Edison International and subsidiary Southern California Edison on Tuesday reported a significant drop in earnings for the second quarter of 2020, even as the parent company remained firmly in the black.
Sales of fuel from the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) helped offset the non-core loss per share at Southern California Edison (SCE), according to the earnings report.
Net income at Edison International fell from $392 million in second-quarter 2019 to $318 million in the same three-month stretch through June 30, 2020. That pushed earnings per share down from $1.20 to $0.85.
Edison’s core earnings dropped from $515 million, $1.58 per share, to $375 million, an even $1 per share.
For the quarter, SCE earnings per share dropped by $0.26 on a year-over-year basis: from $1.28 to $1.02. Core earnings per share fell by $0.56, from $1.66 to $1.10. Non-core earnings per share improved, but remained in the red: a $0.08 per-share loss, up from $0.38 in the 2019 quarter.
Southern California Edison’s “lower non-core loss per share was mainly attributable to the absence of $0.38 of disallowed historical capital expenditures in SCE’s 2018 [general rate case] decision recorded in the second quarter 2019, and a charge recorded in 2020 of $0.16 from the amortization of SCE’s contributions to the Wildfire Insurance Fund,” Edison said in a press release. “These were partially offset by a gain of $0.10 recorded in 2020 for SCE’s sale of San Onofre nuclear fuel.”
A general rate case is a proceeding to determine how to distribute the costs of operating and maintaining a utility system among its customers.
Southern California Edison, majority owner of SONGS, recorded a $52 million gain ($37 million after tax) this year on sales of the nuclear fuel. That all came in the second quarter, according to its earnings presentation. For all of 2019, SCE brought in $4 million ($3 million after tax) on sales of nuclear fuel.
SONGS’ last two operational reactors were permanently retired in 2013 after being equipped with faulty steam generators. The $4.4 billion decommissioning of the units began in earnest earlier this year under contractor SONGS Decommissioning Solutions. Work is scheduled to be completed by the end of this decade.
The sold material was fuel that was never used in reactor Units 2 and 3 at the San Diego County property, SCE spokesman John Dobken said Thursday. The material generally is shopped to other utilities or financial entities that work with utilities. Dobken said he could not discuss how much fuel SCE still holds.
Edison listed nuclear decommissioning trusts among its present assets. They were valued at $4.56 billion as of June 30, about even from the amount a year earlier. Those cover six separate trusts, one each for the retired reactors at SONGS and the operational Palo Verde plant in Arizona, for which SCE is a minority owner.
There were otherwise few references to SCE’s nuclear operations in the earnings document, and the topic did not come up in executives’ conference call Tuesday with financial analysts.
For the first six months of the year, Edison’s net income came in at $501 million, $1.37 per share, down steeply from $670 million, $2.05 per share, from that stretch of 2019. Adjusted core earnings landed at $603 million, $1.65 per share, down from $721 million, $2.21 per share.
Southern California Edison’s six-month earnings per share dropped by $.54 from 2019 to 2020, from $2.18 to $1.64.
Edison slightly tweaked its core earnings guidance for the year: While the top amount remained steady from April at $4.62, the low-earnings projection rose from $4.32 to $4.37.
