NRG Energy, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Energy Energy, Inc.' 's third quarter 2021 earnings call. At this time, I'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require further assistance during the conference, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Kevin Cole. Head of Investor Relations, to read the safe harbor and introduce the call.

Thank you, Benjamin. Good morning and welcome to NRG Energy's third quarter 2021 earnings call. This morning's call is being broadcast live over the phone and via webcast, which can be located in the investor section of our website at www.nrg.com under Presentations and Webcasts. Please note that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements, which are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. Actual results may differ materially. We urge everyone to review the safe harbor in today's presentation, as well as the risk factors in our SEC filings. We undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of future events, except as required by law. In addition, we will refer to both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. For information regarding our non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please refer to today's presentation. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Marisa Gutierrez, NRG's President and CEO

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for your interest in NRG. I'm joined this morning by Alberto Fornaro, Chief Financial Officer. Also on the call and available for questions, we have Elizabeth Killinger, Head of Home Retail, and Chris Moser, Head of Operations. I'd like to start on a slide for today's presentation. Our consumer services platform performed well through the summer and delivers stable results. We are narrowing our 2021 financial guidance at the low end of the range and initiating 2022 financial guidance. Our platform is navigating the unprecedented supply chain constraints, and we are actively working to mitigate the financial impact. Finally, we continue to make progress on our five-year growth plan. In the near term, we are focused on the direct energy integration, organic growth in power and gas, and expanding our customer base with dual product options. Moving to the financial and operational results for the third quarter on slide five. Beginning on the left-hand side of the slide, I want to start with safety. We deliver another quarter of top-dead-side safety performance. This marks 10 straight quarters at this level of performance, a testament to our strong safety culture. As we continue our return to the office, the safety and well-being of our employees remains our top priority. During the third quarter, we delivered $767 million of adjusted EBITDA, which brings our year-to-date results to $1.99 billion, or 19% higher than the previous year, driven primarily by the acquisition of direct energy. We are, however, narrowing our 2021 guidance to the lower half of the range, primarily as a result of unanticipated supply chain constraints impacting fourth quarter results. This will also impact 2022 guidance, which I will address shortly. During the quarter, we made good progress on our key strategic initiatives. First, direct energy integration is well ahead of pace, achieving $144 million year-to-date or 107% of the original full-year plan. We are increasing our 2021 target to $175 million, which reflects the early realization of synergy targets in 2021. We are maintaining the full plan target of $300 million run rate in 2023. Next, INERCO. The PUCT continues to advance necessary actions to improve market reliability. In October, the PUCT implemented phase one of the winter weatherization standards, which will be in effect for this upcoming winter. This weatherization standard adopts best practices and addresses weather-related issues that occurred during URI. We are making the necessary investments in our fleet to be in compliance and ready for winter operations. On market design, the PUCT remains focused on a comprehensive solution to improve reliability and incentivize dispatchable resources. At NRG, we support this direction and have taken a leading role in offering ideas for the PUCT's consideration. We have proposed a comprehensive solution to prioritize reliability and achieve it through competitive solutions. The PUCT also approved the final orders for securitization to ensure a healthy and competitive market. I want to commend and thank the governor, legislature, and PUCT for tirelessly working to address the issues you re-exposed and to harden the ERCOT system and protect the integrity of the competitive markets that have benefited consumers over the years. Now turning to home retail. we continue to advance our best-in-class customer experience during the quarter. Our Reliant brand was recognized with two awards during the quarter, the North American Customer Centricity Award in the Crisis Management category, and the 2021 Innovation Leader Impact Award for the Make It Solar offering, which is a renewable energy initiative that allows customers to support solar energy without installing panels. Now moving to the right-hand side of the slide to discuss 2022. First, as we detailed during our June Investor Day, 2022 is a staging year for high-grading our business and achieving our five-year 15 to 20% free cash flow per share growth plan. In 2022, we remain focused on integrating direct energy and achieving the plan's high-quality synergies Removing or streamlining our each generation business that continues to weigh on our valuation given earnings and terminal value concerns that otherwise would have masked our retail growth. Deploying small amounts of capital to prepare the platform for growth and returning a significant amount of capital to shareholders. With that, We're introducing 2022 financial guidance of $1.95 to $2.25 billion of adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow before growth of $1.14 to $1.44 billion. This guidance reflects our plan to fully realize our plan synergies and to streamline our East Generation business. Also impacting this guidance are temporary impacts from unforeseen supply chain constraints, ancillary services charges in ERCOT, and our previously announced Limestone Unit 1 outage through April 2022. But leave no doubt, now that we have identified these near-term headwinds, we are focused on mitigating these impacts into 2022. Finally, We are also announcing an 8% increase in our 2022 dividend in line with our stated dividend growth rate of 7% to 9%. Now, let me turn the call over to Alberto for a more detailed financial review. And after, I will discuss how we're advancing our consumer services five-year roadmap. Alberto?