TransAlta Corporation

Good morning, my name is Michelle and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the TransAlta Corporation second quarter 2026 results conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star 11 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by 11 again. Thank you. Ms. Paris, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, everyone. My name is Stephanie Paris, and I am the Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy of TransAlta. Welcome to TransAlta's second quarter 2026 conference call. With me today are Joel Hunter, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mike Politeski, EVP Finance and Chief Financial Officer, and Chris Fralick, EVP Generation and Chief Operating Officer. Today's call is being webcast and I invite those listening on the phone lines to view the supporting slides that are posted on our website. A replay of the call will be made available later today and the transcript will be posted to our website shortly thereafter. All the information provided during this conference call is subject to the forward-looking statement qualification set out here on slide 2, detailed further in our MD&A and incorporated in full for purposes of today's call. All amounts referenced are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. The non-IFRS terminology used, including adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow, are reconciled in the MD&A for your reference. On today's call, Joel and Mike will provide an overview of TransAlta's quarterly results. After these remarks, we will open the call for questions.

With that, I will turn the call over to Joel. Thanks Stephanie. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining our second quarter conference call. TransAlta delivered solid operational financial performance during the second quarter of 2026, demonstrating our fleet's continued resilience during challenging market conditions. During the quarter, we delivered adjusted EBITDA of $291 million, free cash flow of $143 million, or $0.47 per share, and average fleet availability of 90.2%. While our Alberta merchant portfolio continues to be impacted by softer prices, our hedging strategy and active asset optimization generated realized prices that were well above spot prices during the quarter, along with our hydro and wind assets providing significant environmental offsets to our gas fleet's 2025 carbon compliance obligation. We remain confident in achieving our 2026 guidance range, which Mike will talk about later. In the quarter, we continue to advance our data center strategy with CPP investments in Brookfield. More broadly in Alberta, positive recent developments reinforce the momentum and collective commitment across government and industry to develop AI infrastructure. In particular, in June, the government of Alberta published their data center regulations, giving authority to the ASO to proceed with the next phase of the large load integration plan. The regulation includes provisions that permit the ASO to determine underutilized capacity that can be used to serve incremental data center load. Consistent with our Messaging and Investor Day, we believe that our gas-fired steam units constitute underutilized generation that can support both grid reliability and the continued build-out of AI infrastructure in the province. Our gas-fired steam units are designed to operate as base load and can produce at capacity factors greater than 90%. Their recent performance and lower capacity factors, averaging around 20% in 2025, have been driven by economic decisions, not capability. Speed to power is critical and we view the data center regulations as an important step towards framework clarity. The determination on how underutilized assets will be incorporated into the build out of AI infrastructure will be made by the ASO and we remain actively engaged with them. Also in the quarter, we fully integrated the four gas fired facilities in connection with the acquisition of 4North. In June, the U.S. Department of Energy issued its third temporary order requiring that Centralia Unit 2 remain available for operation, if needed, for a period of 90 days. TransAlta is adhering to the order and we plan to submit a request for reimbursement to the FERC for costs related to the second order. Progress continues with the conversion of the unit to natural gas and I am pleased to report that our timeline for a final investment decision in the first quarter of 2027 remains on schedule. Last month, we announced that TransAlta has entered into an agreement to acquire two natural gas fired peaking facilities in Colorado for US $1 billion, paired with a common share offering for $350 million. Both assets are fully contracted to investment grade counterparties under long term tolling agreements that include full cost pass through of all operations and maintenance, fuel and capital expenses, which meaningfully reduce the risk profile of the acquired assets. The acquisition is expected to deliver $110 million per year in low-risk, high-quality adjusted EBITDA to our portfolio and is immediately accretive to free cash flow per share. We expect closing to occur in the fourth quarter following receipt of all regulatory approvals as well as canning peak power achieving commercial operations. Adding stable operating assets like this delivers immediate cash flow that can be deployed into our most compelling growth initiatives including the Centralia coal-to-gas conversion and Alberta data center projects. and finally we realigned our executive management team adding Mike Politeski as our EVP finance and chief financial officer and Grant Arnold as our EVP growth and chief commercial officer. In addition, Nancy Brennan assumed an expanded role as chief legal, people and corporate affairs officer and Chris Fralick's new title is EVP generation and chief operating officer. Supported by an exceptional team across the organization, I am confident that we have the right people and structure to execute our strategy and realize long-term value creation for TransAlta. I'll now turn the call over to Mike to talk more about our financial performance in the second quarter of 2026.