Utility parent Eversource Energy said its third-quarter profits rose nearly 9%, driven mainly by its electric transmission business.
Eversource on Wednesday reported profits of $346.3 million, or $1.01 per diluted share, for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up from $318.9 million, or 98 cents per share, during the same three months of 2019.
The company, which has dual headquarters in Boston and Hartford and utility operations across Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, said revenue grew to $2.34 billion for the quarter, compared with $2.18 billion a year ago. Expenses, including purchased fuel and taxes, also rose.
Eversource reaffirmed its projected full-year earnings range of $3.60 to $3.70 per share, excluding costs related to its recently completed purchase of Columbia Gas of Massachusetts.
The quarterly results were not impacted by the recent Tropical Storm Isaias, as storm costs of a certain size get deferred to a later period, the company said. Connecticut lawmakers passed legislation in the wake of that storm, which knocked out power to approximately 1 million people in the state, that will require customer rebates, as well as payments for ruined food and medication, during future outages of a certain length.
In an earnings presentation Wednesday for stock analysts, Eversource compared the damage and outage length of the August storm with several major weather events in 2011 and 2012 that also led to state-level legislative reforms
Isaias caused damage to 21,669 locations and outages took nine days to restore. That was thousands more damage locations than what Eversource experienced from Superstorm Sandy and Tropical Storm Irene, and those two storms had durations that lasted a day or two longer than Isaias.
Of the four storms compared, the Oct. 2011 Nor’Easter was by far the worst, with 25,566 damage locations and an outage duration of 13 days.
