DTE Energy Company

Thank you for standing by. My name is Eric and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the DTE Energy Q1 2024 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Barbara Tuckfield, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Before we get started, I would like to remind you to read the Safe Harbor Statement on page two of the presentation, including the reference to forward-looking statements. Our presentation also includes references to operating earnings, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. Please refer to the reconciliation of gap earnings to operating earnings provided in the appendix. With us this morning are Jerry Norcia, Chairman and CEO, Joy Harris, President and COO, and Dave Rude, Executive Vice President and CFO. And now, I'll turn it over to Jerry to start the call this morning.

Thanks, Barb, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. I hope everyone is having a healthy and safe year so far. This morning, I will discuss the achievements we have made so far this year as we continue to deliver for all of our key stakeholders and we continue to achieve successes across all of our businesses. Given that Joy is in charge of operations, she will highlight our significant customer-focused investment agenda to build the grid of the future, maintain reliability, and transition to cleaner generation while continuing to focus on customer affordability. and Dave will provide a financial update and wrap things up before we take your questions. Let me start on slide four. We are off to a strong start in 2024 and well-positioned to deliver on our targets this year. The success that DTE has achieved continues to be the result of our focus and engaged team for our customers and communities. Our team continues to achieve improved health and wellbeing and cultivate deeper employee engagement, which results in being able to deliver service excellence for our customers and our communities. The engagement of our team at DTE was recognized with another Gallup Great Workplace Award. I am extremely proud of our team for receiving this award 12 years in a row. We continue to deliver for our customers. In fact, at DTE Gas, We have been delivering for our customers for nearly two centuries. Our gas company celebrates its 175th anniversary this year. We have been providing safe, reliable, and affordable natural gas to customers in Michigan since 1849, two years before gas lights even appeared on Detroit city streets. We have come a long way over the years, but the focus on customers has never wavered. An important part of serving customers is to provide energy efficiency opportunities. DTE was recently awarded the Energy Star Partner of the Year Award by the EPA. The award is the highest level of recognition achieved from the EPA, recognizing programs that demonstrate organization-wide energy savings and best practices. We have demonstrated our commitment to help customers identify options to reduce their energy bills without sacrificing performance. This is the third consecutive year DTE has received this award, and again, I am extremely proud of this recognition. We continue to invest in the communities where we live and serve. DTE invested $2.7 billion with Michigan businesses in 2023, creating and sustaining more than 12,000 jobs across the state. Last year, DTE also invested nearly $1 billion with diverse suppliers and nearly $900 million with companies based in the city of Detroit. We continue to be a leader in driving Michigan's economy at all levels. As I said at the start of my remarks, we are having a strong start to the year and we are well positioned to deliver our 2024 targets. Our long-term EPS growth rate remains at 68 percent, with 2023 original guidance as the basis for this growth. And our 2024 annualized dividend of $4.08 per share is consistent with our practice of growing dividends in line with operating EPS. Importantly, we will continue to have a strong balance sheet and investment-grade credit ratings to support this customer-focused capital investment plan. We remain committed to deliver premium shareholder returns that our investors have come to expect and that we will deliver. As DTE Gas celebrates the 175-year milestone, DTE Energy is also celebrating a milestone, with 2024 marking the 115th year of continuous listing on the New York Stock Exchange. In fact, ET's tenure is the 16th longest of any company on the exchange. So I guess these milestones are just another way of saying we have been doing this successfully for a very long time. And I am very excited about the opportunities ahead of us for many years to come. Let's turn to slide five to highlight some of the achievements across our portfolio. We have made strong progress across the company in the early part of this year. Starting at BT Electric, we received approval to construct a 220 megawatt battery energy storage system at the site of the former Trenton Channel Power Plant. This investment will be approximately a half a billion dollars. This project is expected to be operational in 2026 and will be the largest standalone battery energy storage project in the Great Lakes region. and it initiates an important investment area in our transition to cleaner generation. Last month, we filed an electric rate case that outlines the investments we need to build a smarter, stronger, more resilient electric grid of the future for our customers and further our transition to cleaner generation. Joy will go over the filing in more detail and how it underpins an important step in our long-term investment in grid reliability and cleaner generation transformation while remaining focused on customer affordability. At DT Gas, we are targeting over 200 miles of main renewal in 2024 as we continue to modernize the gas transmission system. Last year, we hit an important milestone where we completed almost 50% of our main renewal program. In January, we filed a rate case at DT Gas to support important investments necessary to continue to renew our gas infrastructure, which will minimize leaks and reduce costs. At DTE Vantage, we continue to advance custom energy solutions projects, RG projects, and carbon capture and sequestration projects. One project to highlight is the Ford Motor Company custom energy solutions project that is scheduled to go into operation later this year and is underpinned by a long-term fixed fee contract with no commodity risk. So to wrap up my comments, I'll just say I'm feeling extremely positive about our start in 2024 and how we are well positioned to continue to deliver now and into the future for our customers, communities, and investors. Now I'll turn it over to Joy to give some highlights on our investment agenda and reliability improvements. Joy, over to you.