Pinnacle West Capital Corporation

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Pinnacle West Capital Corporation 2026 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are placed on a listen-only mode. If you have any questions or comments during the presentation, you may press star 1 on your phone to enter the question queue at any time, and we'll open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to hand the floor over to your host, Amanda Ho. Ma'am, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Matthew. I would like to thank everyone for participating in this conference call and webcast to review our first quarter earnings, recent developments, and operating performance. Our speakers today will be our Chairman, President, and CEO, Ted Geisler, and our CFO, Andrew Cooper. Jose Esparza, SVP of Public Policy, is also here with us. First, I need to cover a few details with you. The slides that we will be using are available on our Investor Relations website, along with our earnings release and related information. Today's comments and our slides contain forward-looking statements Based on current expectations and actual results may differ materially from expectations. Our first quarter 2026 form 10Q was filed this morning. Please refer to that document for forward looking statements, cautionary language, as well as the risk factors and MDNA section, which identify risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our disclosures. A replay of this call will be available shortly on our website for the next 30 days. It will also be available by telephone through May 11th, 2026. I will now turn the call over to Ted.

Thank you, Amanda, and thank you all for joining us today. We're off to a solid start in 2026, delivering first quarter earnings that support the financial guidance we provided in February. Before Andrew reviews the quarter in more detail, I'll highlight several operational, customer, and regulatory developments that underscore the momentum across our business. Arizona's diverse economy continues to expand at a strong and sustained pace, reinforcing the state's position as a national leader in semiconductor and advanced manufacturing. We are proud to support TSMC's accelerated expansion in Arizona and are working closely with the company on the infrastructure needed to power their growth. With its second fab complete, TSMC expects to begin volume production of three nanometer chips in the second half of next year. Construction is underway on the company's third fabrication facility, and TSMC has also begun construction on its fourth fab and first advanced packaging facility. with those facilities expected to come online by 2029. Importantly, the momentum extends well beyond TSMC. Activity across the semiconductor supply chain continues to intensify throughout the region, with key suppliers rapidly establishing and expanding their local footprints to support accelerated production timelines. United Integrated Services Corp., Sunlit Chemicals, and Mornstar have all purchased land in North Phoenix. At the same time, engineering firms, clean room specialists, electromechanical integrators, and equipment suppliers are increasing staffing levels and scaling operations across the valley. These investments demonstrate strong confidence in Arizona's economy and reinforce the sustained growth we are seeing across our service territory. Turning to operations, our focus remains on delivering top-tier reliability, strengthening grid resilience, and investing in the infrastructure and technology needed to serve our customers safely and efficiently. Across the company, we're using automation and advanced analytics to improve decision-making and execution. For example, we're applying machine learning tools to better anticipate equipment performance, prioritize asset maintenance, identify outage restoration more accurately, and strengthen situational awareness during periods of elevated wildfire or weather risk. These capabilities are helping our teams act faster, target investments more effectively, and continue improving reliability for our customers. We continue making solid progress on our generation and transmission investment plans. Construction is now underway at our Red Hawk expansion project, which will add eight combustion turbines and approximately 400 megawatts of reliable natural gas capacity to the system. We're also advancing the Desert Sun project, where we have secured major equipment reservations and continued to progress through early development activities, including siting and permitting. On resource procurement, we recently received proposals in response to the All-Source RFP issued later last year, which targeted new resources beginning service between 2029 and 2031. We're evaluating those bids now and working with counterparties to determine the best fit projects for our system and customers. We expect to make final awards later this year. As we plan for long-term growth, we're also focused on near-term summer preparedness. Palo Verde Unit 2 is in the final days of its planned refueling outage and expected to return to service soon. With all three units operating, Palo Verde will continue providing around-the-clock reliable and affordable energy to help meet our summer demand. We're prepared to serve our customers safely, reliably, and affordably during the months ahead when they depend on us the most. We continue to strengthen our customer-centric culture with employees focused on delivering reliable service, minimizing outages, and providing a seamless experience across phone, field, and digital channels. In the first quarter, APS delivered strong results in the Escalon customer relationship model, ranking in the first or second quartile across all core KPIs. APS also ranked in the first quartile through J.D. Power and was highlighted nationally as a top performer in customer awareness and participation in products and services. earning the highest awareness score in the country for available customer programs. Lastly, our rate case remains on track. We've completed multiple rounds of written testimony and the hearing is scheduled to begin on May 18th. We look forward to working with the Commission and interveners in a timely and constructive manner. In summary, we're executing our plan, delivering operational excellence to our customers, investing in grid expansion to serve Arizona's rapid growth, and improving investment recovery to reduce regulatory lag while ensuring affordability for our customers. With that, I'll turn the call over to Andrew.