Exelon Corporation

Hello, and welcome to Exelon's second quarter earnings call. My name is Gigi, and I'll be your event specialist today. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. Please note that today's webcast is being recorded. During the presentation, we'll have a question and answer session. You can ask questions by pressing star 1 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to view the presentation in a full screen view, click the full screen button by hovering your computer mouse cursor over the PowerPoint screen. Press the Escape key on your keyboard to return to your original view. And finally, should you need technical assistance, as a best practice, we suggest you first refresh your browser. If that does not resolve the issue, please click on the Help option in the upper right-hand corner of your screen for online troubleshooting. It is now my pleasure to turn today's program over to Andrew Plenge, Vice President of Investor Relations. The floor is yours.

Thank you, Gigi. Good morning, everyone. We're pleased to have you with us for our 2024 second quarter earnings call. Leading the call today are Calvin Butler, Excellence President and Chief Executive Officer, and Gene Jones, Excellence Chief Financial Officer. Other members of Excellence Senior Management Team are also with us today, and they will be available to answer your questions following our prepared remarks. Today's presentation, along with our earnings release and other financial information, can be found in the investor relations section of Exelon's website. We would also like to remind you that today's presentation and the associated earnings release materials contain forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties. You can find the cautionary statements on these risks on slide two of today's presentation or in our SEC filings. In addition, today's presentation includes references to adjusted operating earnings and other non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations between these measures and the nearest equivalent cap measures can be found in the appendix of our presentation and in our earnings release. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Calvin Butler, Excellence President and CEO.

Thank you, Andrew, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the call and are pleased to be reporting a solid second quarter of earnings and operational performance, keeping us on track to deliver consistent and stable performance once again. We expect to deliver within our guidance range of $2,040 to $2,050 with the goal of being at the midpoint or better. And we are reaffirming all of our long-term guidance. That includes investing $34.5 billion to grow rate base at 7.5%, resulting in annualized earnings growth of 5% to 7%. For the quarter, we delivered $0.47 per share of adjusted operating earnings above our expectations. driven primarily by favorable weather in our non-decoupled jurisdictions, along with timing of spend and comment distribution revenues. We also performed at operationally high levels, achieving top quartile or top decile reliability performance across the board. We have also continued to make progress on the regulatory front. Our revised grid plan process in Illinois is on track, and approval by the end of the year is a top priority. Since our last earnings call, we are through two rounds of testimony from staff and intervenors, and we have narrowed open issues with many intervenors and staff. We will continue to work with parties to address open items in advance of the evidentiary hearings. We are encouraged that we've been able to reach agreements with key parties like the City of Chicago, the Building Owners and Management Association, and the Environmental Coalition, JNGO. Each has recognized the progress made in our revised plan and its compliance with the Climate Affordable Jobs Act, a key focus of the commission. These affirmations are good examples of what differentiates the process this year. Approval of the plan will ensure that Northern Illinois will receive the investment needed to maintain an affordable, resilient, reliable, and clean grid for its customers and will support the state's success in attracting new business. In addition, the process for our PICO rate cases remain on track for orders by the end of the year. And PEPCO DC's rate case continues, where we await a final decision in its second multi-year plan upon completion of the briefing schedule on August 30th. Finally, we received an order in PEPCO Maryland's second multi-year plan rate case filing, which adopted a one-year framework. with the ability to refile for new rates while we await the outcome of a lessons learned process in the state. Now, the shortened rate plan maintains some of the positive elements of multi-year rate making, such as a reconciliation and the ability to update rates next spring offers an opportunity to keep rates more current with costs. All stakeholders, including Exelon, are interested in making keep us on track to meet the goals of Maryland's climate solutions now act while appropriately balancing interest across stakeholders all stakeholders which includes customers policymakers and regulators there are many ways to strike that balance and rate making constructs are a key tool to do that we think multi-year plans provide a great foundation for offering unparalleled transparency, accountability, and alignment, including a reconciliation process that allows all stakeholders to understand how we performed against the approved plan. But alignment on an agreed-upon path forward that works for everyone is critical, particularly since the need to invest in the grid is only growing with increased electrification, diverse and sophisticated power supply and demand technologies, and the increased strain on our grid caused by severe weather. The growth in investment has only accelerated as the proliferation of artificial intelligence has significantly boosted data center development, as Jean will discuss in her remarks. The stakes are simply too high to lack confidence that we are prioritizing the investments most important to our customers. Multi-year plans can provide that confidence and transparency to customers and, when done right, ensure alignment with all stakeholders. We are refining our regulatory strategy to follow the lead provided in the final order. And more importantly, stand ready to engage in a lessons learned process to ensure we can find common ground on any adjustments to address stakeholders' areas of focus. In the meantime, given the deviation from the approach used by the Commission since 2021, we are taking action on the current order and seeking more clarity, as Jean will discuss in her remarks. Now, turning to our operational performance on slide five, you can see that our ComEd and Pepco Holdings are performing at top decile levels, despite ComEd experiencing four times the amount of storm activity in the second quarter versus last year. I just want to pause and say how incredibly grateful I am for the committed employees that serve on the front lines during these increasingly challenging storm seasons. Just in the past few weeks, our ComEd crews headed down to the Gulf region to provide mutual assistance after Hurricane Beryl. only to come back to respond to four waves of back-to-back storms in Illinois, in which there were 41 confirmed tornadoes impacting 500,000 customers. ComEd experienced the most severe storm in its territory in more than 15 years. And yet, within two days, we had restored 80% of the impacted customers. which is a true testament to the importance of prudent grid investment and our employees' relentless dedication to our customers. We can't thank our employees and those providing mutual assistance enough for their commitment to serving all of our customers. This operational excellence is matched on the gas side as well. Now, on the safety front, I'm pleased to report that B all now top decile, with PICO improving from second quartile into the first quartile. Our utilities continue to leverage our new safety observation platform to take action before an incident occurs, with over 1,000 supervisors and safety professionals trained on our new tools. ComEd is continuing to build upon this focus with the goal of moving into the top quartile, and we look forward to sharing more on its progress on our next earnings call. quarter with Comet and Pico in the top quartile, Pepco Holdings in the second quartile, and BGE in the third quartile. Pepco Holdings and BGE have both made progress toward improving their performances, implementing actions based on the findings from their customer experience working groups and data analytics. Comet actions to improve performance include enhanced accuracy for time to restore communications, greater self-service options for new business and interconnections, and customer assistance campaigns targeted at newer groups such as moderate-income customers. We look forward to the second half of the year bringing continued operational excellence and delivering industry-leading value to our customers. I'll now turn the call over to Gene to cover our financial and regulatory update. Gene?