American Electric Power Company, Inc.

Hello and thank you for standing by. My name is Lacey and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the American Electric Power 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 you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press start followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Andy Gergel, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to American Electric Power's second quarter 2026 earnings call. A live webcast of this teleconference and slide presentation are available on our website under the events and presentation sections. Joining me today are Bill Fehrman, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Trevor Mihalik, Chief Financial Officer. In addition, we have other members of our management team in the room, including Kate Dixon, Senior Vice President, Controller, and Chief Accounting Officer, and Darcy Reese, Vice President, Investor Relations. We will be making forward-looking statements during the call. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement we make today. Factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially are discussed in the company's most recent SEC filings. Please refer to the presentation slides that accompany this call for reconciliation to gap measures. We will take your questions following opening remarks. Please start on slides four and five as I hand the call over to Bill.

Good morning and thank you for joining us for our second quarter 2026 earnings call. As we close out the first half of 2026, in my first two years at AEP, I'm very pleased with the progress we've made and the positive momentum we continue to build across the business. Four main themes are key to this progress as shown on slide seven. Enhancing our financial performance, driving affordability, capturing significant growth across our portfolio, and improving regulatory and operational outcomes. We are executing exceptionally well across each of these areas, strengthening our platform for outsized growth and long-term shareholder value creation. Turning to slide eight, I will start with our focus on enhancing AEP's financial performance. We delivered operating earnings of $1.36 per share, or $742 million for the second quarter. While I recognize our operating earnings are below last year at this stage due to the 2025 transmission minority interest sale and timing related tax items, I am highly confident in our business performance, so much so that we are raising our 2026 full year guidance to a range of $6.25 to $6.55 per share from our previous range of $6.15 to $6.45 per share. I also remain committed to supporting strong investment-grade credit metrics, including our targeted FFO to debt ratio of 14% to 15% as we move through this incredible period of growth that's expected to last well into the next decade. Trevor will go into more detail around the financial performance later on in the call. AEP's size, scale, and attractive geographic footprint continue to provide differential advantages as we drive affordability all while executing on our robust growth strategy. As one of the largest utility holding companies in the country, we benefit from economies of scale that enhance our ability to procure, build, operate, and finance infrastructure in a highly efficient way. Combined with the tremendous strides we have made improving regulatory outcomes and cost recovery mechanisms, These advantages help us deliver safe, reliable, and affordable energy service for customers while generating increasing value for our shareholders. Over the past two years, we have seen significant customer demand across our footprint, and AEP's focus on execution positions us to be one of the best to capture that growth. Just during the second quarter, AEP contracted an additional six gigawatts of load, primarily driven by fully executed LOAs in Texas. Trevor will also provide more details on our incremental large load pipeline later on in the call, but to be clear, our future is extremely bright as it pertains to growth, exceptional counterparties, and incredibly supportive strategic partnerships that will allow us to deliver for our customers and our shareholders. As shared on our first quarter call, AEP's five-year capital plan from 2026 through 2030 is $78 billion, which is expected to result in nearly 11% rate-based CAGR. To put this growth into perspective, AEP's five-year capital plan stood at just $38 billion only four years ago. This significant step change underscores the strength of our portfolio and differentiated organic growth seen across our expansive footprint. In summary, we intend to deliver, and our customers know it, That is why we have such a significant backlog of growth, which creates long-term upside for AEP over the next decade. We also shared on the first quarter call that we have line of sight to over $10 billion of incremental investments that are not included in the $7-8 billion, consisting of the fuel cells for the Wyoming project, the Piketon transmission opportunity, and incremental power generation. We continue to work with the Hyperscaler on the Wyoming Fuel Cell Initiative and remain highly optimistic about the project's advancement. Based on a contractual June 30 deadline, we reached an amendment to the agreement with the off-taker, which modified some key protection terms so that AEP is adequately compensated for their requested timing accommodations. Under the original December 2026 milestone, which remains intact, the hyperscaler has the ability to choose to deploy the fuel cells at an alternate location if the Cheyenne, Wyoming site does not advance. If the December 2026 milestone is not met, or if there are additional requests to change the agreement terms, AEP retains financial protections for our shareholders. Separately, we continue to advance the Piketon transmission opportunity in Ohio and are working towards definitive agreements with the prospective off-taker, SB Energy. Following execution of definitive agreements, the projects would proceed through the required regulatory review and approval process. This project further highlights the strength of AEP's transmission franchise and, in particular, our industry-leading expertise in developing and operating 765 kV transmission infrastructure. As we have discussed previously, AEP has taken a very proactive approach over the past two years to secure critical gas-fired turbine generators, leveraging our scale as one of the nation's largest owner-operators of electric generation, industry expertise, and long-standing supplier relationships. Just over this past quarter, we have secured an additional three gigawatts of turbines, This increases our total secured turbine capacity to approximately 13 gigawatts for deployment through 2031. These strategic procurements position us to meet the growing energy needs of our customers while providing greater certainty around future resource deployment in AEP's footprint. When we introduce a new five-year plan for 2027 through 2031 during our third quarter earnings call, these generation investments are expected to be an important driver of our long-term growth outlook. In addition, we are leveraging our sizable market position and strategic manufacturer relationships to secure up to 10 gigawatts of incremental turbine capacity through 2035. This level of access to critical equipment underscores a key competitive advantage for AEP and enhances our ability to support customer growth, strengthen reliability, and create long-term value for shareholders. Regarding nuclear, we continue to advance an early-stage nuclear generation strategy. This is being driven by demand from potential customers who value alternative forms of long-term baseload generation to support the rapidly growing demand. While we want to be proactive and work with customers to jointly develop their projects on a fee-based arrangement that limits risk for AEP, we will remain highly disciplined to ensure that we are protecting our existing customers, shareholders, and balance sheet. Please turn to slide nine. Affordability remains a core tenet of our customer strategy. As new large load comes online, it enables a shift of fixed costs currently borne by existing customers to new data centers and hyperscalers. As we noted on our first quarter call in May, we are projecting fixed cost offsets for residential customers of up to $16 billion in our vertically integrated utilities as a result of new large load interconnections that are supported by fully executed take or pay electric service agreements. The benefits of this changing customer mix are already being realized. Together with our disciplined focus on operational efficiency, these offsets have supported planned base rate reductions in select AEP operating companies. For example, an order has been received in Ohio and Indiana Michigan Power plans to submit a base rate reduction filing later this summer, reinforcing our commitment to delivering safe, reliable, and affordable service while supporting economic growth. We are also continuing to access sources of lower-cost capital, including federal grants and U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantees, to further drive customer savings. Earlier this month, AEP Texas secured a DOE loan guarantee for up to $3.3 billion to finance a portfolio of transmission projects spanning approximately 2,800 miles. which is expected to deliver an estimated $685 million in customer savings over the life of the loan through lower financing costs. With this financing, AP has now secured approximately $5 billion in DOE loans across our portfolio, supporting an expected $1 billion in projected customer savings. This, combined with almost $400 million in awarded DOE grants, are expected to deliver nearly $1.4 billion in estimated customer benefits over the life of the loans and grants. Turning to slide 10, we continue to obtain constructive regulatory outcomes across our portfolio, with notable progress achieved this past quarter, which should improve cost recovery and our earned ROEs over time. In Ohio, we secured commission approval of the distribution-based case settlement, which includes an affordability measure featuring a base rate decrease driven by the timing of regulatory liabilities being passed back to customers. AEP Ohio also secured a 9.84% ROE, up from 9.7%. This, coupled with the forward-looking test year in the next rate case, will improve cost recovery and their earned ROE. In Texas, Swepco reached a base rate case settlement in principle with key stakeholders in late April. which positions us well to advance our growth plans and enhance safe, reliable, and affordable electric service for customers. In Oklahoma, PSO filed a base rate case settlement with several key intervenors. While the proposed authorized ROE decreases slightly from 9.5% to 9.375%, the settlement includes an enhanced transmission cost rider which we expect to result in a meaningful improvement in PSO's earned ROE. PSO also received a separate order in May approving its request to procure 1.3 gigawatts of generation resources, supporting reliable and affordable service for our customers. Taken together, these outcomes support continued investment in Oklahoma while keeping customer affordability front and center. In Virginia, we completed a $1.4 billion securitization in May, enabling APCO to file its lowest increase in a base rate request in nearly 30 years. driving further customer affordability measures. Additionally, in June, we received approval in Virginia for our proposed large low tariff, bringing the total number of approved tariffs across the portfolio to five. We have three additional filings pending for proposed large low tariffs, and our teams are working closely with key stakeholders to advance them through the approval process. Collectively, the constructive regulatory outcomes we have achieved this quarter and over the last couple years reflect a more focused engagement strategy across our footprint by listening to what our customers, regulators, and states want. That approach is helping us achieve balanced outcomes that create value for our shareholders and certainly for our customers. In summary, AEP is entering the second half of the year with extremely strong momentum, building on the significant progress we have achieved since I joined two years ago. We are serving growing customer demand, investing in critical infrastructure, keeping affordability central to our approach, and maintaining the financial discipline needed to create long-term value for our customers and shareholders. Let me be very clear. AEP now has significant management and leadership depth. Our board is highly supportive, and with our new board additions, growing in their expertise is directly tied to our long-term strategic plan. This team is second to none and well suited to deliver this impressive plan that will drive significant long-term value for investors. Our future is all about growth well into the next decade. That is what is expected of me and that is what I intend to deliver with this team. I will now turn the call over to Trevor who will review our second quarter performance drivers and additional financial and business updates.