Alliant Energy Corporation

Good morning, and welcome to Alliance Energy's conference call for first quarter 2023 results. This call is being recorded for rebroadcast. At this time, Alliance is in listening mode. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Susan Gale, Investor Relations Manager at Alliance Energy.

Good morning. I would like to thank all of you on the call and on the webcast for joining us today. We appreciate your participation. Joining me on this call are John Larson, Board Chair 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 first quarter 2023 financial results. This release, as well as an earnings presentation that 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 risk 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. At this point, I'll turn the call over to John.

Thank you, Susan. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. To begin the call, I want to acknowledge that we recently celebrated Alliant Energy's 25th anniversary. On April 21, 1998, our three predecessor companies, IES Utilities, Interstate Power Company, and Wisconsin Power & Light officially came together as one unified company we know today as Align Energy. I'd like to recognize all employees, past and present, who have built and continue to build one of the most consistent performing energy companies in the nation. Because of this team, Align Energy has reliably delivered energy to our customers while continuing to provide the stability and growth that investors expect. This is in addition to the unwavering dedication from our employees to work safely and strengthen our connection with communities and customers we proudly serve. As we continue our long track record of consistent execution, 2023 is off to a solid start and our strong investment thesis remains. Despite warmer than expected weather and taking into account timing of tax expenses, which we'll reverse later this year, we achieved Q1 results on plan. We have reaffirmed our annual earnings guidance of $2.82 to $2.96, and we remain committed to delivering on our long-term 5% to 7% growth target. It has been a busy and productive start to the year. I will highlight several updates that demonstrate our strategy and purpose in motion. We are continuing to invest and advance toward a more reliable and sustainable energy future. Investing in a diverse and reliable energy mix is a top priority. At the same time, we are building a more resilient energy network. Resilience and reliability are the foundation of our recently filed rate review in Wisconsin. Our customers continue to see benefits of our prudent investments in diversifying the energy resources within our portfolio. We are committed to making our energy supply competitive and reliable. creating a diverse mix of resources that help to reduce exposure to energy price volatility and deliver value to our customers. An example of that is our renewable and battery storage investments. These investments have no fuel costs and generate tax credits which flow back to customers. We continue to manage through and mitigate ongoing inflationary pressures. Our work to accelerate our strategic spend initiatives in 2022 and recently completed financing have positioned us well for 2023 and beyond. Our proactive efforts to build a flexible, reliable, and resilient energy grid, a key element of our clean energy blueprint, have demonstrated strong results and helped us successfully navigate the recent extreme weather events. One example is our continued focus on placing electric distribution lines underground. We have made significant progress in this effort with over a quarter of our distribution lines already underground. And in 2022, 55% of our customers experienced no power outages and approximately 80% of outage events were restored in less than two hours. Another key area of progress is our renewable energy portfolio. We continue to be the largest owner operator of solar in Wisconsin, We have all solar sites and panels in our control for our planned 1.1 gigawatts of utility-scale solar projects within Wisconsin. And we are on track to put the approximately 840 megawatts of remaining utility-scale solar in service by the first half of 2024. And while we're proud of our industry-leading renewable investments and the progress we're making on our clean energy blueprint, our efforts go beyond these investments. We focus on all aspects of ESG as we execute our plan. A great example of this is our Wood County Solar Project in Wisconsin. This project was recently awarded ISI's Envision Platinum Award for Sustainability, highlighting the project's contributions to the environmental protections, social well-being, and equity, all while helping the community thrive economically. This recognition showcases the tenets of our clean energy blueprint and our purpose. In Iowa, we're continuing to advance our solar and storage projects. Robert will share more on the status of the regulatory proceedings, but I'll note that we remain committed to advancing clean energy projects and delivering on the benefits they will provide to our customers and communities. As part of our transition in Iowa, we will soon be closing our Lansing coal facility. For decades, our dedicated employees at the Lansing Generating Station have been providing customers and communities with safe and reliable energy. As we transition from coal toward a cleaner energy mix, we are caring for our employees, creating new jobs, and bringing economic development opportunities to the communities we serve. Ultimately, the closing of the facility helps control long-term costs for customers and is another step in advancing our clean energy blueprint. One last area I'll mention is technology. We are excited to have made advancements in grid and customer technologies that will enable us to enhance service to our customers, more quickly respond and restore power, and improve the customer and employee experience. We believe this will improve customer satisfaction and provide cost savings and efficiencies. I'll end my remarks where I began, with our employees. I mentioned the hard work of our employees at the outset, I'm always happy to see their hard work recognized by other organizations. For the fifth year in a row, we've made the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index, and once again, we were named to Newsweek's list of America's most trustworthy companies. Great recognition for our dedicated employees and the result of their work serving our customers and communities. We've been fortunate to build on the legacy of employees that have come before us, and I'd like to spend a special thank you to the nearly 500 employees who were part of these last 25 years of Alliant Energy for your contributions to our consistent and sustained success. To reinforce where we are in 2023, I want to reiterate our continued ability to deliver consistent results and the year-over-year execution of our strategy that has enabled Alliant Energy to be a top performer within our industry. We look forward to another year of solid financial and operational performance and we appreciate your continued interest in our company. I will now turn the call over to Robert.