WEC Energy Group, Inc.

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. Before the conference call begins, please note that all statements in the presentation other than historical facts are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties 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 the statements, factors described in WEC Energy Group's latest Form 10-K and subsequent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission 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. And now it is my pleasure to introduce Gail Kloppa, Executive Chairman of WEC Energy Group.

Live from the Heartland, good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us today as we review our results for the first quarter of 2024. First, I'd like to introduce the members of our management team who are here with me today. We have Scott Lauber, our president and chief executive, Shalu, our chief financial officer, and Beth Straka, senior vice president of corporate communications and investor relations. Now, as you saw from our news release this morning, we reported first quarter 2024 earnings of $1.97 a share. Throughout the warmest winter in Wisconsin history, we remain laser-focused. on financial discipline, operating efficiency, and customer satisfaction. And we're confident that we can deliver another year of strong results in line with our guidance for 2024. As a reminder, we're guiding to a range of $4.80 to $4.90 a share for the full year. This, of course, assumes normal weather as always going forward. Switching gears now, we're off to a strong start moving forward with our ESG progress plan. It's the largest five-year investment plan in our history, totaling $23.7 billion for efficiency, sustainability, and growth. As we've discussed, the plan is based on projects that are low-risk and highly executable. In the past few weeks alone, we've filed with the Wisconsin Commission more than $2 billion of projects that are needed to meet customer demand across the region. In addition, just a few days ago, we announced that we plan to purchase a 90% ownership interest in the Delilah 1 solar project. Delilah is a 300 megawatt solar park in northeast Texas. It will be the next addition to our WEC infrastructure segment. We expect to close on Delilah with an investment of $459 million when the project goes into service, and that's currently expected by the end of June. Since the beginning of the year, we also purchased an additional 10% interest in the Samson Solar project. Now that's part of the Samson and Delilah development in Northeast Texas. And we plan to increase our ownership in the Maple Flats Solar Energy Center from 80% to 90%. Just as a reminder, Maple Flats is under development in South Central Illinois. It has an offtake agreement with a Fortune 100 company for all the energy it will produce. The project should be in service by the end of this year. So to sum it up, with Delilah and with the increase in ownership of Sampson and Maple Flats, we'll be investing an additional $560 million this year in our infrastructure segment. As you recall, we're reallocating away from our operations in Illinois a total of $800 million over the five-year period 2024 through 2028. These high-quality, zero-carbon projects clearly go a long way toward achieving that goal, and each of these projects meets our strict financial criteria. Overall, the building blocks of our capital plan show even stronger growth in our regulated electric business, and our plan fully supports our long-term earnings growth rate, which we project to be in the 6.5% to 7% range on a compound average annual basis. And now turning to the regional economy, the unemployment rate in Wisconsin stands at 3%, continuing a long-running trend below the national average. In fact, Wisconsin recently reached a new record for employment, more people working than at any other time in state history. And that includes a record, folks, for the number of construction jobs. That's a great sign of the growth and the potential we're seeing, particularly in what we call the I-94 corridor. To give you just one example of the new economic activity in the region, just a few weeks ago, electronic components that are used in fiber broadband networks began rolling off the assembly line at a state-of-the-art facility developed by Sanmina Corporation. These components help form the backbone for high-speed Internet service. And we want to welcome Eli Lilly to our neighborhood. The pharmaceutical giant is purchasing a new production facility again in the I-94 corridor. And speaking of growth, Microsoft is moving full speed ahead on the construction of a massive data center complex in the I-94 corridor south of Milwaukee. In fact, in the next few weeks, Microsoft is planning an event here in the Milwaukee area to discuss its plans for new investments in Wisconsin. So stay tuned. And looking broadly across the landscape, I can tell you that the number of prospects looking at expanding or locating in the Milwaukee 7 region is stronger, literally, than at any time in the past two decades. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Scott for more specifics on our regulatory calendar, our capital plan, and our operational highlights. Scott, all yours. Thank you, Gail.

I'd like to start with some updates on the regulatory front. In Wisconsin, we filed new rate reviews for test years 2025 and 2026 on April 12. Our requests focus on addressing three major areas of need. First, improving reliability and reducing outages from increased storm activity. Second, supporting Wisconsin's economic growth and job creation through investments in new generation and distribution projects. And lastly, complying with the new EPA mission rules by continuing the transition from coal generation to renewables and natural gas. We expect the decision by the end of the year with new rates effective January 1st, 2025. Last month, we submitted filings to the Wisconsin Commission for significant developments to support our electric generation business. Our proposed projects include two new sources of natural gas generation. The first request is for approval to construct 1,100 megawatts of modern simple cycle combustion turbines at our existing Oak Creek power plant site. The expected investment is $1.2 billion. To support that generation, we are proposing to build a 33-mile lateral with an expected investment of approximately $180 million. This lateral would provide firm reliability of natural gas to the Oak Creek site for those units, as well as our Power of the Future units that we're converting to natural gas. And to help assure reliability, we are proposing a new storage facility at Oak Creek. With a planned investment of approximately $460 million, this facility would have the capacity to store 2 billion cubic feet of liquified natural gas to support both our generation and our gas distribution system. In addition, we requested approval to add 128 megawatts of state-of-the-art generation using reciprocating internal combustion engines, or as we call them, race units. We expect to invest approximately $280 million in that project near our parish generation station. As a reminder, these investments are expected to earn AFUDC during the construction period. We also have smaller rate reviews in progress at our two Michigan utilities, Michigan Gas Utilities and Upper Michigan Energy Resources. These applications are primarily driven by our capital investments supporting reliability and safety. And you recall our discussion last quarter on the recent developments in Illinois. There are three dockets we're actively engaged in at this time. First, the Illinois Commission granted us a limited rehearing focused on the request to restore $145 million for the Safety Modernization Program in 2024. This mostly relates to emergency work, work that was in progress, and work driven by public entities like the City of Chicago. This limited rehearing is now underway and we expect to receive a final commission order by June 1st. The other two outstanding dockets are expected to span at least a year and we are actively involved. One is a full review of the safety modernization program and the other is an evaluation of the future of gas in Illinois. Of course, we'll keep you updated on any further developments. Now turning to our capital plan. We're making good progress on a number of regulated projects in support of affordable, reliable, and clean energy. Our Exonia LNG storage facility is now in service. This additional one BCF of storage will be necessary during the extreme weather events we see here in Wisconsin. Also, the Wisconsin Commission has approved our purchase of 100 megawatts of additional capacity at Wisp Riverside Energy Center. We expect to invest approximately $100 million to add this capacity to our electric business in the second quarter. At the same time, we're continuing the efforts to phase out older, less efficient coal generation. In fact, I'm happy to report that we're on track to retire Unit 5 and 6 of our Oak Creek power plant later this month. These changes support our goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It's a busy and strong start to the year. Our capital plan is robust and highly executable, and we continue to focus on the fundamentals of our business. With that, I'll turn things back to Gail.