The Southern Company

Good afternoon. My name is Christine and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Southern Company first quarter 2026 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Greg McLeod, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Christine. Good afternoon, and welcome to Southern Company's first quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me today are Chris Womack, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Southern Company, and David Perroque, Chief Financial Officer. Let me remind you that we will make forward-looking statements today in addition to providing historical information. Various important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements, including those discussed in our Form 10-K, Form 10-Q, and subsequent securities filings. In addition, we will present non-GAAP financial information on this call. Reconciliations to the applicable GAAP measure are included in the financial information we released this morning, as well as the slides for this conference call, which are both available on our Investor Relations website at investor.southerncompany.com. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Chris.

Thank you, Greg. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. As you can see from the materials that we released this morning, we reported adjusted earnings results for the first quarter above our estimate, with year-over-year growth reflected across all our major businesses. That performance reflects premium execution and the strength of our strategy to serve the phenomenal growth we're seeing across the Southeast, with reliable and affordable energy while delivering durable long-term value for shareholders. We continue to see extraordinary growth and economic development opportunities as our service territories attract investment, people, and jobs at a pace few regions can match. As we previously highlighted, a substantial portion of this growth is driven by projected demand from large load customers. The demand for power across our electric service territories has culminated in 23 gigawatts of contracted or late stage load. In just the last two months, we assigned contracts for another 1.9 gigawatts of customer load with high credit quality hyperscalers, bringing our fully contracted large load agreements to more than 11 gigawatts across our electric subsidiaries. These bilateral negotiated agreements are structured so that customers driving incremental demand cover the full share of the cost to serve them, helping to assure this growth benefits all customers. We continue to execute on our plans to serve growth, and our straightforward approach protects existing customers. We invest in line with demand to serve growth that enables us to deliver regular, predictable, and sustainable results while providing meaningful benefits to the customers and communities we are privileged to serve. Southern Company continues to be uniquely positioned to do this because of our scale, our experience, and our expertise, all supported by constructive, longstanding regulatory frameworks. At Southern Company, we are capitalizing on transformative growth opportunities. While delivering energy reliability and rate stability as energy demands growth, with base rates held stable in Alabama and Georgia until at least 2029, along with the recent filing to lower rates in Georgia associated with the recovery of fuel and storm costs, we are demonstrating the value of this approach. Rate stability for our customers is a purposeful objective supported by our constructive, orderly planning and procurement processes, cost management, and thoughtful finance. This same built for purpose approach also creates the potential for additional capital investment to serve incremental growth opportunities under established regulatory processes. We have routinely demonstrated as growth opportunities present themselves, that Southern Company has the ability to convert these opportunities into value through enhanced operations and grid improving infrastructure investments for the benefit of customers and investors alike. The construction of many of these investments is well underway. In the last two months, Georgia Power achieved commercial operations for two battery energy storage systems providing nearly 200 megawatts of capacity, representing an important step forward in advancing reliable, sustainable energy solutions across the state. These projects are the first of several resources included within our 10 gigawatt portfolio of approved new generation resources that are in development to power the extraordinary projected growth in our region, including multiple battery systems and natural gas combustion turbines that are projected to be online later in 2026. and 2027. Before I turn the call over to David for our financial update, I'd like to highlight the recently announced historic $26.5 billion in loan agreements with the Department of Energy that will benefit customers across Alabama and Georgia for decades. As we expect these loans to translate into meaningful long-term customer savings while reducing pressure on our capital market needs. Over the approximately 30-year term of the DOE loans, this lower cost financing is projected to generate cumulative savings of $7 billion for customers. David, I'll now turn the call over to you for a financial update.