WEC Energy Group, Inc.

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 WCEC Energy Group's latest form K and subsequent reports filed with 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 it's now my pleasure to introduce Scott Lauber, President and Chief Executive Officer of WEC Energy Group.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today as we review our results for the second quarter of 2024. Here with me today is Shaw Liu, our Chief Financial Officer, and Beth Schrocka, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations. As you saw from our news release this morning, we reported second quarter 2024 earnings of 67 cents per share. We're firmly on track to meet the full year 2024 guidance of $4.80 to $4.90 a share. This, of course, assumes normal weather for the balance of the year. We continue to see strong foundational growth in our regional economy. The unemployment rate in Wisconsin stands at 2.9%, continuing a long running trend below the national average. The pipeline of economic activity is particularly strong in what we call the I-94 corridor between Milwaukee and Chicago. For example, just last month, West Rock broke ground on a new facility at the former site of our retired power plants. West Rock is a leading company in paper and packaging solutions with 50,000 employees and 300 plants worldwide. The company called the cutting edge facility a super plant, stating it will be one of their largest and most advanced plants. And Microsoft is making good progress on the construction of a large data center complex in Southeast Wisconsin. In May, Microsoft announced a broad investment package to strengthen our region as a hub for AI economic activity innovation, and job creation. These investments include a planned $3.3 billion to be spent in cloud computing and AI infrastructure between now and the end of 2026. Microsoft has stated that it expects to bring 2,300 construction jobs to the area by 2025 and 2,000 permanent jobs over time. These developments highlight the strength and the potential of our local economy and underscores the need for the investments in our capital plan. During the second quarter, we continue to move forward on major projects in our capital 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. At the end of May, we closed on our second option at West Riverside Energy Center for $100 million. This adds 100 megawatts of efficient combined cycle natural gas generation to our portfolio. You'll recall that last year we discussed several filings, or last quarter we discussed several filings for major projects to support economic growth and reliability in Wisconsin. This includes approximately 1,200 megawatts of efficient natural gas generation at our Paris and Oak Creek sites, as well as 2 billion cubic foot liquefied natural gas storage facility and a 33-mile gas lateral to serve the Oak Creek site. In total, these projects combined represent $2.1 billion of investment. Our proposals were submitted to the Wisconsin Commission in April, and we expect the decision in approximately a year. Also under review, we filed an application in February to purchase a 90% ownership interest in High Noon Solar Energy Center in southern Wisconsin. With an expected investment of approximately $580 million, the facility is expected to provide 300 megawatts of solar generation. We have asked the Commission to make a decision before the end of the year. As a reminder, we expect these investments to earn AFUDC during the construction period after Commission approval. And in our WEC infrastructure segment, the Delilah 1 solar project is now expected to go into service at the end of the year, delayed from June due to a weather event. We plan to invest approximately $460 million for a 90% ownership interest in this project in northeast Texas. And we still expect our maple flag solar project to be in service by the end of the year. As you recall, we're investing an additional $560 million this year in our infrastructure segment. We reallocated away from our operations in Illinois a total of $800 million in our five-year capital plan. Overall our plan fully supports our long-term earning growth rate which we project to be in the six and a half to seven percent range on a compound average annual basis. We're also on schedule with the development of our next five-year plan and as usual we expect to share the details with you in the fall. Now I have a few updates on the regulatory front. In Wisconsin we filed new rate reviews for test year 2025 and 2026 on April 12. Our request focused 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, continue the transition from coal generation to renewables and natural gas. Commission staff and intervener testimony is scheduled for August 21st. We expect a decision by the end of the year with new rates effective January 1st, 2025. We have smaller rate reviews in progress at Michigan Gas Utilities and Upper Michigan Energy Resources. We also expect decisions on these reviews by the end of the year. And in Illinois, we've been engaged in three dockets. The Illinois Commerce Commission issued its decision on the first of these, a limited rehearing on the commission's rate order for people's gas at the end of May. The commission had agreed to reconsider our request to restore $145 million for safety modernization program in 2024. This mostly related to emergency work. unfinished projects, and work driven by public entities like the City of Chicago. The Commission granted $28.5 billion concentrating on what they deemed emergency work. We have appealed this decision to the Illinois Appellate Court along with other items in the rate order, including the Commission's previous disallowance of investments in new service centers. We are also actively involved in two remaining dockets, One is the review of the safety modernization program. Staff and intervener rebuttal testimony are expected by August 21st with a commission decision expected in the first quarter of 2025. The other docket is the evaluation of the future of natural gas in Illinois, which is expected to conclude in about a year. Of course, we'll keep you updated on any further developments. Across our business, we continue to make good progress towards our goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In May, we retired units five and six at our Oak Creek Power Plant. Together, those made up over 500 megawatts of coal-fired generation. Including these units, since 2018, we've retired nearly 2,500 megawatts of older fossil fuel generation. Finally, a quick reminder about the dividend. We continue to target a payout ratio of 65 to 70% of earnings. We're tracking in that range now and expect the dividend growth will continue to be in line with the growth of our earnings per share. Now I'll turn it to Shaw to provide you more details on our financial results and our guidance for the third quarter.

Thank you, Scott. We earned 67 cents a share for the second quarter. While this was a decrease of 25 cents quarter over quarter, we exceeded our Q2 guidance range of 60 to 64 cents a share, driven by favorable O&M and financing compared to guidance. As Scott indicated, we're on track to meet our 2024 earnings guidance. As I reminded you on the last couple of calls, With the redesign changes at People's Gas, base revenues are now more concentrated in the first and fourth quarters when natural gas usage is the highest. This earnings shift has impacted our second quarter and will impact our Q3 guidance, which I will discuss in a few minutes. Now, let's look at our quarter over quarter variances. Our earnings packet includes a comparison of second quarter results on page 15. I'll walk through the significant drivers. Starting with our utility operations, earnings were 19 cents lower compared to the second quarter of 2023 as a result of higher O&M, fuel, depreciation and amortization, interest, and other expenses. A couple of drivers for the day-to-day O&M variants are worth noting. One, we experienced higher storm costs in the current quarter compared to Q2 last year. And two, we benefited in Q2 last year from a land sale at a retired plant site in Wisconsin. Looking ahead, I now expect overall day-to-day O&M in 2024 to be 2% to 3% higher compared to 2023. This is a 4% improvement compared to our initial expectation due to our continued O&M savings initiatives that we expect to realize late this year. The impact of weather was flat for the quarter. Compared to normal conditions, we estimate that weather had a two cent negative impact for the second quarter in both 2023 and 2024. Our weather normal electric sales in Wisconsin are relatively flat quarter over quarter and are overall in line with our forecast. Looking at ATC, continued capital investment contributed an incremental penny to Q2 earnings compared to 2023. And in our energy infrastructure segment, earnings improved 2 cents in the second quarter of 24 compared to the second quarter of 23, driven partially by higher production tax credit at WEC infrastructure. Finally, you'll see that earnings at our corporate and other segments decreased 9 cents. as a result of the impact of tax timing and higher interest expense. Now, turning to guidance, for the third quarter, we're expecting a range of 68 to 70 cents per share. This accounts for July weather and assumes normal weather for the rest of the quarter. As I mentioned earlier, it also accounts for the shift in Illinois revenue recognition pattern. Our third quarter 2023 earnings were $1 a share. Once again, we're reaffirming our 2024 earnings guidance of $4.80 to $4.90 per share, assuming normal weather for the rest of the year. Before I turn back to Scott, let me quickly remind you that we continue to utilize dividend reinvestment and employee benefit plans to issue common equity. Also, as we said before, we plan to set up an ATM program. Overall, we still project that our common equity issuance will be up to $200 million for 2024. Post 2024, our equity issuances will be tied to our capital spending, relatively with approximately $500 million expected per year in the current plan. We look forward to updating you in the fall as we refresh our capital and financing plan. With that, I'll turn it back to Scott.