Alliant Energy Corporation

Hello, thank you for holding, and welcome to Alliant Energy's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all lines are in a 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.

Good morning, and thank you for joining Alliant Energy's first quarter 2026 financial results conference call. Joining me today are Lisa Barton, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Robert Durian, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Following their prepared remarks, we will have time to take questions from the investment community. Last night, we issued a news release announcing our first quarter 2026 results and reaffirmed 2026 full year earnings guidance. That release, along with our earnings presentation, will be referenced during today's call and is available on the investor section of our website at www.alliantenergy.com. Before we begin, please note that today's remarks and responses will include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Those risks are described in last night's earnings release 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. Reconciliation to GAAP results are provided in the earnings release available on our website. At this point, I will turn the call over to Lisa. Thank you, Sue. Good morning, everyone. I appreciate you joining us today. 2026 is off to an excellent start. First quarter ongoing earnings delivered approximately 25% of the midpoint of our full year guidance, despite very mild temperatures across our service territory. We remain firmly on track to achieve our 2026 earnings targets while executing on our strategic priorities. At Alliance Energy, our focus is straightforward, unlocking the potential of our customers and communities, prioritizing affordability while delivering long-term value for investors. As I have shared previously, we remain committed to driving economic development and prosperity across the states we serve. Today, I am pleased to share our progress on our two to four gigawatts of large load opportunities. In April, we executed a new 370 megawatt electric service agreement with a hyperscale customer in Iowa with a full load ramp expected by the end of 2030. To support this growth, we've entered into an agreement with a high quality counterparty to construct a simple cycle natural gas facility. Our third quarter update will include a refreshed Iowa resource plan reflecting any incremental load beyond the three gigawatts already in our plan, as well as the impact of updated MISO accreditation assumptions. We expect to finance these incremental investments with a balanced mix of equity and debt to maintain a resilient financial profile. We now have five fully executed data center agreements representing approximately 3.4 gigawatts of contracted demand. with three of these projects under active construction. Importantly, we have secured the generation resources needed to reliably serve this load, which represents now more than a 60% increase in our current peak demand. And looking ahead, we continue to make strong progress on the two to four gigawatts of future large load opportunities we first announced six months ago. Our commitment has remained consistent, creating wins for existing customers and communities, a win for new customers, and a win for our investors. We are strategically positioning our company and the states we serve for sustainable, long-term growth while keeping customer costs as low as possible. Our approach ensures we remain a trusted partner to customers and communities by delivering reliable, affordable energy solutions that support their long-term ambitions. Evidence of this strategy in action shown through last week when we joined the QTS leadership in Cedar Rapids to welcome US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Iowa legislators to tour the site. This $10 billion development, the largest economic investment in Iowa's history, underscores our role in enabling innovation, job creation, and long-term economic diversification in the communities we serve. This is the Alliant Energy Advantage, a disciplined, solutions-oriented approach to growth. We guide data center customers to low-cost, transmission-ready sites in our service territories. And because our more recent electric service agreements are capacity-only, The investments required to serve this load are primarily energy storage and natural gas combustion turbines. This approach creates strong alignment between capital investments and revenue growth, while preserving flexibility to serve future energy needs as demand for capacity and energy continues to evolve. Economic growth drives job creation, expands tax base, and strengthens communities. It also benefits customers by increasing load, which helps us maintain cost competitiveness for all customers. As electricity sales grow, we can spread fixed system costs over more kilowatt hours. In Iowa, our regulatory framework enables us to keep base electric rates stable through at least the end of the decade. That is at least four more years of no retail electric base rate reviews in Iowa while earning our authorized return through retaining tax credits and energy margins from new generation investments. A foundational principle of utility regulation is cost responsibility. At Alliant Energy, our policy is clear. Customers driving large incremental demand are responsible for funding the infrastructure required to serve them. Through individual customer rates, large users, funds, transmission interconnections, system upgrades, and incremental investments, protecting affordability for all customers. In closing, I want to thank our employees. Their dedication and solutions oriented execution are the foundation of our operational excellence and the driving force behind the progress we continue to make. I would also like to recognize the outstanding efforts of our field teams in restoring service following recent storm activity across our service territory. Despite the heavy storm activity, we achieved strong reliability and safety statistics through the first part of 2026, which is a testament to the quality of the work by the field organization. I will now turn the call over to Robert for details on our financial results financing plan, and regulatory activity.

Thank you, Lisa. Good morning, everyone. Yesterday we announced solid first quarter 2026 gap and ongoing earnings of 87 cents and 82 cents, respectively. As shown on slide five, our ongoing earnings year-over-year change was primarily due to higher revenue requirements and AFEDC from capital investments that are Iowa and Wisconsin utilities. These positive drivers were offset by higher operations and maintenance expenses related to new energy resources and planned maintenance at existing generating facilities, as well as higher depreciation and financing costs. Temperatures in the first quarter of 2026 reduced electric and gas margins by approximately 4 cents per share compared to a reduction of 3 cents in the prior year. Excluding the impacts of temperatures, Electric sales in the first quarter were essentially even year over year. First quarter ongoing earnings exclude a five cent benefit from the remeasurement of deferred tax assets, reflecting updated state income tax apportionment assumptions driven by higher projected electric utility revenues from commercial and industrial customers, including data centers. We are reaffirming our 2026 earnings guidance. with slide six reflecting several of our key 2026 assumptions. Our longer-term earnings outlook remains intact, and based on our current plan, we expect our compound annual earnings growth rate across 2027 through 2029 to be 7% plus. We will continue to assess our long-term earnings growth potential as we execute our data center expansion and update our capital expenditure plans later this year. Turning to financing, As shown on slide seven, during the first quarter of 2026, we had parent level and aligned energy finance maturities of $1.1 billion. And we retired these maturities with available cash and new debt issuances, including a $400 million term loan. Our remaining 2026 debt financing plans include up to $800 million of long-term issuances, consisting of up to $300 million at WPL and up to $500 million at IPL. We are continuously working to capture low-cost capital for new infrastructure investments to help lower costs for our customers and have two positive developments at IPL in the first quarter. First, we increased the capacity of our sales and receivables program at IPL from $110 to $180 million. And second, Standard & Poor's upgraded IPL's credit rating from BBB plus to A minus. As a reminder, our four-year capital plan is funded through a balanced mix of cash flow operations, including proceeds from ongoing tax credit monetization, and new financings, including debt, IPED instruments, and common equity. As shown on slide eight of the approximately $2.4 billion of expected common equity needs over the next four years, we have already raised approximately $1.3 billion through forward equity agreements. These forward equity agreements take care of planned equity needs through 2027. This leaves approximately $1 billion of remaining equity to be raised through 2029, excluding equity expected to be raised under our share and direct plan. A new $1 billion at the market program was filed during the first quarter to enable issuance of this remaining equity. Our financing plan and proactive execution to date provides flexibility to support the efficient implementation of our strategy. Turning to our regulatory matters, Our 2026 regulatory agenda remains closely aligned with our capital investment plans and individual rate applications for new large load customers, as we have no active rate reviews planned in 2026, reducing regulatory uncertainty. As shown on slide 9, we recently received two constructive regulatory decisions for new wind projects at our utilities. In Iowa, the Iowa Utility Commission approved the Settlement for Advanced Rainmaking Principles for up to one gigawatt of new wind generation at a current blended ROE of 9.8%, which will be updated each year through IPL's base rate stabilization period in Iowa. And in Wisconsin, we've received approval from the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin for the 153 megawatt Bentree North wind project. We expect these wind investments will allow our utility customers to avoid significant fuel costs and generate tax credits while supporting investment in cost-effective, responsible energy resources. Looking ahead, we currently have one active Iowa docket for a 720 megawatt natural gas combustion turbine project, which was filed earlier this week, and five active Wisconsin dockets, including the individual customer rate filing for the metadata center at Beaver Dam and construction authority filings for LNG storage, additional wind, and increased capacity at Riverside. We expect decisions on these matters over the next 12 months. We expect to make additional filings throughout the year to support planned customer investments. In addition, we anticipate filing individual customer rate applications with the Iowa Utility Commission related to the second QTS data center and the recent 370 megawatt data center electric supply agreement. I will now turn the call over to Lisa to provide closing remarks.