Can Rising Water Demand Boost California Water's Long-Term Growth?

California Water Service Group CWT is benefiting from higher water consumption and opportunities to expand its customer base across its service territories. Its presence across California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Texas and Washington provides a diversified customer base and opportunities to benefit from higher demand across multiple markets.

CWT’s second-quarter 2026 results indicate that customer usage remains an important growth driver. Operating revenues increased 16.5% year over year to $308.6 million, while net income rose to $56.5 million from $42.2 million. Increased customer consumption contributed $4.1 million to quarterly revenues, reflecting differences in climate conditions between the two periods and demonstrating how stronger usage can complement rate-related revenue growth.

Recent developments also highlight opportunities to expand and improve its systems. On Sept. 14, CWT announced the start of a water-supply reliability and fire-protection project in Willows, CA. On Sept. 10, Washington Water, a subsidiary of CWT, received regulatory approval for a settlement allowing an annual revenue increase of $4.1 million to recover investments supporting safe and reliable service.

CWT is also pursuing the acquisition of Nexus Water Group’s Nevada and Oregon systems, which is expected to add approximately 36,000 customer-equivalent residential units and about $109 million of rate base.

California Water Service plans to invest $627 million in 2026, supporting infrastructure upgrades and rate-base growth. Overall, rising customer demand, capital investment and regulatory recovery should provide CWT with a solid foundation for long-term growth.

Rising Customer Demand Supports Utility Growth

Growing water demand can increase utility revenues while supporting investments in treatment capacity, distribution networks and system reliability. Expanding demand also creates opportunities for utilities to recover infrastructure costs through regulated rates and strengthen their long-term rate base. 

American Water Works AWK added about 52,000 customer connections through acquisitions by June 2026. The larger customer base, alongside infrastructure investment and regulated rate recovery, should support revenue and long-term growth prospects.

American States Water AWR benefited from stronger demand in second-quarter 2026, as its unit Golden State Water’s customer consumption increased 4% year over year, supporting higher water-segment earnings alongside approved rate increases.

The Zacks Rundown on CWT

CWT’s Earnings Estimates

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 and 2027 EPS indicates a year-over-year increase of 19.53% and 6.09%, respectively.

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Debt to Capital

CWT's debt-to-capital ratio currently stands at 48.1%, lower than the Zacks Utility- Water Supply industry’s 53.66%.

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CWT’s Stock Price Performance

In the past three months, the company’s shares have risen 6.1% compared with the industry’s 4.6% growth.

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CWT’s Zacks Rank

CWT currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

 

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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