11/7/2025

speaker
Conference Operator

Energy's third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Susan Gill, Investor Relations Manager at Alliant Energy. Please go ahead.

speaker
Susan Gill
Investor Relations Manager

Good morning. I would like to thank all of you on the call and the webcast for joining us today. We appreciate your participation. With me here today are Lisa Barton, President and CEO, and Robert Durian, Executive Vice President and CFO. Following prepared remarks by Lisa and Robert, we will have time to take questions from the investment community. We issued a news release last night announcing Alliant Energy's third quarter and year-to-date financial results. We narrowed our 2025 earnings guidance range, provided 2026 earnings and dividend guidance, and provided our updated capital expenditure and financing plans through 2029. This release as well as the earnings presentation will be referenced during today's call and are available on the investor page of our website at www.alliantenergy.com. Before we begin, I need to remind you that 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 news 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 ongoing earnings per share. which is a non-GAAP financial measure. References to ongoing earnings include material charges or income that are not normally associated with ongoing operations. The reconciliation between ongoing and GAAP measures is provided in the earnings release, which is available on our website. At this point, I'll turn the call over to Lisa.

speaker
Lisa Barton
President and CEO

Thank you, Sue. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our third quarter earnings call. Today we're pleased to share our Q3 and year-to-date results, another quarter and year where we delivered solid financial and operational performance. We will also share the outlook for the remainder of this year, update you on our strategic initiatives, including our capital expenditures, financing plans through 2029, and discuss how we're positioned to accelerate and extend our earnings expectations. We are well positioned because of the Alliant Energy advantage in the realization of additional near-term load growth opportunities from data centers. We are continuing our consistent track record of execution and financial performance. Our performance is driven by our customer-focused investments and supportive regulatory environments, a winning strategy for driving continued growth while prioritizing affordability and reliable service. Our focus on customers and building stronger communities is at the heart of everything we do. With our compelling large load opportunities and diverse capital investment plans, we are well positioned to continue meeting customer, community, and investor expectations. We will cover each of these advantages today as shown on slide three as they power Alliance's future. To start, I am pleased to share updates for the quarter. Our projected peak demand growth by 2030 has increased to an industry-leading 50% through the execution of a fourth electric service agreement with QTS Madison. We signed a new agreement with Google that further accelerates the load ramp in Cedar Rapids, and we continue to cultivate an active pipeline of additional opportunities. Our focus has been on prioritizing plug-in ready sites which minimizes transmission investments and accelerates our ability to serve new customers. As a result, we can deliver project certainty, near-term earnings, and near-term positive community and customer benefits. Concurrently, we continue to execute well against our capital plans. We completed construction of the Grant and Wood County energy storage projects, totaling 175 megawatts. and completed the Neenah and Sheboygan Falls Unit 1 advanced gas path projects, which increases the efficiency and capability of each of these Wisconsin facilities. These low growth opportunities and continued investments in our existing generation show how we're continuing to efficiently grow at the pace of our customers to foster economic development across our service territory. Our financial highlights. We delivered strong performance through the first three quarters. We are maintaining our midpoint and narrowing our 2025 ongoing earnings guidance range to $3.17 to $3.23 per share, as shown on slide five. And we are trending towards the upper half of this range. As shown on slide six, we are initiating 2026 earnings guidance of $3.36 to $3.46 per share, which represents a 6.6% increase over our 2025 midpoint. Our 2026 annual common stock dividend target is $2.14 per share, a 5.4% increase from the 2025 target of $2.03 per share. And we're increasing our four-year capital expenditure plan by 17% to $13.4 billion. This translates to a projected rate base and investment compound annual growth rate of 12% from 2025 to 2029. We expect our compound annual growth rate across 2027 to 2029 to be 7% plus. This is based on the planned growth in rate base and the expected data center revenues during that period. We will continue to assess our long-term earnings growth potential as we execute on our data center expansion and load growth plans. As shown on slide nine, construction is well underway on three of the four data centers under agreement, two in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and one in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. This progress clearly demonstrates that we are focused on meaningful near-term opportunities, each of which serves to unlock the potential of our customers and communities. The contracted demand from the four facilities totals three gigawatts, translating to 50% peak demand growth by 2030. Accordingly, we've updated our four-year capital plan and will invest $9 billion in both new and existing generation. complementing investments we are making in electric gas and technology enhancements. Looking beyond the plan, we have a solid outlook of investment opportunities that extend our growth potential. Investment upside would be driven by additional load growth beyond what is included in the base plan. We are focused on enabling real near-term growth, attracting high impact projects to accelerate economic development. as part of our commitment to Iowa and Wisconsin, and providing investors with a clear view of well-developed opportunities. As we continue to expand our pipeline, we remain committed to proactive community and stakeholder engagement, positioning Alliance Energy and the communities we serve for growth. Advancing win-win outcomes that maintain affordable service for customers and communities ensures Alliant continues to deliver value while unlocking the potential of our customers and communities. To share a few examples of win-win outcomes, first, the Iowa retail construct stabilizes electric base rates for customers through the end of the decade, serving as a perfect example of a win for our existing customers through stable rates. We executed an agreement to enable fiber connectivity to one of our data center customers by leasing our underground conduit in our service territories, which provides substantial financial benefits to our existing customers. And third, last week, QTS advanced its Wisconsin data center plans with meaningful community contributions, full funding of all infrastructure, and the purchase of renewable energy credits from new projects, reducing costs and creating value for all WPL customers. Support from our regulators has been key to moving our plans forward. The Iowa Utilities Commission approved the individual customer rates for our two data centers currently under construction in Cedar Rapids. Through these filings, we've demonstrated that our approach effectively protects existing while allowing them to benefit from additional growth. And yesterday, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin approved our unanimous retail electric and gas rate review settlement for forward test periods 2026 and 2027. This rate review cost effectively advances responsible energy solutions, strengthens the safety and resilience of our energy network, and expands options available to customers. Our strategy is rooted in being a trusted partner in delivering outcomes customers and regulators seek with a strong focus on customer value and forward-looking investments. We are well positioned to provide competitive rates for both new and existing customers over the long term as a result of our economic development success and our continued focus on cost controls. The Alliant Energy Advantage is an acute focus on driving near-term growth, making smart investments to serve that growth while keeping bills low and benefiting new and existing customers. In short, being plug-in ready enables stronger alignment between our revenue growth and capital investments. I will now turn the call over to Robert to provide our financial results, earnings and dividend guidance, financing plans, and an update on our regulatory matters.

speaker
Robert Durian
Executive Vice President and CFO

Thank you, Lisa. Good morning, everyone. Yesterday we announced third quarter and year-to-date ongoing earnings. With third quarter ongoing earnings of $1.12 per share, we have realized over 80% of the midpoint of our 2025 earnings guidance. As shown on slide five, our ongoing earnings change year-over-year was primarily due to higher revenue requirements from capital investments at our Iowa and Wisconsin utilities, and the positive impacts of temperatures on electric and gas sales. These positive drivers were partially offset by higher operations and maintenance expenses driven by increased generation costs from planned maintenance activities and the addition of new energy resources, as well as higher generation development costs to support long-term growth. Additionally, higher depreciation and financing expenses contributed to earnings fluctuations. Through September of this year, net temperatures positively impacted electric and gas margins by approximately two cents per share. In comparison, net temperatures negatively impacted electric and gas margins for the first three quarters of 2024 by 10 cents per share. Margins from our temperature normalized electric sales have also been better than planned, with higher than expected sales to commercial and industrial customers in both states. Electric margin comparisons to last year have experienced timing differences through the first three quarters of this year, as a result of the new rates implemented in Iowa in the fourth quarter of 2024. The new seasonal rates are flatter, resulting in a less pronounced increase in summer rates, which has distributed earnings more evenly throughout 2025, resulting in quarterly timing differences from last year's margins, but no material impact on full year results. Turning to our full year 2025 earnings forecast, As a result of our solid earnings through September and our projected four-quarter results assuming normal weather, we have narrowed our 2025 earnings guidance and are trending within the upper half of the $3.17 per share to $3.23 per share updated range. As Lisa mentioned, we also announced our projected 2026 earnings guidance range and dividend target. We are expecting to continue delivering an attractive total return to our investors through a combination of earnings growth and dividend yield. The 2026 earnings growth represents a 6.6% increase from our 2025 guidance midpoint, which is higher than our typical 6% forecasted growth. And our 2026 annual common stock dividend target is $2.14 per share, a 5.4% increase from 2025. We are moderating the pace of expected dividend growth to efficiently fund our increased capital expenditure plan. We will continue to target a dividend payout range of 60 to 70%, but expect to be in the lower end of the range during the period of our plan with higher investment opportunities. As shown on slides 11 and 12, we have updated the capital expenditure plan, which strengthens the diversity of our resources. We are investing in natural gas generation and energy storage projects, to meet the capacity requirements of our growing customer demand. We are also making improvements in our existing fleet to enhance the capacity and energy output of those resources. And we continue to invest in our renewable portfolio by adding new wind and repowering existing wind sites. We have proactively safe harbored our energy storage and wind projects in our plan in order to preserve tax benefits for our customers, making these projects more cost effective providing lower fuel costs and delivering greater affordability for our customers. With our refreshed investment plan, we now have a compounded annual growth rate of 12% for rate base plus construction work in progress, reinforcing our confidence in meeting our long-term growth objectives. Moving to our financing plans, in the third quarter, we successfully refinanced $300 million of debt issuances at IPO and issued $725 million of our first junior subordinated notes at our parent company. We plan to use the proceeds from the junior subordinated note issuance to retire maturing debt in March 2026. The equity content of this debt issuance is expected to assist us in maintaining cushion in our FFO to debt metrics to retain our current credit rating. As we look to future financing and with the increase in our capital expenditure plan, we've provided an updated financing plan through 2029 on slide 13. Of note, our capital expenditures will primarily be financed with a combination of cash from operations, including proceeds expected from the continuation of our tax credit monetization, and new debt, hybrid, and common equity issuances to maintain authorized regulatory capital structures and a desired consolidated capital structure of approximately 40% to 45% after factoring in the equity component of hybrid instruments. We have significant growth opportunities. The $2.4 billion of new common equity included in our current financing plan for 2026 through 2029 will primarily be used to invest in the resources needed to supply our customers' growing energy needs. We believe the equity is manageable over the four-year planning period and are anticipating settling the planned equity issuances ratably over that period of time. We plan to continue de-risking our planned equity issuances on a forward basis, utilizing the ATM while also being opportunistic with favorable market conditions. Of the $2.4 billion of new common equity, we have raised our plan 2026 amounts already through forward agreements. And therefore, we have only $1.6 billion of remaining equity to be raised over the next four years, excluding equity expected to be raised under our share and direct plan. As shown on slide 14, our 2026 debt financing plans include up to $1.1 billion of long-term debt issuances, including up to $300 million at Align Energy Finance or Parent, up to $300 million at WPL, and up to $500 million at IPO. Finally, I'll update you on our regulatory initiatives included on slides 16 and 17, as well as those filings planned for the future. In Wisconsin, we have four active dockets currently in progress. three of which involve requests for pre-approval of customer-focused investments. First, a request for investments to refurbish the Ford wind farm, targeting additional production tax credits from the project for the benefit of our customers. Second, a request for investments in a liquefied natural gas storage facility, our first ever, to add firm natural gas capacity. This will ensure we can reliably meet current and anticipated gas supply needs while maintaining an adequate reserve margin during Wisconsin's coldest winter days. And third, a request for investments to expand the Bentree Wind Farm, adding over 150 megawatts of new wind to provide more zero fuel cost energy and additional tax benefits for our customers. We are also awaiting the PSCW's decision on the individual customer rate filing for our Beaver Dam data center. In Iowa, we have three active dockets in progress. We have requested advanced rainmaking principles for up to one gigawatt of wind, which has the potential for customers to avoid significant fuel costs while investing in cost effective and responsible energy resources. And we requested two certificates of public convenience, use and necessity. One for 720 megawatts of natural gas fired simple cycle combustion turbines, which would be located in Marshall County in Iowa. and a second for a 94 megawatt natural gas rice unit in Burlington, Iowa. We expect decisions from the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin and the Iowa Utilities Commission on these dockets in 2026. Turning to our planned regulatory filings in the future, we expect to file our individual customer rate tariff for QTS Madison later this month. And in conjunction with our updated capital expenditure plan, we also expect to make future regulatory filings in both Iowa and Wisconsin for additional renewables and dispatchable resources to enhance reliability, continue to diversify our energy resources, and meet growing customer energy needs. I'll now turn the call back over to Lisa to provide closing remarks.

speaker
Lisa Barton
President and CEO

Thank you, Robert. In conclusion, we're excited about our year-to-date performance and the growth opportunities in front of us at Alliance Energy. What sets us apart? Unlocking the potential of our customers and communities is at the center of our strategy. By pursuing win-win solutions and focusing on near-term opportunities, we're driving affordability, fueling growth, and creating lasting shareholder value. Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to speaking with many of you at the EEI Financial Conference and plan to post updated materials on our website later today. At this time, I'll turn the call back over to the operator to facilitate the question and answer session.

speaker
Conference Operator

Thank you, Ms. Barton. At this time, the company will open up the call to questions from members of the investment community. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the number one on your touchstone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the number two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Bill Apicelli with UBS. Please go ahead.

speaker
Bill Apicelli
Analyst, UBS

Hi, good morning. Just a question around... the color, if you could provide on the ramp on the demand, right, around what that could mean for the trajectory of earnings above that 7% as the load starts to come onto the system?

speaker
Lisa Barton
President and CEO

Yeah, great question. So the way to think about the 7 plus is that it would be at least 7 to 8%. And this is before upside to the plan. And as a reminder, this is all known projects and so forth. One of the things to keep in mind in terms of that timeframe, and we've talked about this being our desire to create cascading waves of growth, and as such, timing is important. So there's some lumpiness. When you think about the 50% load growth, that's really significant. So timing is something that we'll certainly be watching on a going forward basis.

speaker
Bill Apicelli
Analyst, UBS

Okay. So the 12%, rate-based growth. So when we think about backing off of that, it's really the equity dilution. Is there anything else to think about when you walk that back to earnings growth?

speaker
Robert Durian
Executive Vice President and CFO

Yeah, great question, Bill. I think of the 12% as a combination of both rate-based growth plus QIP growth. roughly about 10% rate-based growth, but also about 2% of QIP growth over that time period. Given the volume of capital expenditures we've got in our plan, the QIP balances are going to increase pretty significantly. To your specific question as far as the walk between the 12% and the combination of those two and what we're signaling here for at least 7% to 8%, most of that is related to the equity dilution. We've also got what I would characterize as a conservative set of financial assumptions when it comes to interest rates. And then there might be what I would characterize some small regulatory lag, but it's pretty modest. So it's primarily the equity dilution and just kind of probably more our conservative nature with some of the interest rate assumptions.

speaker
Bill Apicelli
Analyst, UBS

Okay. And then just one follow-up there. Specific to Iowa because of the uniqueness of that regulatory framework, I mean, what are the assumptions here in terms of on returns? Is it just at your authorized across the plan? There is some optionality for you to the upside to retain some of those benefits if you can outperform, right?

speaker
Robert Durian
Executive Vice President and CFO

That is correct, Bill. Yes. Think of the state of Iowa right now. We've got the electric side of the business that does have a new regulatory construct that was put into effect last year that does provide us a lot of certainty of our ability to be able to earn our authorized return and does have some upside opportunity for us if we go beyond our authorized return. We share those benefits with our customers. Right now, we've just assumed that we're going to earn our authorized return. And then on the gas side, it doesn't have that similar construct. We will have to go in for future rate cases to be able to minimize the regulatory lag there. And we'll time those based on future capital projects to ensure that we can get as close as possible to earning that authorized return.

speaker
Bill Apicelli
Analyst, UBS

OK, great. All right. Thank you.

speaker
Conference Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Nicholas Campanella with Barclays. Please go ahead.

speaker
Nicholas Campanella
Analyst, Barclays

Thanks for all the updates today. Maybe just, you know, you kind of calling out that it seems that this seven plus is pretty conservative. You're in active negotiations for the two to four gigawatts of additional load. Can you just give a little bit more color on what stages of those incremental opportunities are and what your line of sight is to maybe have another kind of signed load contract in 2026?

speaker
Lisa Barton
President and CEO

Yeah, no, great question. So, yeah, I'm going to go back to last year when we talked at EEI last year, we announced a gigawatt Q1 2.1 gigawatts, and today we're at three gigawatts. We have been very focused on making sure that there are near-term opportunities, that they are less transmission dependent. And we're also having a very high bar in terms of what we're sharing with you all. So these are ones that we are in active negotiations on. These are ones where we have our transmission interconnection studies done and so forth. And so this is something to very closely watch over the next 12 months, and some of which, of course, will be sooner. We are committed, as we have in the past, to continuing to give you a very clear line of sight and to avoid speculation on all of these.

speaker
Nicholas Campanella
Analyst, Barclays

And then just so I'm kind of understanding it correctly, that would then kind of put this growth rate above 8%. Is that the right way to think about it?

speaker
Lisa Barton
President and CEO

It would be above that, yes, above that 5 to 7 that we talked about. So this is all great upside to our plan.

speaker
Nicholas Campanella
Analyst, Barclays

Maybe I could also just ask, thank you so much for the financing commentary. What is your episode of debt going to be at the end of 25? Where do you kind of see it through 26? And then also just you have 300 million of tax credits through 26. Does that continue at that level through 2030? And just understanding if you have to eventually replace that cash flow down the line. Thank you.

speaker
Robert Durian
Executive Vice President and CFO

Great questions, Nick. So yeah, if you think about our FFO to debt metrics, throughout the planning period, we're really targeting to try and have roughly about 50 to 100 basis points of cushion. And really, that's going to let us further grow into the plan. When you think about the two to four gigawatts that Lisa indicated, we want to make sure we've got strong balance sheets to be able to grow into that at either even higher levels than we've got kind of currently indicated with the 78% plus. So And as we think about tax credits, there's roughly about, I want to say, $1.5, $1.6 billion in the plan over the next four years. We've had a lot of strong interest from counterparties to be able to buy those credits and have a lot of confidence in being able to execute those as far as generating the credits and then turning those into cash. And so I feel really good about the plan with all of those aspects.

speaker
Nicholas Campanella
Analyst, Barclays

One more, if I could, just, you know, the 12% load growth CAGR is large and I understand the timing of how you get above the 7% plus could also be related to just the load ramping. So just what's the starting point that's embedded in 26 so we have a base to work off of?

speaker
Robert Durian
Executive Vice President and CFO

It's actually pretty modest in 2026. We do start to see some of the data centers taking more what we call production load instead of construction load in the second half, mainly in the fourth quarter of 2026. And you'll see that continue to ramp through 2020, or sorry, 2030 is when we expect to be at that full level of the three gigawatts of max contract demand that we have in our plan right now.

speaker
Nicholas Campanella
Analyst, Barclays

All right. Looking forward to seeing you guys soon. Thank you.

speaker
Lisa Barton
President and CEO

Thank you.

speaker
Conference Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Julian DeMolmis with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

speaker
Julian DeMolmis
Analyst, Jefferies

just a follow-up on the two to four gigs in the pipeline here uh you know previously you identified something like one and a half gigawatts of mature opportunities with a high probability of conversion maybe 85 you know taking out qts madison there's something like 600 800 megawatts theoretically still in that bucket perhaps more um but how would you characterize the probability of conversion over time for the remaining three to three and a half gigs there and and maybe How fragmented is this pipeline? Is the demand dispersed across Iowa and Wisconsin evenly? Just any commentary you have there. Thanks.

speaker
Lisa Barton
President and CEO

Yeah, I appreciate that. So everything that we had in the 1.5, I'll call it the blue zone from previous decks, means still an incredibly high level of confidence in that. Quite frankly, we've got a high level of confidence in all of this. And, you know, think about, this is how I think about it. You look at Iowa, we serve 75% of the communities in Iowa. We serve 40% of the communities in Wisconsin. If you're a data center, what do you need? You need fiber, you need land, you need transmission, you need a utility that's willing to work with you and that is well positioned to be able to deliver on its commitments. And that's where I think when you think about the Alliance Energy Advantage where we hit it out of the park. We are in rural Iowa and rural Wisconsin. surrounded by transmission. We've been focusing these data centers and continue to focus this two to four gigawatts on those locations where they don't have to wait for a hundred mile transmission line or anything else. We're really trying to make sure that we can bring this load in sooner and faster. So that gives us a lot of confidence in being able to price appropriately and why we're just so excited about our ability to unlock the potential of our customers and communities. And not only that, we're in MISO. And MISO is acutely focused on making sure it's got robust transmission planning, that it's got an interconnection process both for new generation as well as for loads that allows us to grow at this very active pace. Last thing I'll mention is we've got really constructive states between Wisconsin and Iowa. Uh, you know, right now it's Iowa is very well positioned. As is Wisconsin. I think you'll see more of the data centers gravitating a little bit more towards Iowa. And that's just simply because we've got a lot of, uh, sites there. Remember we've invested heavily over the years in land and we've been able to have that as an attractive source for folks, but we're confident in the fact that in both jurisdictions, the significance of this load growth is really going to be driving affordability for all customers. And I think that that's another key differentiator for us. And that allows us to be very well positioned from a regulatory standpoint. Regulators, as we mentioned earlier in my comments, are at the key. They're just a key gating item for the entire sector. And our performance here that you've seen with the approvals of the ICRs and the approvals that you're seeing with the generation projects and the approval of the rate settlement, the unanimous rate settlement, it really just tells you that we've got the wind at our back when it comes to making sure that we're aligned with what our regulators care about. That's what you have to solve for in this space.

speaker
Julian DeMolmis
Analyst, Jefferies

Yeah, absolutely. No, I mean, given your execution thus far and kind of the plan you set out here, that 8% plus after 2027, it seems reasonably achievable here. I kind of want to follow up on that specifically, just as you mentioned in the slides that you have, as you integrate more load and growth into the plan, you could reassess guidance looking forward. Your current look forward period, it coincides sort of with the end of the stay out in Iowa or there could be some uncertainty to timing kind of as to whether you'd like to file then or how you'd like to approach the construct. But how should we think about rate case timing here? You know, the way you're going to look at the outer years of your plan, the growth rates you're willing to commit to, knowing that you have that regulatory further out, you might have regulatory uncertainty in the forward period, just kind of bringing that together with the idea that you've got this really visible above average growth plan that, you know, you could, potentially attain, you know, with upside here? How should we think about all these factors in the outer years?

speaker
Lisa Barton
President and CEO

Questions. Let's start with Wisconsin. Wisconsin, we've got forward-looking test years every two years. That positions us very well to have that clean line of sight on what we need from a generation investment standpoint, really ensuring that we're able to minimize lag. As you recall, in Iowa, we did not have that. And the introduction of the individual customer rate in combination with the structure that we have really allows us to make sure we're able to earn our authorized every year and be able to grow at the pace of our customers. So in terms of how we're thinking of that over the period, I'm just going to point back to how successful Mid-Am has been. And over the past 10 years, they have not gone in for a rate review because of this construct. So that is why we are doubling down on our focus on making sure that we're unlocking the potential of our customers and communities. Rural Iowa, which is what we serve, that 75%, they want to grow. They want data centers. They want to grow. This allows the property base to go up as well as driving costs down for customers. So we're going to continue to focus on that. Ideally, we wouldn't have to go in for another rate review. So Robert, any additional commentary you'd like to provide?

speaker
Robert Durian
Executive Vice President and CFO

Yeah, we feel confident about the future of the plan. We only went through 2029 just because that's our standard process of just adding another year to the previous year. But don't read into that, that we have any concerns about beyond 2029. With all the growth that we see in front of us, we've got a really strong plan and feel like that's going to go well beyond 2029.

speaker
Julian DeMolmis
Analyst, Jefferies

Understood. So, with the certainty you kind of have here in the construct, are you confident that there's a possibility here post-27 into the 28 timeframe you could be considering an 8% plus EPS guide? Is there further upside to the upside you've said here?

speaker
Lisa Barton
President and CEO

You know, you really want to look at what's coming online from a data center standpoint. Everything is timing related. If we can get data centers to be coming online sooner, that's certainly good. have transmission investments that both atc and itc are making they're relatively minimal in the scheme of things but a lot of that is going to be associated with timing and i think a really good indicator is what we announced with google and google is working with us to accelerate that load ramp so those are all the kinds of things to be watching for and as we mentioned earlier we're going to be very transparent we're not going to throw a bunch of speculation at you we're going to give you that clean line of sight so that should I'm hoping that will be very helpful to you all.

speaker
Julian DeMolmis
Analyst, Jefferies

Absolutely. No, thank you very much, and congrats, guys.

speaker
Lisa Barton
President and CEO

Thank you.

speaker
Conference Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Aditya Gandhi with Wolf Research. Please go ahead.

speaker
Aditya Gandhi
Analyst, Wolf Research

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Good morning, Misha. On your 7 to 8% plus commentary, what should we think of as the base for that 7 to 8%? Is that the midpoint of 2026 guidance for now? Is that a good way to think about it?

speaker
Lisa Barton
President and CEO

It is.

speaker
Aditya Gandhi
Analyst, Wolf Research

Okay, great. And then on the 2 to 4 gigawatts of negotiations that you're having, can you give some more color on whether these are expansions of existing facilities or customers you've contracted with or are they new customers? And then just how should we think about the cadence of updates going forward? Will you just update your plan Q3 next year or could we see an update potentially before that, like you did at Q1 of this year?

speaker
Robert Durian
Executive Vice President and CFO

Yeah, I would think of the two to four gigawatts as a combination of expansions of existing sites, as well as, as Lisa indicated, we have a lot of additional sites across our service territory that have transmission capabilities, land availability, that we think are going to be great spots for new data centers. So it's a combination of those two. When I think about the counterparties to these, these are all very high quality hyperscalers or co-locators. And so that's what really gives us a lot of confidence in being able to get these to the finish line, because we know they're motivated customers with a lot of financial wherewithal to be able to kind of get us to the finish line on these. And as far as the timing goes, I would say in the next 12 months, we'll probably have a lot more clarity within the two to four gigawatts. And as Lisa indicated, every quarter we'll give updates as far as the status of those. And if we make progress within the next three to six months, we'll obviously share with you information on the quarterly call.

speaker
Aditya Gandhi
Analyst, Wolf Research

Great, thank you. And just one more, if I may. Could you give us some more color on the agreement that you signed with Google to accelerate the load ramp there? Can you just remind us what the load ramp looked like earlier and what it's looking like right now as you're trying to accelerate it?

speaker
Robert Durian
Executive Vice President and CFO

Yeah, I think that is, of the three gigawatts, that's about 300 megawatts in total. And yeah, they were interested in just going faster. I'll go back to my earlier comments. So you'll see some of that starting coming in in the second half of 2026 and then just going to ramp quicker than we originally anticipated. So you'll see more load in 27 and 28 than we originally expected, but that's built into our base model right now and included in the plan.

speaker
Lisa Barton
President and CEO

Understood. Three of the four projects are under active construction, so it's an amazing thing to watch how quickly these folks grow.

speaker
Conference Operator

Hello, Aditya?

speaker
Aditya Gandhi
Analyst, Wolf Research

Yes, that answers all my questions. Thank you.

speaker
Conference Operator

Thank you. Ms. Gill, there are no further questions at this time.

speaker
Susan Gill
Investor Relations Manager

No more questions. This concludes our call. A replay will be available on our investor websites. We thank you for your continued support of Alliant Energy and feel free to contact me with any follow-up questions.

speaker
Conference Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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