Xcel Energy Inc.

Hello and welcome to the Xcel Energy second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. My name is George. I'll be a coordinator for today's event. Please note this conference is being recorded and for the duration of the call, your line has been a listen-only mode. However, a question and answer session will follow the prepared remarks and questions will be taken from institutional investors and analysts. Reporters can contact Media Relations with inquiries and individual investors and others can reach out to Investor Relations. To register for a question, please press star one on your default keypad. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. And I'd like to hand the call over to your host, Mr. Paul Johnson, Vice President, Treasurer and Investor Relations, to begin today's conference. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Xcel Energy's 2024 second quarter earnings call. Joining me today are Bob Frenzel, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In addition, we have other members of the management team in the room to answer questions if needed. This morning, we will review our 2024 second quarter results and highlights and share recent business developments. Slides that accompany today's call are available on our website. As a reminder, some comments made during today's call may contain forward-looking information. Significant factors that could cause results to differ from those anticipated are described in our earnings release and SEC filings. Today, we'll also discuss certain metrics that are non-GAAP measures. Information on comparable GAAP measures and reconciliations are included in our earnings release. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Bob. Thank you, Paul, and good morning, everyone.

Thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to report that the company delivered another quarter of solid operational and financial progress. Our long-term business model remains robust. We continue to deploy capital for the benefit of our customers and communities. We enable a future powered by cleaner fuels and a more resilient and intelligent grid. We partner with stakeholders to encourage economic development. We provide products and services capable of meeting our customers' most important needs. In the most recent quarter, we invested $1.7 billion in resilient and reliable energy infrastructure. We delivered earnings per share of 54 cents for our owners. We provided industry leading storm response and strong customer reliability despite challenging weather conditions for our customers. We accelerated our wildfire risk reduction measures to enable safer and more resilient communities. Xcel Energy's commitment to our communities and investors is anchored by our core investment thesis as an integrated pure play utility and a clean energy leader. For more than two decades, we've been a leading provider of wind energy to our customers, and we were the first U.S. energy company to commit to a carbon-free electric future. We've delivered on earnings guidance for 19 straight years, one of the best records in our industry, and we look to make it 20 this year. We have a long-term and transparent growth plan, making investments in clean generation, new and enhanced energy grids, and economic development programs to support our community's vitality. Since 2020, our continuous improvement programs have saved $400 million in recurring O&M expense while improving operating outcomes and reducing enterprise risk. Our Steel for Fuel strategy has delivered more than $4 billion in customer fuel-related savings since 2017. This discipline, alongside support of state and federal policies, enables us to reduce emissions and keep residential electric and natural gills to Natural gas bills 28% and 14% below the industry average and growth well below the rate of inflation. With our 11,000 plus employees commitment to serving customers for 14 cents ahead of 2023 year to date earnings, and as a result, we are reaffirming our 2024 earnings guidance. During the quarter, we continued our progress on our clean energy transition through multiple resource planning and RFP processes. We issued an RFP for 1600 megawatts of wind, solar, storage, and hybrid resources in the Upper Midwest. Bids are due in September. We expect commission decisions in 2025. We now have active RFPs for over 4000 megawatts of resources in the Upper Midwest. The New Mexico and Texas Commissions approved 418 megawatts of company-owned solar generation that's expected to be in service between 2026 and 2027. And last week we issued an RFP and SPS seeking 3,100 megawatts of accredited capacity, which could ultimately yield more than 5,000 megawatts of renewables and firm dispatchable generation. Bids are due in January of 25, and we expect commission approval in 2026. Last quarter I discussed a number of initiatives that Xcel Energy is taking to reduce wildfire risk. Incredibly proud of what our team has been able to accomplish in a short amount of time. Since March, we've developed the capability to deliver enhanced daily wildfire safety operations across the enterprise, as well as the ability to conduct proactive public safety power shutoffs as evidenced by recent events in Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico during threatening conditions. We've accelerated poll inspections, including replacing priority one and priority two polls across our system. We're expanding visual coverage with our PANO AI-enabled camera system to over 50,000 square miles in Colorado, enabling first responders access to critical information, including precision triangulation and fire location. We've accelerated deployment of TechnoSilva's risk modeling system and expect it to have an operational enterprise-wide by the end of the year. We recently filed an updated Colorado Wildfire Mitigation Plan that integrates industry experience, incorporates evolving risk assessment methodologies, adds new technology, and expands the scope, pace, and scale of our programs to reduce wildfire risk. The plan has four primary programs that include enhanced situational awareness, the improved meteorology, area risk mapping and modeling, artificial intelligence cameras, and continuous monitoring. Operational mitigations that include enhanced power line safety settings and public safety power shutoff capabilities. System resiliency through increased asset assessment and remediation, pole replacements, line rebuilds, targeted undergrounding, and vegetation management, and improved coordination technology, and real-time data sharing with customers and other stakeholders, as well as PSPS resiliency rebates. We expect to follow resiliency plans with SPS that will include wildfire mitigation later this year and are developing formal wildfire mitigation plans for the rest of our states. Finally, we're working with stakeholders at both the state and federal level on legislation to enhance the safety of our communities from evolving weather risks while protecting the financial integrity of companies that provide these essential services. Moving to economic development, we're seeing a material shift in long-term electric demand on our system after several years of relatively flat sales growth. Our current five-year electric sales forecast assumes approximately 3% annual growth. Nearly half of that growth is driven by electrification of oil and natural gas production, electric vehicle adoption, and beneficial electrification economic growth, and increasing customer counts. The remainder of that growth is driven by contracted and high probability data center load, including previously announced deals with Meta and Microsoft in Minnesota and QTS in Colorado, as well as others. We believe this forecast is now conservative, given a pipeline of data center requests totaling 6,700 megawatts by 2030. If all of the data center requests came to fruition, Our data center sales CAGR would be over 9%. We continue working through the requests and plan on updating our sales and capital investment forecasts on the third quarter call. Xcel Energy is strategically positioned to secure economic data center load with high quality partners due to our access to low cost renewable generation, the availability of water and fiber infrastructure, unencumbered land, and our speed to market. At the same time, we'll continue to focus on the impacts to all customers, ensuring we have both economic contracts and system resources to provide safe, clean, and reliable power to our communities. During the quarter, there were two regulatory outcomes that provide for cleaner and more resilient electric and natural gas distribution systems. First, Colorado passed a bill that enables qualified electric utilities to make necessary distribution investments with timely recovery to achieve state policy goals, including transportation and building electrification, and enabling distributed energy resources. This was the result of extensive stakeholder process supported by the Colorado Energy Office, our IBEW labor partners, environmental advocates NRDC and WRA, as well as the Colorado Solar and Storage Association and others. Second, the Colorado Commission approved the modified clean heat plant, which establishes a starting point for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from our natural gas distribution system. Four-year budget of up to $441 million was approved, which sets funding primarily for beneficial electrification and natural gas efficiency. We look forward to working with stakeholders and regulators to implement these initiatives to meet our long-term sustainability goals in Colorado. Finally, We recently released our 19th sustainability report. We're proud of our history at Xcel Energy, and as we look forward, we're committed to delivering the essential energy services our customers value and need while driving positive change that supports the environment and communities. I'm deeply appreciative and thankful for the commitment and hard work of our employees and partners to deliver a clean energy future. We remain relentless in our pursuit of our vision and will continue to deliver long-term value to our shareholders in affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy for the communities in which we live and work. With that, I'll turn it over to Brian.