Black Hills Corporation ($BKH)

Earnings Call Transcript · May 7, 2026

NYSE US Utilities Multi-Utilities Earnings Calls 39 min

Highlights from the call

In Q1 2026, Black Hills Corporation reported GAAP EPS of $1.73, including $0.05 in merger-related costs, and adjusted EPS of $1.79, reflecting a decrease from $1.87 in Q1 2025. The company reaffirmed its full-year EPS guidance of $4.25 to $4.45, indicating a 6% growth at the midpoint over 2025. Despite unfavorable weather impacting demand, management expressed confidence in achieving guidance through operational efficiencies and ongoing large load customer growth.

Main topics

  • Merger Progress with NorthWestern Energy: Black Hills made significant strides in its merger with NorthWestern Energy, with favorable shareholder votes and regulatory settlements in Montana, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Management anticipates securing all necessary approvals in the second half of 2026, stating, "We made solid progress alongside NorthWestern in advancing our planned merger."
  • Impact of Weather on Demand: The company faced challenges due to exceptionally warm weather, which negatively impacted demand by $0.18 per share compared to Q1 2025. Despite this, management maintained that they are on track to meet their earnings guidance, emphasizing their ability to manage operational costs effectively.
  • Large Load Customer Opportunities: Black Hills is pursuing significant growth opportunities from large load customers, particularly in data centers, with over 3 gigawatts of potential demand. Management noted, "We are negotiating with high-quality partners to reach agreements to serve this pipeline," indicating strong future revenue potential.
  • Operational Efficiency and Cost Management: The company reported a reduction in O&M expenses, excluding merger costs, by $0.10 year-over-year. Kimberly Nooney stated, "We delivered favorable O&M for Q1," which helped offset some of the negative impacts from weather and higher financing costs.
  • Capital Expenditure Plans: Black Hills outlined a $4.7 billion capital plan over five years, focusing on safety, reliability, and growth. The plan includes investments to support the anticipated demand from large load customers, with management emphasizing a cautious approach to new investments.

Key metrics mentioned

  • GAAP EPS: $1.73 (vs $1.87 in Q1 2025, including $0.05 of merger-related costs)
  • Adjusted EPS: $1.79 (vs $1.87 in Q1 2025)
  • Revenue:
  • O&M Expenses Reduction: $0.10 (year-over-year reduction excluding merger costs)
  • Capital Plan: $4.7 billion (over the next 5 years)
  • Dividend Increase: 56 consecutive years (of dividend increases)

Overall, Black Hills Corporation's Q1 2026 results reflect resilience in the face of weather challenges and ongoing strategic growth initiatives, particularly in large load customer segments. The reaffirmation of guidance and strong dividend policy support a positive investment thesis, but investors should monitor the merger progress and weather impacts closely as potential risks.

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Operator

Operator
#1

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q1 2026 Black Hills Corporation Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Sal Diaz, Director of Investor Relations.

Salvador Diaz

Executives
#2

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to Black Hills Corporation's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. You can find our earnings release and materials for our call this morning on our website at blackthillscorp.com. Leading our earnings call are Linn Evans, President and Chief Executive Officer; Kimberly Nooney, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Marne Jones, Senior Vice President and Chief Utility Officer. During our earnings discussion today, comments we make may contain forward-looking statements as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and there are a number of uncertainties inherent in such comments. Although we believe that our expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, actual results may differ materially. We direct you to our earnings release, Slide 2 of the investor presentation on our website and our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a list of some of the factors that could cause future results to differ materially from our expectations. With that, I will now turn the call over to Linn Evans. Linn?

Linden Evans

Executives
#3

Thank you, Sal. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today. I'll provide a summary of our Q1 2026 results, our strategic progress and our progress with our pending merger with NorthWestern Energy. Kimberly will provide our financial update. And Marne will provide our business update, including key projects, our progress with large load opportunities and our solid regulatory execution. In April, our industry recognized Line Mechanic Appreciation month. Let me start by pausing to recognize our remarkable team of men and women, many of whom are tuning in today. You are often the face of our company and industry, which our customers and communities respect, admire and rely on, ensuring our system is operating reliably and restoring interrupted service as safely and efficiently as possible. When most seek shelter during a weather event, you are the team that heads out into the storm. Thank you for all you do and the sacrifices you make and often your families make to keep the lights on and for what you do every day to keep our customers safe. Our first quarter strategic achievements are outlined on Slide 3. Following an excellent year of results for our stakeholders in 2025, I'm very proud of our team's continued success, carrying our positive momentum into 2026. We continue to deliver safe, reliable and affordable energy to our customers and communities while executing on our strategic growth opportunities. We're off to a solid start with reaffirming our earnings guidance range and maintaining our solid financial position and credit ratings. We made regulatory progress, advancing our Arkansas rate review and requesting our first-rate review in more than a decade for South Dakota Electric. We also continued construction of our 99-megawatt Lange II generation project, which is on schedule to be placed in service later this year and the ongoing construction of our 50-megawatt battery storage project as part of our clean energy plan in Colorado that we commenced in Q4 2025. Large load customers, including hyperscale data centers continue to offer significant growth opportunities, representing more than 3 gigawatts of potential demand, including 600 megawatts by 2030 within our current 5-year financial plan. We're also negotiating with high-quality partners to reach agreements to serve this pipeline. This includes the 1.8-gigawatt data center being developed in Cheyenne, where we have executed an agreement that supports our reservations for generation equipment as part of a mix of resources to serve this potential customer as we continue to advance negotiations toward reaching definitive agreements. Additionally, we are optimistic about the future upside potential of our current pipeline stemming from Microsoft's recent announcement to acquire 3,200 acres of land in Cheyenne, Wyoming for future data center expansion. As a reminder, we approach our growth pipeline with caution, restricting it to demand that is covered by nondisclosure agreements and being actively negotiated. The opportunities we are executing on today, along with this future potential for upside, provide depth and durability to our long-term growth profile. Slide 4 outlines our $4.7 billion 5-year capital plan. We invest in our natural gas and electric customers' core needs for safety, reliability and growth. Our current capital plan includes minimal investments to support the 600 megawatts of data center demand already in our financial plan, which we expect to serve mostly through market energy procurement. We are also developing opportunities for investment that are not currently in our plan. This would include generation and transmission builds as part of the mix of resources to serve growing large load customer demand. Moving to Slide 5 for an update on our merger with NorthWestern Energy. We made solid progress alongside NorthWestern in advancing our planned merger. Both companies received favorable shareholder votes on April 2. The Hart-Scott-Rodino Act antitrust waiting period expired on April 20, satisfying an antitrust condition to closing. And we made state regulatory progress with settlements with certain key intervenors in all 3 states; Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota. We anticipate securing all state regulatory approvals and FERC approval to finalize the merger within the second half of this year. As I wrap up my prepared remarks, we anticipate continuing to deliver solid results for our stakeholders as we execute on our customer-focused capital plan, continue our regulatory progress through multiple rate reviews, meet the growing demand of our customers and maintaining positive momentum through our large load pipeline while maintaining protections for our customers and complete our planned merger with NorthWestern. With that, I'll turn the call over to Kimberly for our financial update.

Kimberly Nooney

Executives
#4

Thank you, Linn, and good morning, everyone. We had a successful first quarter executing our strategy and delivering results within our expectations, even with the impact of very warm weather. We are on track to achieve our earnings guidance as we maintained our solid investment-grade credit ratings and strong liquidity. On Slide 7, we provide a bridge for Q1 2026 EPS compared to Q1 2025. We delivered GAAP EPS of $1.73, which included $0.05 of merger-related transaction costs. Adjusting for these costs, we reported $1.79 of adjusted EPS compared to $1.87 in Q1 2025. One of our warmest winters in history included record warm temperatures in Wyoming and Colorado, weighed on demand by $0.18 per share compared to Q1 2025. For the quarter, this reflected $0.13 of unfavorability compared to normal weather, which is our base assumption in setting our earnings guidance range. With this backdrop, I'm proud of our team's strong execution as we maintain confidence in our ability to deliver on our full year earnings guidance. We delivered $0.24 per share of new rates and rider recovery margin and $0.10 of lower O&M, excluding merger costs. These positive drivers offset $0.16 of higher financing and depreciation costs and a large portion of the impact of weather and lower retail usage. We delivered favorable O&M for Q1 and excluding $0.05 per share of merger-related costs, we reduced our O&M expenses by $0.10 year-over-year. This reduction was primarily driven by $0.04 of lower employee costs and other O&M reductions of $0.06 per share. Excluding merger-related costs, we are on track to deliver O&M within the earnings guidance target provided. Financing costs increased $0.10 per share, including $0.09 per share from the impact of new shares and $0.01 of higher interest expense net of AFUDC. Depreciation expenses increased by $0.06 per share, driven by new assets placed in service, including our $350 million Ready Wyoming transmission project placed in service at the end of 2025. Further details on year-over-year changes can be found in our earnings release and our 10-Q to be filed with the SEC later today. Slide 8 presents our solid financial position through the lens of credit quality, capital structure and liquidity. We remain focused on maintaining a healthy balance sheet with our stated credit metric targets of 14% to 15% FFO to debt, which is 100 basis points above our downgrade threshold of 13% and at or better than 55% net debt to total capitalization. Given stronger forecasted cash flows in 2026, driven by new capital projects placed in service, executing upon our regulatory initiatives and increasing large load customer growth compared to last year, we expect a significantly lower total equity need of $50 million to $70 million in 2026. During the first quarter, we issued $41 million of equity under our ATM program, positioning us well with minimal equity needs for the remainder of the year. Our next debt maturity is in January 2027 with $400 million of 3.15% notes to be refinanced. We are evaluating refinancing options for later this year. We maintained strong liquidity with approximately $500 million of availability under our revolving credit facility at quarter end. Our financial outlook is listed on Slide 9. We reaffirmed our guidance range of $4.25 to $4.45 of adjusted EPS, which represents 6% growth at the midpoint over 2025. New rates and rider recovery from capital projects, large load demand growth and other organic customer growth and our solid financial position drives strong confidence in our ability to deliver in the upper half of our 4% to 6% long-term growth target. Our plan includes large load demand contributing more than 10% of growing consolidated EPS beginning in 2028, reaching 600 megawatts by 2030. Also, as Linn outlined, we are pursuing more than 2.5 gigawatts of large load opportunities, which represents significant upside to our current financial plan. To serve these opportunities, each of our customers desires a unique mix of resources with varying ramp schedules. From a financial perspective, this complexity requires multiple negotiated agreements with earnings profiles designed to match the risks and considerations for each resource type under our large power contract service tariff in Wyoming. Slide 10 illustrates our industry-leading dividend track record. In January, we increased our dividend, extending our track record of increases to 56 consecutive years in 2026 based on our current annualized dividend. We continue to target a 55% to 65% payout ratio. A dependable and increasing dividend is an important component of our strategy to deliver long-term value for our shareholders. I will now turn the call over to Marne for a business update.

Marne Jones

Executives
#5

Thank you, Kimberly, and good morning, everyone. I will provide an update on our current capital projects, discuss progress on our large load demand pipeline and finish with a regulatory update. Moving to Slide 12. Our 99-megawatt Lange II generation construction project, which will serve our customers in Western South Dakota and Northeastern Wyoming continues on schedule and will be placed in service in the fourth quarter. Utility-owned natural gas-fired generation resource replaces aging generation facilities with modern Wartsila engines and supports updated reserve margin requirements. Recovery of this investment will be requested through the South Dakota generation rider, which we intend to file during the second quarter and our Wyoming rate review request filed earlier this year. Slide 13 outlines our Colorado Clean Energy plan. During the first quarter, construction continued on our utility-owned 50-megawatt battery storage project in Colorado to be completed and in service in late 2027. During the first quarter, we also signed a 200-megawatt PPA for solar resources to serve Colorado customers as previously approved by the Colorado PUC. Together, these resources support our progress towards the state's clean energy plan with an emissions reduction goal of 80% by 2030. Slide 14 outlines our flexible service model for large load customers and our data center demand pipeline of more than 3 gigawatts. Our unique tariff offers flexibility in how we serve large load customers, enables speed to market and provides customer protections while benefiting our Wyoming customers. Our data center demand in the financial plan of 600 megawatts by 2030 is primarily driven by Microsoft and Meta's growth. We have successfully served growing demand for Microsoft hyperscale data centers for more than a decade through market energy procurement. Meta's new AI data center in Cheyenne is progressing, and we expect them to begin ramping later this year. We are prepared to serve these customers primarily through market energy and contracted resources requiring minimal capital investment. That said, we expect demand at or above 600 megawatts to drive the need for investments in generation and transmission infrastructure. We continue to make positive progress on additional opportunities and are advancing our negotiations with high-quality partners to serve more than 2.5 gigawatts of large load requests. Specific to a 1.8-gigawatt project in our pipeline, we are working through several agreements with counterparties that would ultimately support resources to serve this demand. We continue to focus on the reliability and resiliency of the overall system and customer protections as we design a portfolio of resources to meet the needs of our prospective large load customer. As Linn mentioned, and I'm pleased to expand on, we have executed a short-term generation reservation agreement with this prospective customer for company-owned generation. The agreement provides for customer-funded milestone payments to support the long lead time generation equipment as part of the broader resource mix needed to serve the 1.8-gigawatt project. To date, the customer has provided $201 million in refundable contributions in aid of construction to secure this generation equipment through the term of the agreement. In parallel, we continue to advance negotiations toward a long-term definitive agreement under which company-owned generation would be a component of the portfolio of resources serving the project, with the intent that this reservation agreement transitions the parties into a long-term definitive generation facilities agreement. As you would expect, a project of this size and complexity involves multiple parties and interrelated contractual components. We are carefully structuring these agreements to protect customers while appropriately managing operational and financial risk. Consistent with our normal practice, we will provide additional detail as definitive agreements are finalized. Now shifting to a regulatory update on Slide 15. We continue to effectively execute on our regulatory plan with a cadence of 3 to 4 rate reviews per year across our 8-state service territory. Our rate review filed last December for Arkansas Gas continues to progress with new rates requested in the second half of this year. During the first quarter, we filed new rate review requests for South Dakota Electric. We are seeking recovery of our customer-focused investments and increased cost to serve customers in Western South Dakota and Northeastern Wyoming after holding our base rate stable for more than a decade. In South Dakota, we requested $50.6 million of new annual revenue based on a 10.5% ROE and a capital structure of 47% debt and 53% equity. The request seeks interim rates within 180 days of filing. In Wyoming, we requested $5.1 million of annual revenue based on a similar ROE and capital structure as was filed in South Dakota. We also filed an abbreviated rate review in Kansas as allowed by the commission's prior order. The request seeks recovery of capital invested through 2025 at the previously agreed upon weighted average cost of capital with rates requested early in the third quarter. And lastly, in South Dakota, wildfire liability legislation was enacted in March to be effective July 1, 2026. Utilities in compliance with their wildfire plan filed with and published by the commission will receive significant liability protections similar to legislation in Wyoming and Montana. In Wyoming, we are awaiting approval of our mitigation plan, which is expected in the second quarter. We also continue to support the development of similar legislation in Colorado. In summary, our team is focused on executing with excellence on our customer-focused strategy from day-to-day maintenance and outage response to laying a new line to serve a neighborhood or business, we are ready to serve. We are strategically managing and expanding our infrastructure to serve the needs of our customers and actively working with new large load customers to make their plans a reality as their energy partner of choice. With that, I will now turn the call back to Linn.

Linden Evans

Executives
#6

Thank you, Marne. To summarize what we talked about today, we continue to make meaningful progress on our regulatory plan, our growth initiatives and our strategic goals. Black Hills offers a compelling long-term value proposition driven by our customer-focused growth, competitive yield and significant upside opportunities. Additionally, our planned merger with Northwestern Energy will provide us with the advantages of increased scale and new opportunities as a larger and premier regional electric and natural gas utility company. Thank you for your interest and your trust in the Black Hills team as we partner to grow long-term value for our customers and stakeholders. This concludes our prepared remarks, and we're happy to take your questions.

Operator

Operator
#7

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Andrew Weisel with Scotiabank.

Andrew Weisel

Analysts
#8

You guys have a lot of exciting updates here. My first question is regarding the agreement to reserve generation equipment for the data center customer. Forgive me, Marne, you ran through some details pretty quickly. Apologies if I missed them. I want to make sure I got it all here. Did you say it was around $200 million of short-term deals for company-owned generation? So this would be utility-owned resources falling into rate base and earning the typical 9.8% ROE, did I get that right?

Marne Jones

Executives
#9

This is Marne, and appreciate your question. And if I ran through a little fast, let's walk through a little bit of those details. So yes, it is a short-term agreement, really meant to provide some financing or financing bridge as we think about serving long-term generation needs. Ultimately, we intend to put this into a company-owned generation facility that would have a longer-term agreement with that. When we talk about company-owned generation and a generation facilities agreement, maybe a little bit of a difference of how you describe it. It would be specific to this ultimately end-use customer. And so we think about the rate base of that and the return of that based on that customer and the unique needs for that specific customer as we talk about risk-adjusted returns. This would not be part of overall rate base for retail customers in Wyoming.

Andrew Weisel

Analysts
#10

Okay. This would still be that negotiated risk-adjusted, not a standard formulaic -- this would still be negotiated then. Is that right?

Marne Jones

Executives
#11

Yes, it would be a negotiated rate, but I would think about it more in the terms of a typical rate base. This would not be the same as our microgrid management fee.

Andrew Weisel

Analysts
#12

Okay. That's helpful. And just to understand, the short term is about the financing. The equipment would be utility-owned for the life of the asset. Is that what you're saying?

Marne Jones

Executives
#13

That is correct. And just as a reminder, as we think about contracting these types of assets, and we talk about customer protections, through these negotiations, one thing we focus on is ensuring that we don't have stranded assets at the end of this -- the end of contracts, et cetera. So this is not something that would ultimately be on the customers of Wyoming. This is all contracted through that long-term contract that we're negotiating.

Linden Evans

Executives
#14

And the 201 -- this is Linn, Andrew. The $201 million that we received in the refundable [ kayak ], that's another way of protecting customers, helps us protect our balance sheet in the interim while we are working with these customers to serve their large load.

Andrew Weisel

Analysts
#15

Great. Very helpful. So that $201 million, that's more about the financing. Are you able to give an indication of the size of the asset or assets in terms of megawatts? I mean this isn't the full 1.8 gigawatts, is it?

Linden Evans

Executives
#16

No, it is not. And we're not yet ready to announce what kind of megawatts we would serve. We're still arguably working with the customer on that. We have a direction with them, but there are a few balls in the air. So as soon as we can let you know that, we will. But to date, we're still negotiating that with our counterparty.

Andrew Weisel

Analysts
#17

Okay. Can you say big, medium or small?

Linden Evans

Executives
#18

Yes. Nice try, Andrew.

Andrew Weisel

Analysts
#19

Had to try. Okay. One last one before I pass it over. In terms of the merger, congrats on the 3 settlements you got there. Does that accelerate the time line for closing? I know you're still pointing to the second half, but can you get a little more specific? And do these help speed things up? And then subsequent to closing, do you and your friends at NorthWestern plan on hosting some sort of Investor Day or something like that to present the outlook for the combined company later this year?

Linden Evans

Executives
#20

Well, I would say it this way, Andrew. Settlements are always helpful, but we have a -- in fact, we have a hearing next week in Montana. We'll see how that goes. We've had our hearing on the settlement, a full settlement in Nebraska, and we have hearing scheduled next month in South Dakota. So will it speed it up? No, but it certainly didn't slow it down. And I think it gives some nice, solid foundation for which the regulators can use as they consider this merger and ultimately approve it, we hope. With respect to a combined Investor Day, I'm the exiting CEO, so I'll be cautious there to commit someone else. But it may be a good idea. We shall see.

Operator

Operator
#21

Our next question comes from Chris Ellinghaus with Siebert Williams Shank.

Christopher Ellinghaus

Analysts
#22

So Kimberly, this was a monumental weather impact, but you didn't adjust guidance at all. Are there -- can you give us any color on what you're thinking about for offsets?

Kimberly Nooney

Executives
#23

Yes. Maybe just to level set, looking back in any given year, we've had some pretty impactful favor and unfavorable weather swings. Specifically in Black Hills' history, we've had more significant unfavorable impacts. When I look back, it was around Q4 2021. So my point to all of that is that we're used to experiencing these types of impacts. And as you noted, we are reaffirming guidance, and we'll continue to manage the business to ensure that we're focused on mitigating risks while achieving our financial objectives. So just like any other utility, we'll be focusing on ensuring we're optimizing our O&M and the timing of our capital investments. That will be our strategy.

Linden Evans

Executives
#24

Well, that was a good answer. This is Linn. I would suggest that during the fourth quarter of last year, we had pretty mild weather. You might remember that, Chris. And so as a team across the whole organization, we kind of continue to lean in to the challenge of warm weather into the first quarter, which helped us as well. And this is a chance for me to say thank you to our team. They've really done a wonderful job of ensuring that we hit our targets.

Christopher Ellinghaus

Analysts
#25

So along those lines, you have had some pretty unfavorable weather, particularly in the first and fourth quarters. Do you see sort of a longer-term pattern of -- I don't know how to phrase it, but sort of filling in the bowl that you guys have for an earnings shape where you see more loads headed into the middle of the year and maybe out of the first and fourth quarter. Is that something that you're sort of contemplating as a reality today?

Kimberly Nooney

Executives
#26

You know, Chris, based on the fact that we have a balanced mix of electric and gas resources, Q1 and Q4 have always been our most impactful, but this isn't unique. And one of the things that we have done over the past few years is really do look backs on weather impacts and how we think about assessing those in the financials. So I don't know that we're doing anything different. We're obviously very cognizant of it. We're paying attention to it, and we're ensuring that we're incorporating those types of impacts into our future strategies. But are we drastically changing our business model? No, we're not.

Linden Evans

Executives
#27

I'd say we're also working closely with our regulators for weather normalization. As you might recall, Chris, we have a pilot we're doing in Nebraska this year that was helpful this quarter and last -- and fourth quarter of last year. I'd also say it could be a benefit of the large load customers. They're high power factor customers. And to the extent, that would be another benefit to our other customers to kind of smooth out our earnings, if you will, through the year. So I think that's something we're working on, too.

Christopher Ellinghaus

Analysts
#28

Linn, you're the expert on data centers in Wyoming. So maybe you can shoo me off of this question, too. But there's been a lot of difficulties with that data center. Can you give us some color on what's happening locally? I know there's been some efforts politically to try to move that along. But can you give us some sense of what some of the holdups are locally?

Linden Evans

Executives
#29

Chris, I guess might challenge your fact pattern, I suppose. We're not -- yes, there are some few customers, if you will, or local entities that might be a little bit -- or asking that the commissions take caution about the data centers. In other words, are they doing it right. But on the other hand, we're also seeing initiatives by local folks to actually accelerate permitting, if you will. So it's kind of a balance going on there. For us and the data centers that we are working on, frankly, we're not seeing any slowdown due to decisions or permits or anything of that nature. All of ours are currently right on track. And in fact, CPCNs, et cetera, are being granted. local permits are being granted, et cetera. So I think we're actually in nice shape with the customers that we are currently dealing with.

Christopher Ellinghaus

Analysts
#30

Okay. Along the same lines, have you got a sense at all of when you might file a CPCN for generation?

Linden Evans

Executives
#31

I'm going to let Marne address that issue.

Marne Jones

Executives
#32

Yes, Chris, so as I mentioned, we've got the short-term reservation agreement, which we would ultimately like to see into a long-term definitive agreement for generation. Once those agreements are in place, and it's not just a generation, but really all the agreements that are needed is when we would expect to see a CPCN for generation.

Christopher Ellinghaus

Analysts
#33

Okay. And I'm not trying to figure out what the size is, but can you talk about what type of generation that you guys are pursuing?

Marne Jones

Executives
#34

Yes. So we are looking at -- obviously, the reservation is for those long lead time equipment items. We're looking at certainly gas engines, transformers, dispatchable generation will be really important.

Christopher Ellinghaus

Analysts
#35

Okay. And one last thing. In Montana and South Dakota, have you got a sense of what to expect for the duration of those 2 hearings?

Marne Jones

Executives
#36

Yes. I can -- Chris, this is Marne again. So I can talk a little bit. We are scheduled next week in Montana for a Tuesday through Friday hearing, I believe. The South Dakota, I would have to subject to check, but I think it's scheduled for 2 or 3 days as well in June.

Linden Evans

Executives
#37

That's correct.

Christopher Ellinghaus

Analysts
#38

Okay. I don't recall Montana ever accomplishing anything in 4 days. So that would be some kind of record.

Marne Jones

Executives
#39

Well, I think as it was mentioned earlier, we have reached a lot of settlements. We don't have full settlement in Montana, but we have reached a lot of settlements. And I think that really bodes for hopefully a much more efficient process given those settlements.

Christopher Ellinghaus

Analysts
#40

You are a great optimist, Marne.

Linden Evans

Executives
#41

Yes, we are.

Operator

Operator
#42

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Paul Fremont with Ladenburg Thalmann.

Paul Fremont

Analysts
#43

I guess my first question really has to do with the short-term reservation agreement, I guess, is for 200. Would -- if the project were to move forward, is that sort of the aggregate amount that you would contemplate spending or would -- and if not, how large an investment would you contemplate?

Kimberly Nooney

Executives
#44

Paul, I'll start and then my team members can fill in. So this is really, as noted, a reservation agreement. So these are milestone payments associated to procuring the actual investments that Marne mentioned. This is really what we think about as a bridge agreement to ensure that we maintain balance sheet strength through this period until we get to definitive agreements and we're able to start constructing. So we're really not talking about the size yet because we're still in negotiations. But obviously, we will be contemplating the right financing strategy overall. So we really haven't given the magnitude of the project beyond 1.8 gigawatts and the fact that it will be served with a variety of -- mix of resources. That's really where we're at in our process.

Paul Fremont

Analysts
#45

So should we think of the 200 as extending through some period in time? In other words, would this be the next 3 or 4 years of spend or the next 2 years of spend?

Linden Evans

Executives
#46

Well, the reservation payments are the payments that we are actually making to the suppliers, and we are being reimbursed by the customer that we are negotiating with as part of that agreement, Paul. So that's where this $201 million come from. That's what we are paying to hold these resources in place so that we can put them in service for our customer. And the short term through June 30, and I encourage our shareholders and analysts to think about, our stakeholders to think about in terms of June 30, while it is a deadline that we're working toward as an organization, if we don't announce something by June 30, please don't assume that -- that does not mean that we're going to have an agreement with this customer. That's a milestone that we're working to achieve.

Paul Fremont

Analysts
#47

And I guess, according to the AEP conference call, it sounded like if there's nothing in place by June 30, there's like another 6-month extension in terms of the -- taking the Bloom equipment. So should we assume that December 31 is sort of an absolute date by which the parties need to reach an agreement?

Linden Evans

Executives
#48

I don't know that it would be an absolute date. We certainly work toward fulfilling our -- getting a contract in place by then. But I would not see it as an absolute date. To date, the parties are working very well together in extending things by mutual agreement. These are complex agreement with lots of parties. We want to get it right, especially us at Black Hills Energy. We have to get it right on behalf of all of our customer base to ensure we have the best deal we can to service these customers as appropriately as possible. So again, I don't think we have hard fast dates, although we both know that the time value of money, et cetera, we need to work efficiently, and we are.

Paul Fremont

Analysts
#49

And then is any of the CapEx related to this 1 point -- to this project, would that be significantly additive to the current compound annual growth rate? Also, if you need to build more resources for this, who should we assume will provide the funding? And is it incremental CapEx going to be 50% equity funded?

Marne Jones

Executives
#50

Paul, I'll kick this off, and then I'll turn it over to Kimberly as well. So when we talk about CapEx, we have 600 megawatts of load in our current 5-year plan that ties back into our CapEx, the $4.7 billion. So anything above that, which this project would be above and beyond that, that's part of the pipeline that's not included in our current plan would be additive to our overall capital investment opportunity. So if we needed to build more resources, whether it be generation or transmission, both of those really would be additive to what we currently have in the plan. And I'll turn it over to Kim to talk about the financing side of it.

Kimberly Nooney

Executives
#51

Yes, Paul. And so your question regarding how would we think about financing, it's really under the overarching perspective that we want to maintain credit quality. So we've set our credit quality targets of 14% to 15% FFO to debt, maintaining our debt to total cap at 55% or below. And so that's really the guiding principle. And so to your point, obviously, we would think about this as a utility-like investment with a utility-like cap structure in the range that you're noting. So that's how we're thinking about it.

Operator

Operator
#52

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Linn Evans for any closing remarks.

Linden Evans

Executives
#53

Well, thank you very much for participating in our call today, for your interest in Black Hills. We have a compelling long-term value proposition. I hope you're starting to see that develop through our comments today and the responses to our questions. Once again, I want to thank our team. Thanks for leaning in so hard, doing it safely and doing it so well to serve our customers as well as you do. I'm grateful for that. We're grateful for that. So I encourage you to have a Black Hills Energy Safe Day. Thanks for joining our call.

Operator

Operator
#54

Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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