WEC Energy Group, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to WEC Energy Group's conference call for second quarter 2021 results. This call is being recorded for rebroadcast and all participants are in a listen-only mode at this time. Before the conference call begins, I remind you that all statements in the presentation, other than historical facts, are forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainty that are subject to change at any time. Such statements are based on management's expectations at the time they are made. In addition to the assumptions and other factors referred to in connection with these statements, factors described in WEC's Energy Group's latest form, 10-K, and subsequent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commissions could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated. During the discussions referenced, earnings per share will be based on diluted earnings per share, unless otherwise noted. After the presentation, the conference will be open to analysts for questions and answers. In conjunction with this call, a package of detailed financial information is posted at wecenergygroup.com. A replay will be available approximately two hours after the conclusion of this call. And now it is my pleasure to introduce

Excuse me, excuse me. I'd like to interrupt just for a minute. I'm Peter Fagan, president of the NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks. And I can tell you firsthand in a big way that you can't have a truly great NBA team without an incredible energy company to power you up. So I'm proud to introduce a personal friend, one of the terrific minority owners of the Bucks and the chairman of one of the best energy companies in America, Gail Clapper. Go Bucs and go WEC.

Oh, my goodness. Wonders never cease. Peter, thank you so much for dropping by. And congratulations from all of us to the world champion, Milwaukee Bucs. And I'm not sure I can top all of that, but no pun intended. Let's give it a shot. So good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today as we review our results for the second quarter of 2021. First, I'd like to introduce the members of our management team here with me today. We have Kevin Fletcher, our president and CEO, Scott Lauber, our chief operating officer, Sha Liu, our chief financial officer, and Beth Straka, senior vice president of corporate communications and investor relations. As you saw from our news release this morning, we reported second quarter 2021 earnings of 87 cents a share. Sha will provide you with more details in just a few minutes. But given our strong performance through the first half of this year, we're raising our annual guidance. The new range is $4.02 a share to $4.05 a share. And our expectation is that we will reach the top end of that range. As always, this assumes normal weather for the remainder of the year. Now, as we look across our business lines, I'm pleased to report that every segment is performing at a high level. Our companies continue to deliver superior reliability and customer satisfaction. A solid economic recovery in Wisconsin with commercial and industrial expansion gives us confidence in our projected sales growth. Our balance sheet is strong. We have no need to issue new equity to fund our ESG progress plan. And our plan is well on track for both our regulated and our infrastructure segments. As you may know, we expect our ESU progress plan to drive average annual growth in our asset base of 7%. At the same time, it's bolstering our sustainability as we invest in renewable energy and state-of-the-art technology. A good example of our progress is the announcement we made just a week ago about a $400 million investment in the Sapphire Sky Wind Energy Center. Scott will provide you with more detail on this development in just a moment. I will tell you that the offtake agreement is with one of the largest high-tech companies in the world, and we expect the project to meet or exceed all of our financial metrics. We've also made great progress on our plan to build 1,800 megawatts of regulated solar, wind, and battery storage. These carbon-free assets will play a significant role in improving our environmental footprint. Recall that back in May, we set near-term goals that are among the most ambitious in the industry, reducing carbon emissions by 60% from our electric generation fleet by 2025 and achieving an 80% reduction by the end of 2030, both from a 2005 baseline. Go ahead that we now expect only 8% of our regulated electricity supply to come from coal by the end of 2030. We believe we can accomplish these targets with the retirement of older, less efficient units, operating refinements, and the use of existing technology as we execute our ESG progress plan. Of course, our long-term goal remains net zero carbon emissions from our generating fleet by 2050. And our ongoing effort to upgrade our gas delivery networks and introduce renewable natural gas into our system will help us achieve another aggressive goal, net zero methane emissions by 2030. You can learn more about these goals and much more in our corporate responsibility report, which we published just last week. And now let's switch gears a bit and take a quick look at our regional economy. We're still seeing the positive effects of a strong recovery. Wisconsin's unemployment rate, in fact, stands today at 3.9%. Folks, that's two full percentage points better than the national average. As I mentioned, business continues to grow with new projects across the region. For example, Milwaukee Tool is expanding the operations again here in Milwaukee. If you're not familiar with Milwaukee Tool, the company has been a leader in the development of battery-powered cordless tools. It now has become the world's number one producer of tools for professionals in the construction trades, utility sector, as well as for auto mechanics. And now Milwaukee Tool is redeveloping a vacant downtown office tower to provide space for 1,200 new employees over the next five years. In addition, a number of other economic development projects are in the pipeline, and we'll be covering those with you in future calls. On that note, I'll turn now to our call over to Scott for more detail on our sales results for the quarter, as well as an update on our infrastructure segment. Scott, all yours. Thank you, Gail. We continue to see customer growth across our system. At the end of June, our utilities were serving approximately 4,000 more electric customers and 18,000 more natural gas customers compared to a year ago. Retail electric and natural gas sales volumes are shown on a comparative basis beginning on page 13 of the earnings packet. Overall retail deliveries of electricity, excluding the iron ore mine, were up 7.1% from the second quarter of 2020. And on a weather normal basis, we're up 5.8%. We are encouraged by the economic rebound we are seeing in our service territory. For example, small commercial and industrial electric sales were up 10.4% from last year's second quarter, and on a weather-normal basis, were up 9.2%. Meanwhile, large commercial and industrial sales, excluding the iron ore mine, were up 14.8% from the second quarter of 2020, and on a weather-normal basis, were up 13.9%. Natural gas deliveries in Wisconsin were down 4.9%. This excludes gas used for power generation, and on a weather-normal basis, natural gas deliveries in Wisconsin grew by 2.5%. Overall, our growth continues to track ahead of our forecast as the economy continues to open up. Turning now to our WEC infrastructure segment. As Gail noted, we have agreed to acquire a 90% ownership interest in the Sapphire Sky Wind Energy Center. The project is being developed in McLean County, Illinois by Invenergy. The site will consist of 64 wind turbines with a combined capacity of 250 megawatts. We expect it will go in service late in 2022. The project fits our investment criteria very well. We plan to invest $412 million for the 90% ownership interest. We now have eight wind projects announced or in operation in our infrastructure segment. This represents approximately $2.3 billion of investment. we expect to invest an additional $1.1 billion in this segment over the remainder of our five-year plan. Our Jayhawk wind farm is projected to go in service by early next year, and our Thunderhead wind investment is now projected to go in service in the first half of 2022. These timelines have been factored into our forecast. In case you're wondering about the impact of inflation on these projects, To date, we have not encountered any significant inflationary pressure. Remember that we primarily invest in turnkey projects with developers, so we are seeing no reduction of returns. With that, I'll turn it over to Kevin for an update on our utility operations. Thank you, Scott. Touching on some recent developments in Wisconsin, I'm pleased to report that our Badger Hollow 1 solar project is nearing completion and is producing test energy. As you may recall, we own 100 megawatts of this project in southwest Wisconsin, and Madison Gas and Electric owns the remaining 50 megawatts. This is our second large-scale solar project and part of our plans for more than triple renewable energy between 2021 and 2025. We expect the next phase of the project, Badger Hollow 2, to achieve commercial operations next year. Now for a few regulatory updates. McCall that after reaching an agreement with the major customer and environmental groups, we filed a request with the Public Service Commission to forego a rate base for our Wisconsin utilities this year. We expect a decision in the weeks to come. And we're pleased that the commission has approved pilot programs for electric vehicle charging in our Wisconsin service areas. With these programs, we plan to install charging equipment and electric distribution infrastructure. This is the first step in our effort to promote affordable charging options for electric vehicles. And we also have updates on the rate reviews at two of our smaller utilities. In Illinois, earlier this year, North Shore Gas requested a rate increase primarily due to the significant capital investments we have made since the last rate case in 2015. Recently, the administrative law judge on the case issued a proposed order. The order recommends a $4.2 million rate increase on a 9.67% ROE and 51.6% equity component. We expect the Commission's final decision by mid-September. Finally, in Michigan, I'm pleased to advise you that we have reached a settlement with all parties to conclude our rate review for Michigan Gas Utilities. This settlement stipulates a 9.85% return on equity and a revenue increase of $9.25 million with an equity layer of 51.5%. We expect the commission's approval by the end of the third quarter. We have no other rate cases pending at this time. And with that, I'll turn it over to Shaw.