American Electric Power Company, Inc.

Thank you for standing by. My name is JL and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the American Electric Power second quarter 2024 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 you would like to ask a question in this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. I would now like to turn the conference over to Darcy Reese, President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, JL. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the second quarter 2024 earnings call for American Electric Power. We appreciate you taking time to join us today. Our earnings release, presentation slides, and related financial information are available on our website at AEP.com. Today, we will be making forward-looking statements during the call. There are many factors that may cause future results to differ materially from these statements. Please refer to our SEC filings for discussion of these factors. Joining me this morning for opening remarks are Ben Folk, our interim president and chief executive officer, Chuck Zabula, our executive vice president and chief financial officer, and Peggy Simmons, our executive vice president of utilities. We will take your questions following their remarks. I will now turn the call over to Ben.

Good morning and welcome to American Electric Power's second quarter 2024 earnings call. Shortly, Peggy will provide a regulatory update. followed by Chuck, who will review our financial results in more detail. A summary of our second quarter 2024 business highlights can be found on slide six of today's presentation. Before I dive into our results, I'd like to start by welcoming Bill Fuhrman to AEP as our new President and CEO, effective August 1st. Bill brings decades of utility operational leadership experience and in-depth knowledge of the energy industry. most recently serving as President and CEO of Century Holdings, and prior to that, President and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy. With Bill's expertise and diverse background, you can anticipate a smooth transition and continuity of strategic direction. Expect more focus on execution, and Bill has the background to do just that, including capturing growth, listening and responding to our regulators and investors, and using innovation to mitigate inflationary pressures. While I will be serving as senior advisor for several months to ensure a smooth transition, it's been an honor to lead AEP as interim president and CEO, and I'm proud of what the team has accomplished so far this year. Now, turning to AEP's financial results. Today, we announced second quarter 2024 operating earnings of $1.25 per share, a 12% increase over one year ago. Our operational execution through the first half of the year, combined with our efforts to efficiently manage the business, have put us well on track to achieve our targets. Today, we reaffirm our 2024 full-year operating earnings guidance range from $5.53 to $5.73, and our long-term earnings growth rate of 6% to 7%. Regarding data center load, we have commitments from customers for more than 15 gigawatts of incremental load by the end of this decade, mostly driven by large load opportunities. To put this in perspective, AEP's system-wide peak load at the end of last year was 35 gigawatts. We continue to work with data center customers to meet their increased demand while ensuring contracts and new initiatives are fair and beneficial for all of our customers. In the fall, we will provide an update on what this large load opportunity means for our capital spend, including generation and transmission investment, and on our plan to responsibly finance this growth initiative. While we certainly encourage innovation when it comes to meeting the energy needs of our customers, data centers included, I want to emphasize that it's critically important that costs associated with these large loads are allocated fairly and the right investments are made for the long-term success of our grid. For this reason, we filed new data center tariffs in Ohio and large load tariff modifications in Indiana and West Virginia. And it's the reason why we filed a complaint with FERC related to a co-located load agreement. We will know soon what FERC decides, but this is the rationale we used. Given the co-located load agreement is an active case before FERC, I don't plan on making any further comments. I'd also like to note that large load impacts are already being felt here in AEP's service territories, primarily Ohio and Texas, as our commercial load grew an impressive 12.4% over the second quarter of last year. Looking ahead, we expect the incremental load I just mentioned to move forward in these states and others, including Indiana. Moving to another example of capital opportunities, PSO announced an agreement at the end of June to purchase a 795 megawatt natural gas generation facility conditioned on regulatory approval. The facility, known as Green Country, is located in Jenks, Oklahoma, and will ensure PSO customers continue to benefit from reliable and affordable resources. For this resource adequacy driven capital, PSO plans to seek regulatory approval this fall. at which time the economics of this acquisition will be made public. As you know, maintaining a strong balance sheet is critical to fund increased capital spend to support our growth initiatives. We will sensibly finance our capital needs, and we're open to incremental growth equity and equity-like tools in addition to portfolio optimization. On a similar portfolio note, the sale of AEP onsite partners remains on track to close in the third quarter following FERC approval. Now let's move on to the Federal EPA's Coal Combustion Residual Rule, or CCR, which was finalized in the second quarter and expanded the scope of the rule to include inactive impoundments at existing and inactive facilities. We continue to evaluate the applicability of the rule to current and former plant sites. and have developed preliminary estimates of compliance costs. While we are working with others and looking at potential legal challenges to the revised rules, as appropriate, we do plan to seek cost recovery through new and or existing regulatory mechanisms. Chuck will have more information on this shortly. Before I turn it over to Peggy for additional updates, I'd like to thank all of you for your support during my time as AEP's interim CEO. Been a privilege to serve AEP over the past five months, and the board and I are confident that Bill is the right person to build on the momentum underway and to lead AEP into its next chapter. On a related note, we are planning an informal meet and greet in New York City soon so analyst investors can say hello to Bill in person. We are targeting something in August, so stay tuned for more information coming your way in the next couple of days. Finally, I'm excited about what the future holds for AEP as we execute on our strategic priorities and enhance value for all of our stakeholders. Peggy?