Alliant Energy Corporation

Good morning and welcome to Alliant Energy's conference call for fourth quarter and year-end 2022 results. This call is being recorded for rebroadcast. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Susan Gill, Investor Relations Manager at Alliant Energy.

Good morning. I'd like to thank all of you on the call and the webcast for joining us today. We appreciate your participation. Joining me on this call are John Larson, Chair, President, and CEO, and Robert Durian, Executive Vice President and CFO. Following prepared remarks by John and Robert, we will have time to take questions from the investment community. We issued a news release last night announcing Alliant Energy's fourth quarter and year-end 2022 financial results and affirmed our 2023 earnings guidance. This release, as well as an earnings presentation, which will be referenced during today's call are available on the investor page of our website at www.alliantenergy.com. Before we begin, I need to remind you the remarks we make on this call and our answers to your questions include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different. Those risks include, among others, matters discussed in Alliant Energy's press release issued last night and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. In addition, this presentation contains references to non-GAAP financial measures. The reconciliation between non-GAAP and GAAP measures are provided in the earnings release, which is available on our website. At this point, I'll turn the call over to John.

Thank you, Susan. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. 2022 was another successful year of solid operations and financial performance. This was our 13th straight year of delivering results in our 5% to 7% adjusted EPS growth range and the 20th year, two decades straight, of consecutive dividend increases. We had one of our best reliability years on record with top-tier performance, Our wind generation produced the most wind energy in our history, providing approximately $160 million of fuel cost savings for our customers. We continued our progress towards net zero, decreasing carbon dioxide by nearly 40% off of 2005 levels. And we capped off 2022 with very strong economic development in both Iowa and Wisconsin, with over 100 megawatts of announced load that will bring new jobs, and new investments. As I reflect on the past year, what makes me most proud of Alliant Energy is the continued dedication and service from our employees as they strengthen our connection with the customers and communities we proudly serve. In 2023, we will be celebrating Alliant Energy's 25th year. I'm proud to be part of Alliant Energy. I'm proud of our team, and I'm inspired by our purpose to serve customers and build stronger communities. Our employees' focus on this purpose has enabled us to once again deliver the results you have come to expect from Alliant Energy. Our purpose continues to be the source of our strength and guides us through the ever-changing dynamics within our economy and our industry. I'll highlight a few areas of progress and then turn it over to Robert to recap financial results and provide an update on regulatory proceedings. In 2022, we continue to execute on our clean energy blueprint by adding renewables in the states where our customers live, which allows us to invest in the communities we serve and add skilled union jobs and local revenues. This is another example of how our purpose is at the center of our strategy. We added 250 megawatts of solar at our Bear Creek, North Rock, and Wood County, Wisconsin sites, positioning us as the largest owner-operator of solar generation in Wisconsin. We are on track to bring into service an additional 850 megawatts of utility-scale solar by the first half of 2024 in Wisconsin. We continue to progress our clean energy blueprint in Iowa, advancing renewables and our efforts to place electric lines underground, improving the reliability of our system. And while we are not yet at the conclusion of the advanced rate-making process in Iowa for our solar and storage projects, we continue to follow the well-defined steps within the regulatory and procedural process to demonstrate that these projects are cost-effective and reasonable. We remain confident these projects are in the best interest of our customers and will supply the energy, reliability, and resilience that our customers depend on. Another great success story is the advancement of solar gardens. We are building one near Cedar Rapids, Iowa with Transamerica and Agon as our main customers. And we're partnering with Mercury Marine in Wisconsin to build a similar solar facility. These projects help advance the sustainability objectives of our customers. And we also use these local investments to advance our focus on the social part of ESG, providing some of the solar energy to partners like Habitat for Humanity. This continued focus on economic development and our customers were contributing factors in being named a top utility in economic development by Site Selection Magazine for the fourth year in a row. And I'm proud to say that this work also contributed to the recently being awarded the Chairman's Award for Workforce Development Leadership, which is the Center for Energy Workforce Development's highest honor. While we are proud to receive many recognitions this past year for the work that we do in our communities, the recognition I'm most proud of focuses on our employee experience. For the fifth year in a row, we were named by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation as a best place to work, and for the fifth year in a row, to Forbes' list of America's best midsize employers. In speaking with many of you, one of the things I'm reminded of is our strong core investment thesis, that is, why you choose to invest in our company. Simply put, we deliver consistent results. Our well-executed, forward-thinking, and flexible strategy, coupled with constructive regulatory jurisdictions, has been a major part of our success. We not only deliver near-term results, but continue to take steps to help reduce future risks and provide the stability investors have come to expect from our company. A well-executed strategy has positioned us as a leader on the path to a clean, reliable, and affordable energy future. We are well-positioned to quickly adapt to a dynamic economic environment and weather challenges while delivering on investor and customer expectations. 2022 was a clear example of this. Our efforts to move lines underground, continue the advancement of solar projects, and strong operations in the face of weather events while delivering solid results for our investors and reliable service for our customers underscores the flexibility of our strategy and the dedication of the team I am privileged to lead. And speaking of dedication, I want to pass on my appreciation to our employees that have worked through difficult conditions in the recent weather event to safely restore our power to our customers. As we move forward in 2023, you can have confidence that we will continue to take the required action that is needed to meet our customers' needs. We thank each one of you for continuing to be engaged in our journey, and we look forward to connecting with you throughout 2023. At this time, I will now turn the call over to Robert.