NRG Energy, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to NRG Energies, Inc. Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Call. This time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. For 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 one one on your telephone. When you hear an automated message, it'll advise that your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to your first speaker today, Brendan Mulhern, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to NRG Energy's fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings call. This morning's call is being broadcast live over the phone and via webcast. The webcast, presentation, and earnings release 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 upon 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 earnings release. With that, I will now turn the call over to Larry Coben, NRG's Chair and Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Brendan, and good morning, everyone. I'm joined today by Bruce Chung, our CFO, and Rob Gaudette, our president. Other members of our management team are also on the line and available to answer questions. Let's begin with the key messages on slide four. We exceeded the midpoint of our RAISE 2025 guidance, marking the third consecutive year we increased our outlook and delivered above it. We introduced standalone 2026 guidance in November, updated it in February to reflect 11 months of LS Power ownership, and today we are reaffirming those ranges. We successfully closed LS Power at the end of January. Integration is well underway, and performance is already exceeding our underwriting assumptions. With LS Power now closed, we are rolling forward our long-term outlook. We continue to target at least 14% annual growth in adjusted earnings per share and free cash flow before growth per share, now measured from 2026 through 2030, rather than the previous through 2029. We are maintaining this more than 14% trajectory, despite a much higher share price than assumed at the original announcement. This is achieved through higher earnings from both the LS Power portfolio and our legacy businesses. Finally, as demand accelerates across our markets, affordability and reliability will define long-term success. New large loads must bring their own power and contract for the generation that supports them. Flexible demand response must scale alongside that. Otherwise, prices will rise and volatility will increase. NRG is well positioned to do both and thus meet rising demand across our markets. Let's turn to slide five, our 2025 financial and business results. 2025 was a record year of performance at NRG. Full-year adjusted EPS was $8.24 per share, and adjusted EBITDA was $4.087 billion. both above the high end of our raised guidance. Free cash flow before growth totaled $2.210 billion, or $11.63 per share, above the midpoint of our revised outlook. Turning to our 2025 scoreboard, we delivered against the priorities we outlined at the start of that year. We achieved top decile safety performance for the 10th consecutive year and delivered our 2025 target under our $750 million organic growth plan. We signed 445 megawatts of long-term data center PPAs at attractive margins. We secured Texas Energy Fund loans for 1.5 gigawatts of new capacity with all construction on budget and on schedule. We launched our Texas residential VPP and finished the year at nearly 10 times our original objective. We also announced the LS power transaction, which we'll cover in more detail on the next slide. In 2025, we returned $1.6 billion to shareholders through repurchases and dividends, while increasing the dividend by 8% for the sixth consecutive year. Our momentum has carried forward into 2026. During winter storm Fern, our Texas fleet achieved 97% in the money availability. Our assets were ready when the grid needed them. That performance reflects investments we have made in the plants in recent years and great work by our amazing people. Turning to slide six, beyond 2025 performance, we strengthened our competitive position with the close of the LS Power portfolio. Our generation fleet has doubled to 25 gigawatts. We added 18 natural gas assets, primarily in PJM, with additional positions in ERCOT, NYSO, and ISO New England. The combined fleet is now more than 75% natural gas. Together with our existing generation and projects under development, we are naturally long against our residential load in our core markets. In PJM, several of the newly acquired peaking units provide a potential one gigawatt of upgrades through conversion to combined cycle configuration. That adds flexibility to support future large load demand. CPower, a preeminent company in the demand response space, strengthens our capabilities and expands our position in this sector with both commercial and industrial customers. This transaction was immediately accretive, supports our long-term leverage targets, and strengthens our credit profile. Performance is already exceeding our underwriting assumptions, driven by stronger capacity and energy prices. In addition, 100% bonus depreciation enhances after tax returns relative to our original modeling. We have expanded our earnings base and strengthened our competitive position as markets tighten. Turning to slide seven, let's discuss our near and long-term outlook. Beginning with 2026, we are reaffirming the guidance ranges introduced in early February following the close of LS Power. Recall that the LS contribution reflects 11 months of ownership, not a full year. In 2026, we will deliver these results embedded in our outlook and integrate the LS power portfolio. We are also targeting at least one 1 gigawatt plus signed long-term data center power contract under our bring your own power approach. Turning to the longer term framework, we are rolling forward our outlook and continue to target at least 14% annual growth in adjusted EPS through 2030. This extends the prior five-year framework, which ended in 2029, and reflects our expanded earnings base. Consistent with our prior methodology, the outlook assumes flat power and capacity prices across the planning horizon. Detailed assumptions and Texas and PJM price sensitivities are included in the appendix. The plan also now incorporates all three Texas Energy Fund projects rather than one. The first remains on track for June 2026 completion, and the additional two are expected online by mid-2028, and these represent incremental value relative to the prior outlook. The plan also reflects the portion of the 445 megawatts of previously announced signed data center contracts that are expected to be online during this period. I must emphasize that the outlook does not assume any additional data center contracts or higher power or capacity prices. Let me repeat that. The outlook does not assume any additional data center contracts or higher power or capacity prices. So beyond what is embedded in this plan, of course, we see significant opportunities to contract new large-load natural gas generation under long-term agreements with high-quality counterparties. We have the ability today to support more than six gigs of long-term power agreements to serve large data center demand. At that level, it represents the potential to add more than $2.5 billion of recurring annual adjusted EBITDA on contracts of up to 20 years. These projects would provide stable, contract-backed cash flows. Discussions are ongoing, so stay tuned. Turning to slide eight, I want to discuss our approach to affordability, which has two primary components. First, Bring your own power. New large loads should contract directly for the generation that supports them. Data centers must pay for their required capacity additions. Cost and volatility should not be shifted to existing customers. Second, demand response. Flexible demand is an essential complement to our approach. Demand response, including virtual power plants, provides dispatchable capacity when the system is tight. It lowers peak costs and strengthens reliability without adding structural cost to the system. We are executing on this model today. We have more than six gigs of natural gas generation capacity reserved for customer-backed large load projects. including 5.4 gigs through our GEV and Kiewit venture, and one gig of uprate potential within the recently acquired LS portfolio. We are also developing new generation through the Texas Energy Fund to support grid reliability. On the residential side, we are building a one gig virtual power plant in Texas and preparing to extend that model into PJM. On the commercial and industrial side, CPower now anchors one of the leading demand response platforms in the country. We built all of these platforms early in anticipation of where markets were heading and what politicians and customers are now saying. It is operating today. As demand expands, this model supports significant growth without compromising affordability or reliability. With that, Let me turn it over to Bruce for the financial review.