The operation and maintenance of electricity delivery facilities involves significant risks that could adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition, and insurance may not fully cover any losses resulting from such risks.
The operation and maintenance of delivery facilities involves many risks, including equipment breakdown or failure of facilities, lack of sufficient capital and unexpected costs to maintain the facilities, equipment interruptions, fires, explosions, impact of unusual or adverse weather conditions or other natural events, and interrupted or degraded service on key technology platforms, as well as the risk of performance below expected levels of efficiency or reliability, the occurrence of any of which could result in lost revenues and/or increased expenses that may not be recoverable through rates. There are also many hazards associated with the operation of electricity transmission and distribution assets, and these hazards could cause personal injury and loss of life, damage or destruction of property, or environmental damage, any of which could result in liabilities to our business. A significant number of our facilities were constructed many years ago. In particular, older transmission and distribution equipment, even if maintained in accordance with good engineering practices, may require significant expenditures to keep operating at peak efficiency or reliability. A risk of increased maintenance and capital expenditures arises from damage to facilities due to storms, natural disasters, wars, accidents, terrorist or criminal acts, cyber attacks, and other catastrophic events. Further, our ability to successfully and timely complete capital improvements to existing facilities or other capital projects is contingent upon many variables and subject to substantial risks. Should any such efforts be unsuccessful, we could be subject to additional costs that may not be recoverable through rates and/or the
write-off
of our investment in the capital project or improvement.
A physical attack on our transmission, distribution and technology infrastructure could also interfere with normal business operations and affect our ability to control our transmission and distribution assets. Certain of the various internal systems we use to conduct our businesses are highly integrated. Consequently, a breach in any one key physical asset could potentially impact other areas of our system. A physical security breach could adversely affect our reputation, expose us to material regulatory penalties and/or materially affect our results of operations, liquidity and financial condition.
Insurance, warranties or performance guarantees may not cover all or any of the lost revenues or increased expenses that could result from the risks discussed above. Likewise, our ability to obtain insurance at rates we believe are commercially reasonable, and the cost of and coverage provided by such insurance, could be affected by events outside our control.
Our business could be adversely affected by health epidemics and pandemics, including the current
COVID-19
pandemic and its variants.
We face risks related to health epidemics and pandemics, including the
COVID-19
pandemic and its variants, which could lead to the disruption of our business operations by impacting the global economy and our employees, REPs,
end-users,
wholesale customers, network transmission customers, service providers, vendors and suppliers. These effects could also have a variety of adverse impacts on us, including reduced demand for electricity, delayed or delinquent customer payments to us (including as a result of end use customer failures to pay REPs and/or any state or national moratoriums on customer disconnections), slowed growth in our service territory, reduced availability or productivity of our workforce, constraints on our supply chain, increased supplier and labor costs, reduced labor or contractor availability, impairment of goodwill or long-lived assets, increased pension funding requirements due to a decline in pension asset values, impairment of our ability to develop, construct and/or operate electricity delivery facilities, and impairment of our ability to access funds from financial institutions and capital markets.
COVID-19
has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization and has spread globally, including throughout the U.S. and Texas. The
COVID-19
pandemic has impacted the global economy and communities and supply chains around the world.
COVID-19
has also adversely affected conditions in the capital and credit markets at various points and may adversely affect our cost of and access to debt financing in the future. To date,
COVID-19
has not had a material adverse impact on our business, supply chain, cash flows, liquidity, financial condition and/or results of operations. We have taken several precautionary and preemptive actions at various points in response to
COVID-19
to protect our workforce and critical operations pursuant to our pandemic response plan, and management may implement or rescind precautionary measures as it deems necessary based on the state of the pandemic. We are also actively managing our supply chain and communicating regularly with key vendors and suppliers.
We continue to monitor the
COVID-19
pandemic and its impacts and may take further actions that alter our business operations as may be required by federal, state or local authorities, or that we determine are in the best interests of our employees, customers and suppliers. The extent to which
COVID-19
does impact our results will ultimately depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain, and will include emerging information concerning the severity of COVID-19, the duration of the pandemic, and the actions taken by governments and private businesses to attempt to contain
COVID-19,
including the impact of any potential vaccine and other mandates imposed on our company and businesses involved in our supply chain. Therefore, we cannot predict whether, or to what extent, the
COVID-19
pandemic will have a material adverse impact on our business, supply chain, cash flows, liquidity, financial condition and/or results of operations.