Alliant Energy Corporation

Thank you for holding and welcome to Alliant Energy's second 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 second 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, Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for joining us. Reconciliations to GAAP results are provided in the earnings release available on our website. At this point, I'll turn the call over to Lisa.

Thank you, Sue, and good morning, everyone. We delivered strong second quarter results and continue to execute well across our business. Despite milder weather during the first six months of the year, we are currently trending in the upper half of our 2026 earnings guidance range while advancing the investments and customer solutions that support our long-term growth strategy. Our strategy is anchored in the Alliant Energy Advantage, the ability to align customer growth, constructive regulation, flexible resource planning and disciplined execution in a way that benefits customers, communities and share owners. As previously announced, our efforts to date have resulted in an expectation of driving a 60% increase in our demand by 2031 through five executed electric service agreements with large load customers. Three of these large loads are already under active construction with commission-approved contracts. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Google has energized their transmission service. They are anticipating ramping in accordance with a contracted load schedule. Also in Cedar Rapids, QTS continues to make substantial progress on construction of its seven-building data center campus with initial energization of 300 megawatts anticipated later this year. In Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, META has entered the vertical construction phase with work actively progressing on data center facilities and supporting infrastructure. We are also encouraged by continued progress on future large load opportunities. QTS remains active in development of its second Iowa project in Clinton. We plan to file the ICR for this 900 megawatt project later this year. Our recently signed 370 megawatt data center agreement in Iowa announced on our Q1 call marks continued progress on our customer pipeline that currently represents between 2 and 4 gigawatts of potential future load. And as always, each of these loads are responsible for their cost of service while helping ensure existing customers benefit from growth opportunities without subsidizing new development. These opportunities are transformational for rural communities, expanding the local tax base, strengthening schools and essential services, enhancing infrastructure, and creating lasting economic growth and prosperity for generations to come. We are prioritizing local collaboration and readiness so our communities are well positioned to compete for and capture those benefits. A recent study by the Brattle Group reinforces this approach, finding that large new electricity users, such as data centers, can improve affordability for existing customers. That is what our approach is designed to do, ensure large load customers pay their own way while creating opportunities to further reduce costs for existing customers. It remains a cornerstone of our regulatory filings and demonstrates how disciplined growth can support reliability and long-term value for all customers. Building on the customer benefits generated through last year's fiber conduit lease agreement with Meta, this quarter we amended our agreement with QTS Cedar Rapids to support accelerated load growth, allowing them to accelerate their load ramp with firm and non-firm transmission. We also remain focused on disciplined financing and have been awarded approximately $50 million of Department of Energy grants for our Columbia Energy Center and Energy Dome projects. These are just a few of the strong examples of the Alliant Energy Advantage in action, working collaboratively with customers to support their growth objectives while creating broader benefits for all customers. Across our portfolio, we consistently transform strategic intent into measurable outcomes. Our team continues to execute exceptionally well across our customer investments while advancing the next generation of investments needed to serve customers and support economic development. In Iowa, we are refreshing our resource plan to support future regulatory filings and ensure our long-term resource plan remains aligned with evolving customer needs. This approach supports base rate stability and predictability for existing IPO retail electric customers through the end of the decade. During the quarter, we made meaningful progress across our generation portfolio, from placing additional generation resources into service to breaking ground on our new gas and wind investments, as well as advancing regulatory approvals. We are building momentum that positions us well for future growth. Robert will provide more detail on these developments in a moment. Before turning over to Robert, I would like to recognize our employees and especially our line workers following National Line Worker Appreciation Day earlier this month. Recent summer storms and summer heat has once again demonstrated the critical role our field and generation teams play in safely restoring service and supporting our customers when they need us most. Their commitment to safety, reliability, and operational excellence reflects the values that define Alliant Energy. I'll close with a recent milestone our team is proud of. In the recent J.D. Power study of Midwest large utility providers, we ranked number one in power reliability and safety. On behalf of the management team, we thank our employees who work tirelessly each day to provide the energy our customers and communities count on, fueling the economic engine of our communities. With that, I'll turn the call over to Robert.

Thank you, Lisa. And good morning, everyone. Yesterday, we reported strong second quarter 2026 cap earnings of 65 cents per share. As shown on slide five, The year-over-year change in ongoing earnings was primarily driven by higher revenue requirements associated with capital investments across our Iowa and Wisconsin utilities, along with increased equity earnings from corporate venture fund investments and higher temperature normalized retail electric and gas sales. These positive drivers were offset by higher operations and maintenance expenses related to the growth of our business. Impacts of milder temperatures on electric and gas sales Timing of income tax expense and higher financing and depreciation costs. Milder than normal temperatures reduced second quarter electric and gas margins by approximately three cents per share compared to a two cent benefit in the same period last year. Excluding the impacts of temperatures, second quarter electric sales were approximately 3% higher year over year, reflecting continued strength from Wisconsin commercial and industrial customers particularly within the food processing and manufacturing sectors and we are starting to see increases from the initial phase of the expected data center loads ramping in Iowa. Strong execution across our business gives us confidence with our 2026 earnings guidance range despite impacts at our two utilities from milder temperatures in the first half of the year. In addition, corporate venture fund investments in our non-utility business are expected to provide incremental earnings this year. Accordingly, we are reaffirming our 2026 earnings guidance range and are currently trending in the upper half of the range. Key assumptions supporting our 2026 outlook are summarized on slide six. Our longer term earnings outlook remains intact. Based on our current plan, we expect compound annual earnings growth 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 and financing plans on the third quarter earnings goal. Turning to financing, slide 7 outlines our remaining 2026 debt financing plans, which include up to $800 million of long-term issuances, consisting of up to $300 million at WPL and up to $500 million at IPL. As a reminder, our four-year capital investment plan is supported by a balanced financing strategy that includes cash generated from operations, proceeds from tax credit monetization, and new financings, including debt, hybrid instruments, and common equity. As shown on slide 8, we have made significant progress in the second quarter with proactively addressing our stated equity needs. Of the approximately $2.4 billion of announced common equity needs through 2029, We have already raised approximately $1.8 billion through forward equity agreements. These actions effectively address our stated equity needs through 2028 and leave approximately $500 million of remaining equity to be raised through 2029, excluding equity expected to be raised under our share or direct plan. Our financing plan, together with our proactive execution to date, provides meaningful flexibility to support the efficient implementation of our strategy. Turning to regulatory matters, our regulatory agenda remains closely aligned with our capital investment strategy and the growing needs of our customers. During the quarter, we made significant progress advancing projects that support both reliability and economic development across our service territories. Our recent regulatory advancements and active filings are shown on slide nine. In Wisconsin, we recently received approval of our individual customer rate agreement. Supporting META's data center development in Beaver Dam. In response to that order, we expect to file a broader large load tariff later this quarter. We also received written approval for the expansion of our Bent Tree Wind Farm, adding approximately 150 megawatts of renewable generation that have now advanced that project into construction. In Iowa, we continue to advance the energy resource investments included in our long-term capital plan. During the quarter, we filed generation certificates for the 720 megawatt Morgan Valley and the 1.2 gigawatt Riverhawk simple cycle natural gas projects, and a generation certificate for an energy storage project totaling approximately 125 megawatts. From a project execution perspective, our storage, wind repowering, and generation enhancement projects remain on schedule. We recently placed into service the final two generation enhancement projects at Neenah and Sheboygan. These projects allow us to efficiently unlock an additional 260 megawatts of near-term capacity from existing assets while enhancing customer value. We also recently started construction activities on the Bobcat Energy Center. A 720 megawatt simple cycle natural gas project in Marshalltown, Iowa, and the 95 megawatt rice project in Burlington, Iowa. Later this year, we anticipate further filings to support customer growth, including an individual customer rate application associated with QTS's Clinton Data Center in Iowa, and our recently announced 370 megawatt electric supply agreement. Our focus on execution positions us well to deliver sector-leading growth. help our customers and communities grow and thrive and create long-term value for customers and shareholders. Thank you for your continued interest in Align Energy. We look forward to speaking with many of you over the coming months. Operator, please open the line for questions.

Thank you, Mr. Durian. At this time, the company will open up the call to questions from members of the investment community. If you would like to ask a question, Please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from Char Pereza with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey guys, good morning.

Good morning.

Morning, morning. So Lisa, Iowa's been kind of like this grill story for you guys. It's been like a pretty good hedge against some of the Wisconsin noise. But now you're seeing both Republican and Democratic candidates have been somewhat more guarded around data center developments and their comments. So Iowa's getting a little bit noisier than people would have thought. They're not calling for a statewide moratorium, but can we get your latest thoughts around the political backdrop in the state? It's getting noisier than I think a lot of people would have thought, so just to lay the land would be great.

Sure.

I mean, while it's always disappointing that some PJM narratives are being repeated more broadly, we tend to see this more from an Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for joining us.

Got it. So political rhetoric is rhetoric. Okay, appreciate that. And then obviously, you guys are seeing good growth across the footprints. And you know, you know, you've got new generation, you've signed, you know, 370 megawatts CSA, which isn't in plan, you have another 3.4 gigs out there. It sounds like from Robert's comments that you're going to revisit the CAGR. I guess, as we're thinking about it, are you married to the plus? Or could we get back into a range, albeit higher? Obviously, we have to account for the lumpiness of the projects and this being kind of a politically sensitive year. But I guess, how are you sort of thinking about how you would guide in the third quarter?

Yeah, great question, Char. Yeah, so we're looking forward to sharing more information in the third quarter call. As part of that process is typical for us, we'll update our four to five year capital expenditure plan. And that will really drive kind of our confidence level with how we might be able to change the EPS CAGR going forward. So more to come on that in the future. Yeah, we're evaluating, probably wanting to probably provide more transparency is how we characterize, more details in the future. And so historically, when we were going into last year, we wanted to use the plus to give us a little more flexibility, but I think we'll have more confidence when we get to the third quarter and provide a little more specificity if that'll help the investors.

Got it. So not to... Thank you, Char. Thank you, Char.

Your next question comes from the line of Steve D'Ambrisi with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Morning, Steve.

Hi, good morning. Thanks very much. Good morning. Just thanks very much for taking my question. Just had a quick one on the QTS amendments and the ramp. Can you just speak a little bit to kind of either what that means from A financial plan perspective or a shaping of capital deployment perspective or like a stay out perspective. There's a lot of questions in there, but I guess the way we've been thinking about it is maybe you'd be utilizing tax credits a little more upfront and then the load ramp ramps in later and allows you to earn your returns on higher invested capital balances. And just wondering if this increased accelerated load ramp, how that changes the financial plan.

Thanks, Steve. I'm going to talk to a couple of things that I'm incredibly proud of with respect to our team. We've been consistent in our approach in making sure that we're targeting near-term growth opportunities and being able to accommodate an accelerated low ramp with QTS opportunities. are some of the more details with respect to your question.

Yeah, Steve, I think about it. Our CapEx plan is aligned with the ramp rates right now. So I wouldn't expect much of a change there for CapEx. But we are expecting to have higher revenues, specifically in the years 2027 and 2028. And what that really does for us, it really helps our existing customers in the sense of allows us to not use as many tax credits through the kind of the growth phase of our business here and could potentially translate into helping us to stay out over a longer period of time.

and just a data point, QTS as of today has got over 40 megawatts worth of load, which is great to see.

That's awesome. Thanks, Lisa and Robert. And then just a follow-up on that. Can you talk a little bit about discussions around expansion of the existing customers in Iowa? Obviously, you have the 900 megawatts ICR that you're filing at QTS2, but just if QTS1 or Google and Cedar Rapids have existing extra acreage they could potentially expand into, or just any thoughts on that?

and so when you think about the two to four that we talk about with respect to the plan we're super excited that we had even though we announced the two to four not less than a year ago that we're able to announce 370 megawatts worth of additional load growth conversations are All of the above. New sites, existing sites, all of that. We're, of course, not able to share that at this time, but just stay tuned with respect to our third quarter update, which will have any load, whether it be load accelerations or new load growth opportunities reflected in the resource plan and our CapEx plan.

All right. Great. Thanks very much. Really appreciate it. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Robert.

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Wiesel with Scotiabank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Andrew. Hey, good morning, everyone. First question, just if I could elaborate on SHARs a little bit and get more specific. Can you talk about the status of the Linn County Data Center Mortatorium? How does that work with the City of Cedar Rapids and your projects there? Would they be impacted? or if they were to expand, might they be affected? And if so, would that depend on the timing of announcements or construction? How would that all work?

No impact. It's the unincorporated area of Lynn County. It has no impact on the data center growth opportunity. In fact, I don't think we can have a better advocate out there. with Mayor Tiffany O'Donnell. If you follow any of her feeds, she's got an active podcast and so forth. She continues to call out the benefits that they are seeing real-time in Cedar Rapids tied to these data centers.

Terrific. That's what we thought, just wanted to confirm. Okay, next question. Just wanted to ask about the load growth forecast. From the slides, it looks like you're taking up the numbers for 2026. Now 2% to 3% from 1% previously. Is that a function of data centers ramping up faster than expected or better growth from the rest of the customer base? And is that going to bode well for 27 and beyond, or is that more of like a near-term positive that might not be sustainable? And then similarly on the O&M side, that number went up by a percentage point as well. But with a comment that it's weighted to the first half. So is that one time expenses that have already happened? Or is that more of like a higher run rate due to inflation or whatever?

Great questions, Andrew. Think of the sales as probably higher than expected for us. We're seeing some positive developments, not only with the data centers going a little bit faster than we expected originally here, so we see some uplift there, but also just our core business when you think about all the other businesses throughout our service territory seem to be doing better than we originally expected. So, Thank you for joining us. in excess of 10,000 workers in that city. And if you think about the size of that city of roughly 150,000 in population, it's got a pretty big impact. And so that's driving more hotel usage, more restaurant usage and other things. And so we're seeing some of the ancillary benefits of some of that data center development activities that we're looking forward to spreading throughout other parts of the state and into Wisconsin as well. Specifically related to your O&M question, yeah, as we continue to manage the business, as we're seeing higher, what I'd say temperature normalized sales, that gives us an opportunity to continue to invest in the business. And so we're investing in generation, energy delivery. We want to make sure that we have a very reliable system for our customers. And so we're making sure we're breaking prudent investments to make sure that that happens. And we had kind of expected that we were going to have a little bit higher expenses in the first half of the year. Some of that's related to things like the timing of generation outages. So all in all, I'd say the first half of the year is pretty much what we had expected. The second half will be a little bit lighter, but we may see if we continue to have some higher retail sales, continued investments in the business to make sure we, like I said, focus on that reliability and customer service.

That's great. So it's essentially pulling forward some of these expenses and increasing a good situation to be in. And just to clarify, the construction workers and the benefits from them, should they be expected to continue to be there in line with the load ramps that you detail in slide four there, like through 28, 29, 30?

They're there for quite some time, exactly. I mean, there's just a lot of development that's being undertaken. When you think about, I'll just use QTS as an example, there are seven building projects Campus. I mean, they're doing one building, then the next building and so forth. And they're really moving at a very quick pace. And we're glad we could accompany.

With potentially more to come if you secure more of the two to four gigawatts and then some potentially. Okay, terrific. Thank you so much.

A place for development, quite frankly. We've seen this at other locations in Iowa, even.

Your next question comes from Nick Campanella with Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Nick.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for all the updates today. Appreciate it. I just wanted to come back to the magnitude and the potential of what could come on the third quarter plan and You have the two to four gigawatts out there. Is there any way to understand realistically within that what you have visibility to? Is it more about just increasing the load ramps that you currently have, a couple hundred megawatts, or extending those counterparty contracts a couple hundred megawatts? Or do you have visibility to some kind of larger one gigawatt deals within that, just as we kind of consider the back half of the year, which is clearly going really well? Thanks.

Yeah, I mean, that is a wait and see. We'll announce with respect to the resource plan. Just keep in mind, when we have these discussions with these large load customers, we need to sit there and make sure that they have their load ramp in place, that they've got land control. We're loving the fact that they're investing time with the communities to bring them up to speed so that there are no surprises. Because quite frankly, that's very consistent with our approach on making sure we're taking the risk out. That risk is... Thank you so much.

No, no, I appreciate that. And I mean, I know you talked about it a little there too, but you're trying to, you know, match the supply with new large loads and, you know, make sure you're out there sourcing the right equipment. So just, can you kind of talk about the state of supply chain and do you have, you know, better visibility first quarter? Is it the same? How to think about that?

Sure. I mean, this is something that we have, you know, these discussions are not new discussions. So we have the opportunity to figure out not only with our transmission partners. Thank you for joining us.

Okay, and just one more if I could, just your peer in Wisconsin with their own VLC, there's just been heightened credit requirements being kind of circulated in the state. And I'm just wondering if that has any impact to how you guys view the potential for new sites in the state and just, I guess, the total addressable market there. And if that's causing at all discussions to pivot increasingly towards Iowa. Thank you.

Yeah, great question. So with respect to tariff, you've seen that a number of utilities have filed tariffs. So we will be filing a tariff in Wisconsin later this year. Ours will very much be aligned with Excel's. We see that benefits associated with a slice of system approach. You know, with respect to the credit impacts and so forth, I think it's really important from an economic development standpoint. to recognize that it applies to all large loads, right? Large manufacturers and so forth. So I think it's appropriate that the commission and the state take a measured approach with respect to credit requirements and so forth but I will say this I mean we have a track record of having you know very very high quality counterparties and so you know we're not seeing this adversely impact our growth trajectory at all.

Very fair thank you very much.

Your next question comes from Julian Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

JULIAN DUMOULIN- Hi, team. This is actually Tanner on for Julian. Good morning. So at the risk of being repetitive here on the data center conversation, in terms of the funnel or the pipeline opportunities, you guys have arguably one of the more disciplined approaches in the sector. Just kind of ahead of this 3Q update, gauging your comfort with some of the outer parts of the pipeline and whether there might be a higher threshold for future projects to reach for them to be integrated within the disclosed funnel. Just how should we think about kind of on the ground the outer parts of that pipeline?

Great question. I mean, we continue to see a robust level of inbound calls. We like our disciplined approach. We have not changed it from how we talked about it last year. We want to make sure that our data centers have land control. Thank you so much for joining us. asking questions, you know, even the ordinances and so forth that you're seeing in place. It's giving them flexibility. It's allowing them to zone for data centers. And all of that, I think, is just a great early indicator of Iowa continuing to be open for business.

Great, thank you. And maybe switching gears here, on the slides you call out for policy decision on the self-funded network upgrades as a potential watch item, can you maybe just remind us of the potential net benefit to Alliant here, whether it be in spend or in ease of customer activity, if this decision goes your way, just kind of help us size the potential benefits of this.

Yeah, I'd say that's an item that we continue to monitor. Obviously, we're awaiting a decision before we know what the potential full implications of that are. But there is quite a few projects that we're building right now from a generation standpoint that will require some transmission upgrades that could provide us the opportunity, if we so choose, to invest in those for ourselves. We see that as a potential opportunity for not only additional CapEx, but it could provide some customer benefits as a result of our cost of capital being Slightly lower than what we see with the transmission company. So I think that would be a win-win for both our investors and our customers if that were to come about.

Great. Thank you very much.

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Fremont with Lattenberg. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Morning, Paul. Good morning. I was hoping you would talk a little bit about sort of the recent changes in the Wisconsin governor race. Mandela Barnes just dropped out. So if you could maybe summarize the positions of Hong versus Tiffany on their views of data center development in the state. Hong seems very much in the camp of wanting a statewide moratorium.

Yeah, good question. I mean, it's a very active political landscape here in Wisconsin, and quite frankly, the state has always enjoyed a practical and pragmatic approach with respect to policy. really pretty much everything in the state. It is disappointing that there's some narratives that I do think play very well in PJM and may be more true in PJM. But I tell you, the math is self-explanatory. The Brattle Group reinforced that our approach makes sense. And we'll continue to use this as an opportunity to speak with all candidates on on this topic. I think once we get through the primaries and see who comes out of that, that's just another great opportunity for us to educate folks on what we're doing, why we're doing it, and provide the details because it's the details that matter. And with respect to... Working with either Republicans or Democrats, again, that's what we do. That's in our DNA. And so we look forward to having those more detailed opportunities.

So would you say at this point that the likelihood of new data center development in Wisconsin is much, much lower than potential new announcements in Iowa? Yeah.

No, I don't think so. I mean, and even when you, like I mentioned earlier, Paul, you know, the moratoriums and ordinances that you've seen, they're not impacting our projects or our pipeline. Now, what we've always mentioned is that we have more landmass in Iowa. It just, it's a, from a service territory standpoint, a larger state.

and then I think in the past you've talked about a potential stay out through at least the period where you have a GRC rate freeze in effect. How much additional sort of runway does the QTS ramp up provide you with? Is it like a year or how can we sort of put that into perspective? in terms of adding to your stay out?

Yeah, Paul, good question. Yeah, so as a reminder for folks, we have a commitment to stay out of rate reviews in Iowa for our retail electric business through 2029. And we really are focused right now on trying to add more data centers and trying to accelerate load. The combination of that too could give us an opportunity to stay out even longer. So we think that's the right thing to do for our customers and our communities. And so we're going to focus on that. So it'll largely depend on and many more.

And the one thing that I just want to note is, you know, in Iowa, I don't think there's another state in the country that can say the next for five years, zero percent rate increases. And, you know, that's something that we also help drives additional economic development.

And last question for me, sort of the Treasury modifications on repairs, deductions, does that have any impact on your business? on you in terms of your cash flows.

Yeah, I don't know if you're referring to the AMT implications. We're not in AMT. It's not having any impact on us. We obviously continue to have opportunities with repairs and we try and maximize those for the benefit of our customers, but we're fortunate that we're small enough that we don't have to worry about the AMT issues.

Great. Thank you very much.

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

With no more questions, this concludes our call. A replay will be available on our investor website. Thank you for your continued support of Alliant Energy and feel free to contact me with any follow-up questions.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.