Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Rob, and I'm your event operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to today's conference, Public Service Enterprise Group's Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we'll conduct a question and answer session for members of the financial community. At that time, if you have a question, you'll need to press the star and the number one on your telephone keypad. To throw your question, press the star and then the number two. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero from your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, August 5th, 2025, and will be available for replay as an audio webcast on PSCG's Investor Relations website at https://investor.pscg.com. I would now like to send the conference call over to Carlotta Chan. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to PSEG's second quarter 2025 earnings presentation. On today's call are Ralph LaRosa, Chair, President, and CEO, and Dan Craig, Executive Vice President and CFO. The press release, attachments, and slides for today's discussion are posted on our IR website at investor.pseg.com, and our 10-Q will be filed later today. PSEG's earnings release and other matters discussed during today's call contain forward-looking statements and estimates that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. We will also discuss non-GAAP operating earnings, which differs from net income as reported in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, in the United States. We include reconciliations of our non-GAAP financial measures and a disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements on our IR website and in today's material. Following our prepared remarks, we will conduct a 30-minute question and answer session. I will now turn the call over to Ralph LaRosa.

Thank you, Carlotta. And thanks to all of you for joining us this morning to review PSEG's second quarter 2025 results and to discuss our outlook for the business over the rest of the year. PSEG delivered another quarter of solid operating and financial performance. And PSE&G is on track to execute on its full year $3.8 billion regulated investment program to maintain reliability. PSE&G also benefited from a full quarter of regulatory recovery of and on over $3 billion of previously invested capital, which was approved in the October 2024 settlement of our electric and gas distribution base rate case. PSEG's results also reflect the positive impact of higher output from our nuclear generating fleet, which benefited from the absence of a spring Hope Creek refueling outage experience last year. During the past quarter, we also continued to prioritize meeting our customers' expectations on both the reliability and affordability fronts. In late June, we successfully operated through three consecutive days of 100 degree plus temperatures. prompting high electricity usage that set a summer peak load of 10,229 megawatts on June 24th, the highest system load we have experienced since 2013. The value of our infrastructure resilience and storm restoration efforts benefited customers during a series of intense heat, wind, and rainstorms, providing yet another validation of our investments in the system to maintain reliability which also improves the customer experience. Our utility crews in New Jersey and on Long Island are working tirelessly to safely keep the lights on, restoring service to interrupted customers on a timely basis, redirecting employees from non-emergency work to focus on emergent service requests, and deploying mutual aid to reinforce our local crews to restore service to customers even faster. During the four-day heat storm in June, PSE&G crews restored service to 99% of storm interrupted customers within 24 hours. I could not be more proud of our team's work and these results. Turning to our affordability focus, given the warmer than normal summer thus far, higher electricity usage is expected to result in higher customer bills. In addition, our customers are seeing the electric rate impact of last year's PJAM capacity auction. which is just now translating into summer utility bills. PSE&G has responded by partnering with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to implement a summer relief initiative, providing all residential customers with deferred billing during two high usage summer months, shifting collection of the deferral to lower electric usage months with no interest charged to customers. The utility has also extended show-off protections for income-qualified residential customers and suspended electric reconnect fees through September 30th. In addition, PSE&G is processing two sets of upcoming state-funded residential energy assistance payments that will also reduce eligible customer bills. We also continue to connect our customers in need of payment assistance with all available resources. including our award-winning energy efficiency programs to help lower usage. Last month, PJM released the results of its latest capacity auction, which priced within a FERC-approved price collar at $329 per megawatt day for the 2026 to 2027 energy year. Despite this latest increase in capacity prices, we anticipate a near flat impact on customer electric bills when this latest price is feathered into the BGS supply rates in June of 2026. This assumes other supply-related costs remain the same, preserving the reduction from other charges expected to come off the bill. As we've discussed on prior calls, the resource adequacy challenges in New Jersey and across the entire 13-state PGM region are becoming more acute as we see both growing demand and new supply slow to respond. Recent reports reflect an increasing amount of new large load applications that are quickly eroding existing reserve margins. Within the confines of PJM, it's hard to see the path to new generation through existing market signals, which may require the consideration of a new approach to procuring capacity and resource planning. In New Jersey, the legislature convened on June 30th, having held a series of hearings on energy affordability in advance of the PGM capacity-related summer rate increases. Legislation introduced this past March, Assembly Bill 5439, could enable regulated utilities to be among those companies able to compete for potential generation projects should New Jersey decide to build or pursue new in-state generation. New Jersey remains a net importer of power and during the June heat storms imported nearly half of its electric needs from out of state. Abundant excess generation capacity to our west that for many years made power imports a convenient option is quickly being absorbed by rapid growth of native load in those states. In New Jersey, policymakers have begun to actively weigh the priorities of economic growth with system reliability and affordability and the state's environmental policies. In fact, today, the BPU is conducting a technical conference on resource adequacy, focusing on the recent PGM capacity auction results and state-driven solutions. We look forward to partnering with New Jersey and regional stakeholders to develop policy consensus on long-term comprehensive solutions that can meet our growing demand and improve resource adequacy while safeguarding affordability and reliability to meet New Jersey's energy needs. While these conversations continue, our $3.8 billion regulated capital investment plan for 2025 is focused and modernization to ensure safe and reliable service and to meet growing customer demand. These efforts are on track and on budget. As mentioned last quarter, PSE&G began the second phase of its Clean Energy Future Energy Efficiency II program, which will help customers save energy, lower their bills, and reduce carbon emissions while supporting job training and economic growth right here in New Jersey. And speaking of economic growth, As of June 30th, PSE&G's pipeline of large load inquiries for new service connections grew to over 9,400 megawatts, up 47% from 6,400 megawatts reported as of March 31st. And as I stated previously, these numbers include both mature applications that we refer to as new business, approximately 2,600 megawatts of the total, which has gone up by 40% since March 31st, as well as feasibility studies and initial leads. Our engineering assessment turnaround is still averaging about four months, and this response time is supportive of the state's objective to spur economic development. To the extent these large load prospects convert into new utility customers in the future, fixed costs are then spread over a larger user base, which can help to lower existing customer bills. Turning now to PSEG power and other, our nuclear units generated and supplied the grid with approximately 7.5 terawatt hours of carbon-free baseload power and achieved a fleet capacity factor of 88.8% for the second quarter, lowered by the scheduled refueling outage at Salem Unit 1. During this fall's refueling outage, PSEG nuclear will perform the work needed to extend Hope Creek's fuel cycle from 18 to 24 months. This is the first of several steps we are taking to optimize our plans, providing the grid with more reliable 24 by 7 carbon-free power between now and Hope Creek's next scheduled refueling outage in the fall of 2027. In addition, our Salem upgrade project will bring approximately 200 megawatts for the size of a small modular reactor of incremental carbon-free dispatchable power during the 2027 to 2029 time frame. We were also pleased that federal tax legislation passed in July preserved the downside price protection from the Nuclear Production Tax Credit, or PTC, as well as the PTC availability for expansions of nuclear capacity, which supports the planned power upgrade at Salem. In addition, the legislation permanently extends 100% bonus depreciation to qualified business property. To summarize, we had a good quarter and first half of 2025, which provides us with a solid base to confidently deliver on a full year 2025 non-GAAP operating earnings guidance of 394 to $4.06 per share, which is up 9% at the midpoint over 2024 results. Our 2025 guidance includes a full year of new distribution rates from our 2024 base rate case settlement, which was reached last October. as well as an upcoming refueling outage at our 100% owned Oak Creek Nuclear Unit this fall. In closing, we are also reiterating PSE&G's updated five-year capital spending program at $21 to $24 billion, which supports an expected rate-based CAGR of 6% to 7.5% through 2029. This, in turn, drives PSEG's 5% to 7% non-GAAP operating earnings CAGR, while continuing to use the nuclear PTC as our reference price for power. PSEG intends to execute this capital plan without the need to issue new equity or sell assets. I'll now turn the call over to Dan, who will walk you through the results for the quarter and our outlook for the remainder of 2025, and then I'll rejoin the call for Q&A.