a rate base asset. Over its life, we believe the Mankato asset brings tremendous value and reliability to the system, especially as we retire coal plants. As a result, we have filed to acquire Mankato as a non-regulated asset and assume the existing PPAs with NSP-Minnesota which run through 2026 and 2039. We anticipate the acquisition will generate utility-like returns over the life of the asset.
However, we expect the non-regulated returns will be lower in the near term as the benefits are back-end loaded. We've made wholesale generation filings at FERC and affiliate interest filings with the Minnesota Commission and we expect approval in December or January. We believe that our PPA buyout strategy can provide significant customer benefits. As a result, we'll continue to evaluate customer beneficial acquisition opportunities and we'll proactively work with our stakeholders to identify the costs and benefits of the transactions.
Please note our capital forecast does not include any incremental PPA acquisitions. Our two proposed wind PPA acquisitions, Longroad and Mower produced significant savings for our customers and these benefits are front-end loaded as the PTCs would flow back to customers in the first 10 years.
We expect the Minnesota Commission decision on Longroad by the end of the year and Mower in the first half of 2020. We continue to achieve important milestones in our nation-leading wind expansion. We have completed the development phase of our 522-megawatt Sagamore wind project in New Mexico, with construction slated to begin later this year and commercial operation expected by the end of 2020.
In the Upper Midwest, a developer scaled back the Crowned Ridge wind project by 200 megawatts due to increased MISO transmission and interconnection cost. We had planned to own 100 megawatts of Crowned Ridge as a build-own-transfer project. While this has an immaterial impact on our capital forecast, it does highlight the need to expand transmission investment to address congestion and ensure the viability of future renewable projects.
As a result, we, like the Blues Brothers, are on a mission to put the band back together again, and we are working with the original capex 2020 utilities which built over $2 billion of transmission projects in the Upper Midwest over the last 10 years. We expect similar constraints and investment opportunities in SPP and Colorado as well. While it's not in our five-year forecast and it will take some time to develop and implement plans, the need for additional transmission highlights the long runway for capital investment for Xcel Energy.
With that, let me turn the call over to Bob, who will provide more detail on our financial results and outlook and a regulatory update. Bob?
Robert Frenzel -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Ben, and good morning everyone. We recorded third quarter earnings of $1.01 per share compared with $0.96 per share in 2018. Most significant earnings drivers for the quarter include higher electric and natural gas margins, which increased earnings by $0.08 per share, including various regulatory outcomes and riders to recover our capital investments.
Lower O&M expenses increased earnings by $0.02 per share. In addition, our lower effective tax rate increased earnings by $0.03 per share. However, the majority of the lower effective tax rate is due to an increase in production tax credits which flow back to customers through electric margin and tax reform impacts, both of which are largely earnings neutral.
Offsetting these positive drivers were increased depreciation, interest and other taxes reflecting our capital investment program, which reduced earnings by $0.04 per share. And lower AFUDC due to projects going into service decreased earnings by $0.04 per share.
Turning to sales, our year-to-date weather-adjusted electric sales declined by 0.3%, reflecting continued strong customer growth offset by lower use per customer and expected discrete declines in certain large customer usage due to co-generation.
Year-to-date weather-adjusted natural gas sales increased 3.2% as a result of strong customer growth and higher use per customer. For 2019, we anticipate relatively flat electric sales and natural gas sales growth of 2% to 3% growth, reflecting year-to-date performance. Turning to O&M and consistent with our expectations, our quarterly expenses decreased by $13 million, reflecting lower costs in our nuclear and fossil plant operations.
Year-to-date O&M expenses are above last year, largely due to expense timing, but also due to higher-than-expected storm costs. We expect lower costs for nuclear operations and fossil plant outages in the fourth quarter. And as a reminder, we increased O&M spending in the second half of 2018 due to the impact of hot weather as well as environmental remediation and business efficiency improvements. Accordingly, we expect our full year 2019 O&M expenses will decline by 1% to 2% from 2018 levels.
Let me provide a quick regulatory update. Earlier this month, we filed rebuttal testimony in our Colorado electric rate case and revised our request. We are now seeking an increase of $108 million based on a current test year, with a capital reach forward through June 19 and an equity ratio of 55.7% and an ROE of 10.2%. Intervenors filed testimony and the Commission Staff recommended an ROE of 9% and an equity ratio of 55.6% and a current test year, with a capital reach forward through June 2019 with an average rate base. During start November and we expect the commission decision in December with new rates effective January of 2020. We also have electric rate cases in New Mexico and Texas. SPS is seeking an increase of $51 million in New Mexico based on a historic test year, with a capital reach forward and an equity ratio of 54.8% and an ROE of 10.35%.
While in Texas, SPS is seeking an increase of $136 million based on a historic test year and equity ratio of 54.7% and an ROE of 10.35%. The request largely reflects investment for the Hale wind project as well as other capital to support strong growth in the region. Both cases are in the discovery phase with not much to report. As a reminder, both the Texas and New Mexico Commissions previously granted a Certificate of Need and current recovery mechanisms for Hale. We anticipate final rates going into effect in 2020.
Turning to earnings guidance, in the fourth quarter, we expect favorability in O&M margin and sales. In addition, depreciation and amortization expense will moderate due to the timing of lower levels of prepaid pension amortization in Colorado. As a result, we are narrowing our 2019 earnings guidance range to $2.60 to $2.65 per share, which represents the upper half of the original guidance range of $2.55 to $2.65 per share. As Ben noted, we are initiating our 2020 earnings guidance range of $2.73 to $2.83 per share, which is consistent with our long-term EPS growth objective of 5% to 7%. Please note that the 2020 EPS guidance is based on several assumptions, which are detailed in our earnings release.
I wanted to highlight a couple of items. We assume constructive regulatory outcomes in all proceedings. We expect electric and natural gas sales growth of approximately 1%, which includes the impact of leap year. We anticipate an effective tax rate of approximately 0% largely driven by wind production tax credits, which are credited to customers and have no impact on earnings.
Finally, we expect O&M expenses to increase 2%, which reflects increased cost for new wind projects coming online. Please note wind O&M is recovered in riders in most jurisdiction is offset by fuel savings. In our earnings release, you'll find more details about our updated $22 billion five-year capital forecast, which reflects investments to support continued customer growth, improvements in safety and reliability, the enablement of renewable generation and automated metering for our customers.
Our capital plan results in annual rate base growth of approximately 6.7% using 2019 as a base. Importantly, the rate base growth rate would be 7.3% if we would maintain 2018 as the base year. Our updated capital investment plan is supportive of our 5% to 7% long-term earnings growth objective, and our goal is to deliver EPS and dividend growth in the upper half of the range.
We've also updated our financing plan which reflects a combination of internal cash generation and operating company and holding company debt to finance the majority of our capital expenditures. In addition, we expect to issue $1 billion of incremental market equity over the next three years and $400 million of DRIP and benefits equity to fund our capital plan and support our credit ratings.
Our financial plan reflects incremental capital investment of approximately $2.5 billion for the period of 2020 to 2023 as compared with our previous capital forecast. This incremental equity will allow us to fund accretive capital investment opportunities, which benefit our customers while maintaining our solid credit metrics and favorable access to the capital markets.
With that, I'll wrap up. We are continuing to make progress in our wind development efforts in our PPA buyout strategy with the recently announced Mower project. We are going forward with the Mankato acquisition due to the strong value the asset provides over the long term. We are well positioned to deliver earnings in the upper half of our 2019 earnings guidance range. We've announced a robust updated capital investment program, which provides strong, transparent rate base growth and customer value.
We've initiated 2020 EPS guidance of $2.73 to $2.83, which is consistent with our long-term objective. Finally, we're very confident that we can deliver long-term EPS growth in the upper half of our 5% to 7% objective range. This concludes our prepared remarks. And operator, we'll take a few questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
[Operator Instructions] And we'll take our first question from Greg Gordon with Evercore.
Greg Gordon -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Thanks. Great outlook, guys. Just a couple of questions. You've had a lot of rate cases pending and when you think about the range of potential outcomes in terms of things that might influence financial results like return on equity, how do you sort of flex for that when you think about the guidance range? And do you contemplate with interest rates this low that the direction of travel on ROEs might still be modestly lower than where we are today?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
I think, Greg, that's a great question. I mean, we do recognize that we have some modest risk which we have incorporated into our range, but I think we've got a lot of things going for us. I mean, first of all, we're very much aligned with our commissions on what we're doing with the clean energy transition. It's good to have their support with that. I think second of all, if you think about it, we certainly don't have above market ROEs today. And then finally, if you look at some data points on some of the cases that we have decided recently, they kind of point to a reasonable ROE.
So we always know we don't get everything we asked for of course and I think we're very comfortable with the guidance we set forth.
Greg Gordon -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
That was my only question. Thank you. Have a great day.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Greg.
Operator
Moving on, we'll hear from Christopher Turnure with JP Morgan.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Chris.
Chris Turnure -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Good morning Ben and Bob. Increasing transmission investment is a little bit of a newer theme for you guys or kind of a return to maybe an older theme. Just wondering if there's higher risk to this plan due to size of projects being larger or regulatory approvals that are needed here and I know your renewable investments really tail off in the next two years or three years, but I guess to the degree that you're successful here, is there kind of upside to those renewables numbers?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Two parts to the question, I guess, the last part, we don't have any renewables scheduled because we try to sync up that renewable portfolio with our IRP plans. And as you know, Chris, we expect to retire coal plants in the mid 20s [Phonetic] and that's when this next round of renewables, which will be very significant will come through.
One of the benefits we've had with our Steel for Fuel program is we've created headroom on consumer bills to do more investment and grid infrastructure, and the investment we're talking about, Chris, isn't really going to require the regulatory approval, because it's not the big transmission line site referred to when I said we're getting the band back together. Again, this is asset health, this is reliability and this is the support some of the renewables that we already have out there.
Chris Turnure -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Okay, that's good to hear. And then I guess, incremental $1 billion of equity needs are technically over the five-year plan. Can you kind of give us a sense as to the timing and maybe structure of that within the five-year end?
Robert Frenzel -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, Chris, in my prepared remarks, I mentioned we probably do it over the next three years. And historically, the company has looked at a bunch of different products. We've used ATM programs, we've used block deals in the past, I think we look at a various mix of products, I think they will come in -- obviously more than one offering. And so I just think we will be measured about it and we will execute it in line with our cash needs as we look forward over the next three years.
Chris Turnure -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Okay, thanks for that guys.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Next up, we'll take a question from Ali Agha with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.
Ali Agha -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Thank you. Good morning.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Hey, good morning.
Ali Agha -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Ben, I may have missed this right at the opening, but when you look at the $22 billion five-year capex, obviously you roll forward. So it's not apples to apples with your last five years, but even for the years that are completed in both, what's the main sort of upside to the numbers? And in the past, you've talked about your base plan and then you've laid out, quantified your upside plan, etc.. This time, it looks like everything is in one plan. So, are all of these projects now approved and ready to go, or are there certain placeholders in this $22 billion number?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
I think for the most part this is stuff we know we can execute on. As I had mentioned on the previous call, the transmission and distribution spend, those are things that are really in the normal course of business, and we have a lot of opportunities to invest in our grid. I've always said, as you know that those sorts of investments are always capped at the willingness for the consumer to pay. So to the extent we can do things like Steel for Fuel and our efficiency initiatives and take advantage of falling commodity prices, you create that headroom. So we're quite confident in the $22 billion. And I think your second part was, correct me if I am wrong, you wanted to know about upsides in the capital forecast?
Ali Agha -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Yeah, I guess it was kind of two parts as well. One, in your existing $22 billion, what has gone up versus what you were thinking when you had last put out your capex, and then this time you don't have like a base case upside case. So is everything now all in one plan?
Robert Frenzel -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, this is Bob. I think that's the right way to think about it. We recognize that in the back years of our plan, we may have structurally under forecasted some items and I think we spent a lot of time with the operations in the businesses this year, looking at their asset needs and trying to get everything into a single plan to make it simple and easy for the investor to understand. So I think what you're seeing here is the compilation of probably six months worth of good work by the company trying to identify projects in the back part of the plan that maybe we might not have gotten identified in previous plan.
So I think we've melded base and what we may have historically called upside or unidentified, I do think though and I think Ben was going to comment on upside, and I think there are items that aren't embedded in this plan. I think Ben mentioned, one, which is continuation of our PPA buyout strategy. We think we've got 10,000 megawatts to 11,000 megawatts of PPAs that the company procures today from third-party owners and we still think there's opportunities out there to find customer beneficial acquisitions. None of that's included in the $22 billion.
Ali Agha -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
I got you.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
And it's clear, while renewables that we put into our capital forecast usually come out of the IRP process, we believe there might be some opportunities to add some renewables too, but just not identified yet which is why they're upside.
Ali Agha -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Got you. And one other question, when I look at your weather normalized sales trends broken out on a quarterly pattern, third quarter, we saw a pretty big negative. You had been trending positive through the first two quarters on the electric sales side. So anything that has changed that caused the negative run in the third quarter?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
I'll take a stab at it and maybe Bob augment it. First of all, I would never -- when we've had good quarters, we tell you don't take that as a trend. When we have a little bit off, we tell you don't take that as a trend. What we did know as Bob mentioned in his remarks that we did have some C&I customers that we're self-generating through co-gen etc., and that was planned. We knew about it. So that's the big issue there.
Robert Frenzel -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, the only thing I'd add to it is we have seen some softness in the sand mining industry and fracking in Wisconsin, some of that attributable to competing product around the country and some softness in the gas markets broadly.
Ali Agha -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Got you. Thank you.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Next question comes from Angie Storozynski with Macquarie.
Angie Storozynski -- Macquarie Research -- Analyst
Thank you. Okay. So one question, in your prepared remarks, you didn't mention anything about a potential settlement in your Colorado rate case. Should we still expect it? I see that there is an October 30 deadline for filing. Could you comment on that?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, listen, the time that we would get to enter into settlement discussions, Angie, would be after rebuttal. So that's the period now and there has been some outreach and some work being done, but we don't have anything to report to you or we would. And as you know, it's scheduled for hearings, I think, in the first week of November. So maybe something will come up in that time frame, but if we have something to report, we would tell you.
Angie Storozynski -- Macquarie Research -- Analyst
Okay. And secondly, this Mankato acquisition on an unregulated basis at least caught me by surprise. And you're mentioning those buyouts of existing renewable PPAs, would those be also unregulated or are you talking about basically converting PPAs into rate based renewables?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, our approach is always going to be let's find customer beneficial acquisition opportunities through PPAs and let's offer them to our customers. And so, our plan is always to put them in rate base. In the case of Mankato, the Department and ultimately the Commission decided that the benefits were too back-end loaded, some variances in how we modeled those benefits and they decided that they didn't want it in rate base. However, we still believe it's a very valuable asset and that it belongs in our portfolio. So we went forward with a non-regulated based approach. But Angie, this isn't a change in strategy or anything else, we always want to see this. We wouldn't bring something to our Commission, so we didn't think at a customer benefit. If there are disputes along the way, then we have to adjust to that depending on the situation, but that's always going to be plan B, not plan A.
Robert Frenzel -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Angie, these are all still long-dated PPA contracts from the assets to one of our regulated operating companies, in this case NSPM. So we do like the credit counter party, we do like the optics of the transaction. I think it works for shareholders and customers alike. And so you should expect us to move forward with the Mankato one. On the wind projects, our preference is to own them in rate base. I think they're really beneficial for the customers, but if they don't, we've made a pre-emptive filing at FERC to move those to wholesale as well. But again as Ben said, I don't think this is a strategic shift. It's just a recognition of their good assets that serve our customers and we're willing to own them.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, and we still see plenty of opportunities, as Bob previously mentioned, to find those PPA buyout opportunities, and of course, we're in eight states, not just one or two states. So, there are across all of our jurisdictions.
Angie Storozynski -- Macquarie Research -- Analyst
It's just that -- and I obviously accept your explanation -- it is just that in a sense, you're acting as a financial investor here and typically when we see these types of acquisitions, you know, contract base to what's seemingly similar economics, at least I would take it as a sign that you're running out of growth options in the regulated because that's a superior growth profile at least from a risk perspective, and I understand that Mankato could be a one-off, but you're basically saying that that's not the case here, that was just an exceptional situation here.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, Angie, I have to tell you, I think we have the most transparent growth of our organic system, which is the $22 billion that we put forth, and we think even beyond the forecast period, we'll continue to see excellent opportunities to grow the system. We're creating headroom with things like Steel for Fuel to keep bills low, so that we can make those investments and not overburden customers. I think that's a very important consideration. The PPA buyout strategies which is pure upside to a very robust base capital plan. So, and this is not a strategic change. You're not going to see us look for opportunities to come in as a financial investor. This is a situation where we had some modeling differences on the benefit. Bob mentioned, we had two other wind proposals in front of the Commission. The difference there is these benefits are very much front-end loaded. And I think there is a preference in Minnesota that owned renewables over gas. So we'll see where that goes. But again I think we are quite proud of the pure play vertically integrated regulated utility that we are.
Angie Storozynski -- Macquarie Research -- Analyst
Awesome, thank you.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Angie.
Operator
Next we'll hear from Steve Fleishman with Wolfe Research.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Hey, Steve.
Steve Fleishman -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst
Hi, good morning. Could you just maybe talk a little bit more on what is happening with the MISO transmission situation renewables and how congested it is and just what is needed in your region to half renewables half, you know, more reasonable cost access?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, you know, the work we did with capex 2020 opened up the door for a lot of renewables, but it's starting, to your point, to get constrained and I do think long term, we're going to need more transmission development in the region to make sure we can continue to see renewables come into the MISO market. That said, Steve, I think we have some opportunities in the interim to squeeze out, if you will, the transmission capacity that is available. And we're looking at those opportunities, and of course some of the transmission that we are building in the next few years will help with that as well.
Steve Fleishman -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst
Okay. Is this something where you can kind of expand transmission on existing footprints or you need to get access to kind of new areas?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, I think, you certainly there is obviously a lot of work done with the new FERC rules on how that relates to existing transmission and repurposing and there is, I think there'll be some opportunities in the market around that.
Steve Fleishman -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst
Okay.
Robert Frenzel -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Steve. Longer term, I mean this is a longer-term issue that we're working on and when Ben said we're getting the band back together, capex 2020 was a very successful consortium of transmission owners and MISO that came together and formulated a plan and executed on it very successfully. I think that, that group is back together, put out a press release on it three weeks or four weeks ago trying to come up with solutions and partnership with MISO for longer-term transmission access and this is going to be probably not in our current capital plan, but more like in years five through 15 of where we're going to see much more regional, we expect to see more regional transmission to enable exactly what you're talking about.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Which does sync up very nicely to our plans to retire coal plants. So, our emphasis particularly in MISO would be more heavily toward solar, which at least the initial tranches of which have a better planning capacity, Steve, if you will, then wind which is by far the best energy type source.
Steve Fleishman -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst
Okay. And then just on the Colorado case, I know that I think the settlement time line is really in the next like week or two, and it sounds like you can't really talk about whether you're going to be able to settle or not, but if we don't see something by then, should we then assume you're probably not going to be able to settle?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, I think you had the time frame right. The time for settlement is right after rebuttal before hearings. So we've got that week or two window to try to get something done. If I had something to definitive report, I would, but I don't want you to think that we're not interested in pursuing a settlement.
Robert Frenzel -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Steve, there's real benefits with the settlement, but there's also -- from a timing perspective, the hearings are first week in November, Commission decision is expected in December and new rates in January. So time lines are relatively compressed anyway in terms of when we go from hearing to final rates. So the clock itself is not a driver.
Steve Fleishman -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst
Okay, thank you.
Operator
Next question will come from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Hey, good morning team.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Hey Julien.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Hey, howdy. Perhaps if I can just follow-up on the last set of questions, just real quickly on the MISO transmission piece. You know, Internet connection queue issues have been around and accelerating off late. It sounds like you guys are really working on this. Can you talk a little bit about the time line? You talked about this transmission 2020 effort, MISO's talking about MVP again, we've heard this from other period, so can you elaborate a little bit on what this process would look like, whether at MISO or with your peers and that process again? You talked about the five years to 15-year plan, but even more tangibly in the planning process in the next 12 months, how does this play out?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
I think there is still a bit of uncertainty, Julien, around the MISO transmission planning process. We're obviously a large transmission owner, and MISO, and are participating with them in the process. Our own group, I'll call it the capex 2020 group getting back together, it is still in its early days in terms of identifying time lines for engineering studies and how this might progress. I don't think this is a very quick process. I think this is going to take at least five years through planning before we start getting into real capital plans and construction time frames. And so I don't want to suggest that something is going to change in the next 12 months to 18 months in terms of congestion in the MISO region. And we're seeing similar stuff in SPP as well in terms of just congestion in queue is being backed up and projects being assessed with significant upgrade costs.
Robert Frenzel -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
And then, Julien, remember when this does get built, we have some pretty active right of first refusal legislation in some of our key states. So we're excited about the opportunity to build transmission and without getting too specific into details, we do see some opportunities to utilize existing transmission and other existing queue access to not slow down our plans in the meantime.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Excellent. And if I can go back to the Mankato stuff. Just with respect to the fuel type, I mean I suppose my initial reaction was thinking that this might be more of a gas versus renewables question, can you talk or elaborate a little bit more about the context behind this decision? Obviously, I think, Angie said it before, she was surprised. How would you characterize it? Is there any specific angle here to be focused on in terms of understanding this decision versus the others proposed?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
I mean it's just weighing of the benefits. I think there, I think renewables definitely have a preference with our Commission than gas, but I think it also comes down to the modeling, and we're working with the Department to make sure we have a more consistent modeling approach as we go into the IRP process, I think that's important, Julien. But let me just step back, the IRRs of Mankato are good for shareholders. We think we would have preferred to have Mankato owned by our customers because that's always our first preference, and that's our core strategy. But we didn't want to walk away from this asset, we wanted in the portfolio. And so I think shareholders would benefit and we'll see what -- I'm not going to speculate on what the Commission does with our wind projects, but I will tell you that we're comfortable with ownership [Indecipherable] ownership on a regulated side, but it's not bad in a portfolio either. So -- and remember, when Bob talks about 10,000 megawatts, there are across all eight states. And so we're not just -- it just so happens these initial PPA buyouts came in Minnesota. But remember we had Calpine in Colorado before and there are other opportunities in other states. And I just want to reiterate, and I hope I'm answering your question, we are not having a strategic change. We are definitely focused on the great organic growth opportunities we have as a regulated utility in the Upper Midwest all the way down to Texas.
Julien Dumoulin-Smith -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Awesome, alright. Thank you guys very much. I appreciate it.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Up next, we'll hear from Travis Miller with Morningstar.
Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst
Good morning. Thank you.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Hey, Travis.
Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst
Hi. So just to stick on that subject, real quick here on the PPA buyouts and potential growth there, would you do the financing structure any different in terms of parent company versus project versus utility?
Robert Frenzel -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Hey Travis, this is Bob. I think our base plan is to finance at the parent company with a mix of parent company holding company debt and equity. I think our long-term capital structure is the right way to look at any of these assets. So 60:40 debt equity ratio is how we think about financing the business.
Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst
Okay, great. And then, wonder if you could talk, both on a holistic basis across the industry, and then also what you guys are seeing in terms of the PTCs, how those -- and ITC for the solar parts -- in that 2022 to 2024 time period? And how do we fill in those holes and think about those tax credits if the tax policy stays the same for you guys and for the industry broadly?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
That's a great question. It's one of the reasons why we accelerated and really put the pedal down on our Steel for Fuel program and the biggest wind expansion in the country that we've had now because we did want to lock in those PTC credits or they expired at the 100% level and even at the 80% level. You're right. I think the wind industry will take a little time to adjust quite frankly, Travis, when the PTCs roll off, of course there is a chance they won't. Our approach to the solar piece of this is that I think the cost curve on solar continues to decline pretty quickly. And so we think that even the absence -- the roll off of ITC or the most of it anyway, will be more than offset by just gains in the solar itself. And we think that times of very, very nicely to the retirement of our coal plants in the mid 20s [Phonetic] . So we don't see a need to go out and lock anything in because we think the cost curve will more than offset the ITC reduction. And again we'll clearly wait to see if there is legislation, etc., might change that.
Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst
Okay, just real quick follow-up. I know you guys and a lot of other companies have been talking about solar is the next thing, a lot of solar investment. Be a little extreme here, but what saves wind beyond 2022 and 2023?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, first of all, I think when we will recover and we will be attractively priced. And I think wind will always compete very nicely, again solar on an energy basis. And as you -- I think you'll find as more and more solar becomes on the system, the planning capacity might fall off a little bit. So I think wind is always going to be there. We just so happen to want to focus on solar as we are retiring our coal plants. Solar has some advantages from a -- just think about it, I've had farmers come up to me and say, gosh, if we didn't have a wind farm on our land, we might have gone under. So could you install in the land, when you have a wind project on there. Solar, not so much. I mean, you basically, the land is being repurposed. And then of course there are different characteristics with when the wind blows versus when the sun shines and so I think the two will complement each other in our clean energy transition very nicely and I think there is going to be wind indefinitely.
Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst
Okay, great. I appreciate the thoughts. Thanks.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Just one comment on that too, you got to remember, we are in the wind belt of the United States. So it's one of the reasons why our Steel for Fuel strategy has worked so well. And so we're always going to have that inherent advantage.
Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst
Yeah. Okay, thank you.
Operator
Our next question will come from Paul Fremont with Mizuho.
Paul Fremont -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst
Thanks.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Paul.
Paul Fremont -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst
Not to beat a dead horse to death, but when you revised your ask in Colorado, does that improve in your mind the possibility of reaching a settlement in that case?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, the short answer is yes.
Paul Fremont -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst
Okay.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
I think you know these -- you look at what we're asking for in the case, you look at what we did with rebuttal. I mean we have a distinct possibility, but possibilities versus something I can talk to you about explicitly, we're not there.
Paul Fremont -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst
Okay. And then I guess a couple of questions on the capex revisions. I'm assuming for 2019 that the number that you previously had would come down by $650 million for Northern States Power because the Mankato acquisition would be done through sort of a non-regulated entity, is that fair?
Robert Frenzel -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, Paul, this is Bob. For the rate base assumption, that's correct. But for the capital assumption, we're still going to spend the capital to procure that asset.
Paul Fremont -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst
Right. So it would like go into other, right, I would assume.
Robert Frenzel -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Correct.
Paul Fremont -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst
Okay. And then it looks like there is a $735 million pickup for Northern States Power Minnesota in 2020. Can you sort of give us what's driving that?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
I think the largest driver of that is sort of wind movements across plan [Phonetic] years. So previously we were going to have a build-own-transfer project with our Cheyenne wind project, we moved a big -- we're going to build that ourselves and we moved a bunch of that capital into 2019 to get it built in time for 100% PTCs. In 2020, some of the wind is moved from 2019 into 2020. That's probably the bigger pickup in the NSPM territory. In total, capital for 2019 is expected to be in line with our original guidance of $5.1 billion.
Paul Fremont -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst
And then there is another sort of big pickup of almost $1 billion in your spend in 2022. Can you give us some ideas as to what's driving that?
Robert Frenzel -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
I think big picture, Ben talked about, a lot of that and it's a lot of investment in our networks, whether it's transmission, distribution and gas networks. That's a big spend year for us, for our Advanced Grid initiative and that's when we start spending additional dollars in the gas networks as well. So again we spent a lot of money in renewables over the last three years or four years, we've created a significant amount of customer bill headroom and we're starting to look at the networks businesses a little more carefully and we've seen both need and opportunity there.
Paul Fremont -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst
Great, I think that's it in terms of questions.
Operator
And our next question will come from Sophie Karp with KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Sophie Karp -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I was just wondering about Minnesota, and following the Mankato docket, and I think you have a rate case, you don't have a rate case there coming up. Is your regulatory strategy changing in that state, is there any consideration that maybe you would approach differently?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
No, I don't think so. We plan to file for interim rates in the first week of November. Don't see anything too controversial with that, expect the rates to go into place and then we'll process the case. I'm not sure -- we still see the same alignment with our strategy and we expect a constructive outcome. So, does that answer your question? Sophie, I want to make sure I do.
Sophie Karp -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Yeah. So it sounds like you don't expect your Mankato acquisition that you are now doing as a merchant asset to [Indecipherable] the rate case precedent in anyway?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
No, not at all. I mean there is no strained relationship at all around that. It's just a difference of the Commission deciding. We don't think there is enough benefit. We think there was a lot of benefit and still do, but no reflection upon straining the relationship.
Sophie Karp -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Alright. Thank you.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Next, we'll hear from Paul Patterson with Glenrock Associates.
Paul Patterson -- Glenrock Associates -- Analyst
Hey, good morning. How are you doing?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
Paul Patterson -- Glenrock Associates -- Analyst
So, I wanted to touch base with you on the transmission. As you know, there have been some voices concerned about cost containment and what have you in that area, and we've recently had FERC put out an order and some comments as well, I guess from certain Commissioners about -- that FERC Order 1000 really hasn't worked out as they thought it would in terms of providing the level of competition that they wanted to. And so I was just wondering if you could sort of talk about how you see that issue or those issues related to competition in transmission? And I think it was last week, we had a FERC order as well, sort of associated with touching on this as well. How we should think about what the outlook might be with respect to this reported concern?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, I think that's a really good question. You know, I don't think the barrier to getting transmission done, which is really what we're trying to get accomplished is not about the competitive process. I mean, in fact, if you look at the biggest transmission build, it was done with capex 2020 as I mentioned. And that was utilities of all sizes and municipalities and co-ops coming together to form a plan that works with an idea of how cost would be allocated, because the real barriers to getting transmission build is who pays for it, and then of course the permitting and everything else that goes with that.
So I think my personal opinion, Paul, is that FERC 1000 and that whole process really clouds it, and it's not necessary and we'll see where that goes. But as I mentioned, as you know, we've got a right of first refusal in Minnesota. We have in other jurisdictions. We're not in an RTO in Colorado. I think there are some real advantages to that, but we will get this transmission built, and we're being realistic in the time it takes to get it built.
Paul Patterson -- Glenrock Associates -- Analyst
Okay, great, thanks.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
And next, we will hear from Vedula Murti with Avon Capital.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Hi Vedula.
Vedula Murti -- Avon Capital -- Analyst
Hi, good morning. Just to follow up a little bit on the Mankato discussion, you referenced the strong internal IRRs. How is it competing in terms of just picking more from capital allocation perspective versus other capital opportunities you have across the system in terms of choosing this capital allocation?
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, the Mankato project is certainly -- the returns are certainly above our cost of capital and attractive from a shareholder's perspective as a result. Bob, I don't know if you want to add anything to that?
Robert Frenzel -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
No, and I think the expectation is over the life of the asset, it looks like our utility-like returns are consolidated corporate returns. We stated that it's a little bit lower on the front end, a little bit higher on the back end just given the structure of the contracts, but otherwise I agree with Ben's comments.
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Let me just add, when we talk about utility-like returns over the life, that is with very, in our opinion, very conservative modeling. I do think that the trend toward anti-gas makes existing gas assets valuable. And we are retiring coal plants and we're keenly focused on reliability. So, Vedula, we really thought it was important to keep it in our portfolio because I think that the value of existing gas assets is only going to grow and this is a CC plant that we've modeled very, very conservatively.
So, that's the reason why we did not want to walk away from this one.
Vedula Murti -- Avon Capital -- Analyst
Okay, thank you very much.
Operator
And there are no further questions, I'll turn the conference back to Bob Frenzel for closing remarks.
Robert Frenzel -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you very much for your participation in our call today. As always, if you have any questions, please follow up with Investor Relations.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]
Duration: 71 minutes
Call participants:
Paul Johnson -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Ben Fowke -- Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Robert Frenzel -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Greg Gordon -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Chris Turnure -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Ali Agha -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Angie Storozynski -- Macquarie Research -- Analyst
Steve Fleishman -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst
Julien Dumoulin-Smith -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Travis Miller -- Morningstar -- Analyst
Paul Fremont -- Mizuho Securities -- Analyst
Sophie Karp -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Paul Patterson -- Glenrock Associates -- Analyst
Vedula Murti -- Avon Capital -- Analyst
