The Southern Company

Good afternoon. My name is Christine and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Southern Company second 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 today's 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 MacLeod, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Christine. Good afternoon and welcome to Southern Company's second quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me today are Chris Womack, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Southern Company, and David Poroch, 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, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's update. As you can see from the materials that were released this morning, Southern Company continues to perform exceptionally well which supports a very bright future. We reported strong adjusted earnings results for the second quarter with each of our businesses contributing to performance meaningfully above the estimate we provided last quarter. The extraordinary economic development momentum and demand for power across our Southeast region that we've seen for the past several years continues particularly from data centers and other large load customers and our utilities are capturing this growth in a way that meaningfully benefits the customers and communities we are privileged to serve and supports our long-term outlook. In just the last quarter, there were three projects across the state. Alabama Power added approximately three gigawatts while Georgia Power signed a 3.2 gigawatt, 25-year contract for electric service with OpenAI for its recently announced site near Savannah, Georgia. This site, which is expected to take electric service in phases beginning in 2028, features one gigawatt of flexible demand response, helping to support reliable energy for all customers when demand is highest. Combined, these four projects representing six gigawatts of newly contracted customer load along with agreements previously signed brings our total contracts and large load agreements across our electric subsidiaries to over 17 gigawatts by the mid 2030s. These projects are not just bringing in substantial construction work. They're creating thousands of permanent jobs and generating billions of dollars of investment for the local economies and our service territories. And we are proud to responsibly support were all involved in this growth in a way that benefits the communities we serve. In Alabama, the three new contracts were a clear confirmation of the continued economic development momentum building across all our electric service territories and our differentiated large load capabilities. Increasingly, our vertically integrated state regulated model supports our ability to provide reliable power with speed and is an important differentiator for our new and existing customers. Our success attracting significant growth is a testament to the benefits that this model affords all our customers. As a comprehensive one-stop shop for power solutions and economic development, our electric operating companies utilize long-range integrated system planning processes to coordinate timely development of generation, transmission, and distribution assets through well-structured and transparent regulatory processes that are designed to serve growth reliably. The Southeast, with its robust network of transportation and logistics infrastructure, diverse workforce, and a constructive business climate continues to be highly attractive and all forms of economic development, including hyperscalers, data center developers and large industrial manufacturers. Looking ahead, the opportunities for additional new large load and data center customer growth remains robust. New projects continue to be added to our prospective pipeline, large industrial and data center projects, which remains well above 75 gigawatts. We are encouraged by the continued progression of potential large load projects in varying stages of advanced development. Beyond the 17 gigawatts already contracted, there are an additional eight gigawatts of projects in late stages, including three gigawatts projected to be finalized in the near term. Clearly, the benefits of our approach are resonating with both new customers and several repeat large load customers during a time of increasing power demand. We are privileged to support this transformative growth. David, I'll now turn the call over to you for an update on our financial performance.