Eversource Energy (D/B/A)

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Eversource Energy Q2 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising you your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker, Rima Heider, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning and thank you for joining us today on the second quarter 2025 earnings call for Eversource. During this call, we'll be referencing slides that we posted this morning on our website. As you can see on slide 1, some of the statements made during this investor call may be forward-looking. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risk and uncertainty, which may cause the actual results to defer materially from forecasts and projections. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any of these statements. Additional information about the various factors that may cause actual results to defer and our explanation of non-GAAP measures and how they reconcile to GAAP results is contained within our news release, the slides we posted last night, and in our most recent 10Q and 10K. Speaking today will be Joe Nolan, our Chairman and President and Chief Executive Officer, and John Marrera, our Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer. Also joining us today is Jay Booth, our Vice President and Controller. I will now turn the call over to Joe.

Thank you, Rima, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for being with us today. Starting on slide 4, we have made great progress halfway through the year, executing our key strategic priorities while maintaining our commitment to being a pure play pipes and wires regulated utility. As anticipated, electric demand continues to rise, both in the near term and throughout our 10-year forecast horizon. We recognize this growth trajectory early on and work closely with key stakeholders to position ourselves to effectively meet the challenge. In several regions, demand is expected to outpace existing infrastructure capacity, underscoring the critical need for strategic upgrades and new development. The accelerating electrification of transportation and heating sectors driven by decarbonization efforts is further fueling this upward trend. Notably, low growth through the first half of 2025 has exceeded 2%, nearly double the rate observed during the same period last year, reinforcing our expectations in validating the investments we've made to capitalize on this momentum. A clear indication of this is the 10% increase in our five-year infrastructure investment plan that we announced in February. Our balance sheet is strengthening and our -to-debt ratio continues to improve as a result of constructive regulatory outcomes, as well as our execution on cashflow enhancements that we laid out last year, such as exiting the offshore wind business and the planned divestiture of our water business. Turning to our quarterly accomplishments on slide five, once again, this quarter, we saw solid earnings growth from our transmission and distribution businesses versus last year's results. Earnings for the second quarter were 96 cents a share in line with our expectations. We are reaffirming our 2025 EPS guidance range of $4.67 per share to $4.82 per share, as well as our long-term EPS growth projection of five to 7% through 2029. In addition to our solid financial results, we had other significant accomplishments across the company. During this hot summer, we continue to maintain our top decile reliability performance even during record-breaking heat waves. I'd like to briefly acknowledge the severe weather event that impacted parts of Connecticut, Southeast and Massachusetts, and Cape Cod during the July 4th holiday weekend. This storm had damaging winds well above 70 miles per hour. These dangerous conditions pose significant operational challenges, but our team responded swiftly to ensure safety and service continuity. I would like to thank all our employees, including crews, operations, and customer services teams who worked around the clock to restore power to our customers. This is also a testament to our continued investment in grid modernization, which has significantly enhanced system resilience, enabling faster and more efficient storm restoration efforts that minimize customer outages and support long-term reliability. We issued our annual sustainability report, which is available on our website. The report highlights some of our most innovative sustainability and governance achievements, including our network geothermal pilot project, our Cape Cod Solutions transmission project, and our efforts to develop the future energy workforce. Shifting focus to the regulatory front, let me begin with an update on Connecticut. The Connecticut legislative session ended in early June, and the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 4, SB 4, on a bipartisan basis. SB 4 is a comprehensive energy reform bill with the stated intention of making electric bills more affordable and the utility regulation process more transparent. The bill was signed into law by Governor Neil Lamont. SB 4 allows for securitization of storm costs incurred by Eversource from 2018 to 2025, which is important for customer bill predictability, as well as strengthening our balance sheet. The new law also clarifies the requirements of the public utility regulatory authority, including requiring that all five commissioners sit on all rate request proceedings moving forward. Additionally, the law allows the state to use bonds to cover the cost of some public benefit programs, which are also currently recovered through a separate charge on our customers' bills. This is expected to modestly reduce their overall bill impact. We appreciate that leaders on both sides of the aisle and the General Assembly are committed to ensuring a transparent and constructive process for utilities in Connecticut to deliver safe and reliable service. Staying with Connecticut, the Aquarian divestiture process continues to progress well. We are well into the regulatory approval proceedings in all three states, and we expect to close the seal by the end of the year. We also received a decision from the Connecticut Supreme Court on Aquarian's appeal from its 2023 rate case results. We are encouraged by the court's findings on the applicability of the legal standards for rate making, including the application of prudency standards, as well as utility companies being entitled to carrying charges on deferred costs. This court ruling was an important development for future investments and cost recovery. Our focus in this legal challenge has always been to get clarity from the court on the applicability of prudence standards in order to support and defend capital investments in the future. Having the rules of the road clarified by the court is critical in this regard, and is of greater value than the evidentiary disputes on Aquarian's 2023 rate case. Moving north, we received a constructive decision on the rate case for Public Service Company of New Hampshire. We are pleased with the commission's collaborative approach on this rate case proceeding. This decision, which was in line with our expectations, largely supports our investments in grid monetization, system reliability, and necessary energy infrastructure needed to continue delivering safe, affordable, and sustainable electricity to our New Hampshire customers. John will cover the details of this recent decision. We're pleased to announce that during the second quarter, we finalized contracts that maintain positive, constructive relationships with several of our key unions, representing electric and natural gas employees in Massachusetts. It's important to ever source that we maintain these relationships with our union partners. Turning to slide six. As we invest in modernizing our infrastructure and supporting the energy transition of the future, we are equally focused on keeping costs manageable for the families and businesses we serve. Affordability is not just a goal, it's a cornerstone principle in every investment we make. Through innovative solutions and strategic grid enhancements, we're enabling the integration of renewable energy resources and preparing for the increase in electric demand expected in our region. Our advanced metering infrastructure rollout in Massachusetts is progressing very well, and we reached a major milestone in July. The AMI communication network, which started deployment earlier this year in Western Massachusetts, is substantially complete. This was a critical foundational step prior to the meter installation. We have also started the construction of the communication network in Eastern Massachusetts. I am pleased to report that following a successful system launch last week, we have begun the installation of the first AMI meters in Western Massachusetts. The transition to AMI meters for all ever source Massachusetts electric customers is expected to take approximately three years to complete. We are very excited to bring AMI to Massachusetts. This initiative aims to bring transparency, efficiency, and reliability to energy distribution, while empowering customers to make informed decisions about their energy consumption. Even more exciting is our key project, the Cambridge Underground substation, the first of its kind in the United States. Construction is moving ahead well since breaking ground earlier this year. Boston Properties, our partner on this project, is now advancing toward the final depth of approximately 105 feet. We are pleased that we can meet the growing needs and enable clean energy resources for Cambridge, a global center of innovation. The ever source team behind our innovative Outer Cape Battery Energy Storage was recognized for their work on the project by the Energy Systems Integration Group. This group is an independent, -for-profit organization that galvanizes the expertise of the technical community to support grid transformation in energy systems integration. Our system was recognized for its state of the eye, nature, and the seamless implementation of the first of its kind systems to improve reliability for customers. Since full commissioning in December of 2022, this system has been dispatched on several occasions, avoiding sustained outages for thousands of customers during storms and other unexpected events. Turning to a brief update on revolution wind on slide seven, you may recall that in early May, Orsted announced that the project was approximately 75% complete. We expect Orsted to update the overall project status soon. The onshore substation construction, whichever source oversees, is progressing well. We expect the onshore substation construction to be substantially complete this month. The testing and commissioning process is underway, which will allow the substation to provide back feed power to the offshore facilities in early 2026. This construction progress significantly reduces the critical path risk for Eversource. Before we conclude today's call, I want to thank all of you, our employees, partners, and investors for your continued trust and support. This quarter's results reflects our team's unwavering commitment to operational excellence, customer service, and long-term value creation. This quarter wasn't just about performance. It was about our over 10,000 employees working together every day to keep the lights on and provide superior customer service. From our line workers restoring power in the dark to our engineers designing the grid of tomorrow to customers and shareholders who trust us every day, we're proud to serve over 4 million customers across three states. As we look ahead, we remain focused on delivering safe, reliable, and sustainable energy while navigating an evolving regulatory and economic landscape. I will now turn the call over to John Marrera to discuss our financial results.