Alliant Energy Stock

Thank you for holding, and welcome to Alliant Energy's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Susan Gille, Investor Relations Manager at Alliant Energy.

Good morning, and thank you for joining Alliant Energy's Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. Joining me today are Lisa Barton, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Robert Durian, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Following their prepared remarks, we will have time to take questions from the investment community. Last night, we issued a news release announcing our second quarter 2026 results and reaffirmed 2026 full year earnings guidance. That release, along with our earnings presentation, will be referenced during today's call and is available on the Investors section of our website at alliantenergy.com.

Before we begin, please note that today's remarks and responses will include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Those risks are described in last night's earnings release and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

In addition, this presentation contains references to ongoing earnings per share, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. Reconciliations to GAAP results are provided in the earnings release available on our website.

At this point, I'll turn the call over to Lisa.

Thank you, Sue, and good morning, everyone. We delivered strong second quarter results and continue to execute well across our business. Despite milder weather during the first 6 months of the year, we are currently trending in the upper half of our 2026 earnings guidance range while advancing the investments and customer solutions that support our long-term growth strategy.

Our strategy is anchored in the Alliant Energy Advantage, the ability to align customer growth, constructive regulation, flexible resource planning and disciplined execution in a way that benefits customers, communities and shareowners. As previously announced, our efforts to date have resulted in an expectation of driving a 60% increase in our demand by 2031 through 5 executed electric service agreements with large load customers. Three of these large loads are already under active construction with commission-approved contracts.

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Google has energized their transmission service. They are anticipating ramping in accordance with the contracted load schedule. Also in Cedar Rapids, QTS continues to make substantial progress on construction of its 7-building data center campus with initial energization of 300 megawatts anticipated later this year.

In Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, Meta has entered the vertical construction phase with work actively progressing on data center facilities and supporting infrastructure. We are also encouraged by continued progress on future large load opportunities. QTS remains active in development of its second Iowa project in Clinton. We plan to file the ICR for this 900-megawatt project later this year. Our recently signed 370-megawatt data center agreement in Iowa announced on our Q1 call marks continued progress on our customer pipeline that currently represents between 2 and 4 gigawatts of potential future load. And as always, each of these loads are responsible for their cost of service while helping ensure existing customers benefit from growth opportunities without subsidizing new development.

These opportunities are transformational for rural communities, expanding the local tax base, strengthening schools and essential services, enhancing infrastructure and creating lasting economic growth and prosperity for generations to come. We are prioritizing local collaboration and readiness, so our communities are well positioned to compete for and capture those benefits. A recent study by The Brattle Group reinforces this approach, finding that large new electricity users such as data centers can improve affordability for existing customers. That is what our approach is designed to do, ensure large load customers pay their own way while creating opportunities to further reduce costs for existing customers. It remains a cornerstone of our regulatory filings and demonstrates how disciplined growth can support reliability and long-term value for all customers.

Building on the customer benefits generated through last year's fiber and conduit lease agreement with Meta, this quarter, we amended our agreement with QTS Cedar Rapids to support accelerated load growth, allowing them to accelerate their load ramp with firm and non-firm transmission. We also remain focused on disciplined financing and have been awarded approximately $50 million of Department of Energy grants for our Columbia Energy Center and Energy Dome projects. These are just a few of the strong examples of the Alliant Energy Advantage in action, working collaboratively with customers to support their growth objectives while creating broader benefits for all customers. Across our portfolio, we consistently transform strategic intent into measurable outcomes.

Our team continues to execute exceptionally well across our customer investments while advancing the next generation of investments needed to serve customers and support economic development. In Iowa, we are refreshing our resource plan to support future regulatory filings and ensure our long-term resource plan remains aligned with evolving customer needs. This approach supports base rate stability and predictability for existing IPL retail electric customers through the end of the decade.

During the quarter, we made meaningful progress across our generation portfolio from placing additional generation resources into service to breaking ground on our new gas and wind investments as well as advancing regulatory approvals. We are building momentum that positions us well for future growth. Robert will provide more detail on these developments in a moment.

Before turning over to Robert, I would like to recognize our employees and especially our line workers following National Line Worker Appreciation Day earlier this month. Recent summer storms and summer heat has once again demonstrated the critical role our field and generation teams play in safely restoring service and supporting our customers when they need us most. Their commitment to safety, reliability and operational excellence reflects the values that define Alliant Energy. I'll close with the recent milestone our team is proud of.

In the recent J.D. Power study of Midwest large utility providers, we ranked #1 in power reliability and safety. On behalf of the management team, we thank our employees who work tirelessly each day to provide the energy our customers and communities count on, fueling the economic engine of our communities.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Robert.

Thank you, Lisa, and good morning, everyone. Yesterday, we reported strong second quarter 2026 GAAP earnings of $0.65 per share. As shown on Slide 5, the year-over-year change in ongoing earnings was primarily driven by higher revenue requirements associated with capital investments across our Iowa and Wisconsin utilities, along with increased equity earnings from corporate venture fund investments and higher temperature normalized retail electric and gas sales.

These positive drivers were offset by higher operations and maintenance expenses related to the growth of our business. Impacts of milder temperatures on electric and gas sales, timing of income tax expense and higher financing and depreciation costs. Milder-than-normal temperatures reduced second quarter electric and gas margins by approximately $0.03 per share compared to a $0.02 benefit in the same period last year. Excluding the impacts of temperatures, second quarter electric sales were approximately 3% higher year-over-year, reflecting continued strength from Wisconsin commercial and industrial customers, particularly within the food processing and manufacturing sectors, and we are starting to see increases from the initial phase of the expected data center loads ramping in Iowa.

Strong execution across our business gives us confidence with our 2026 earnings guidance range despite impacts at our 2 utilities from milder temperatures in the first half of the year. In addition, corporate venture fund investments in our nonutility business are expected to provide incremental earnings this year. Accordingly, we are reaffirming our 2026 earnings guidance range and are currently trending in the upper half of the range. Key assumptions supporting our 2026 outlook are summarized on Slide 6. Our longer-term earnings outlook remains intact. Based on our current plan, we expect compound annual earnings growth across 2027 through 2029 to be 7% plus. We will continue to assess our long-term earnings growth potential as we execute our data center expansion and update our capital expenditure and financing plans on the third quarter earnings call.

Turning to financing. Slide 7 outlines our remaining 2026 debt financing plans, which include up to $800 million of long-term issuances, consisting of up to $300 million at WPL and up to $500 million at IPL. As a reminder, our 4-year capital investment plan is supported by a balanced financing strategy that includes cash generated from operations, proceeds from tax credit monetization and new financings, including debt, hybrid instruments and common equity. As shown on Slide 8, we have made significant progress in the second quarter with proactively addressing our stated equity needs. Of the approximately $2.4 billion of announced common equity needs through 2029, we have already raised approximately $1.8 billion through forward equity agreements.

These actions effectively address our stated equity needs through 2028 and leave approximately $500 million of remaining equity to be raised through 2029, excluding equity expected to be raised under our share direct plan. Our financing plan, together with our proactive execution to date, provides meaningful flexibility to support the efficient implementation of our strategy. Turning to regulatory matters. Our regulatory agenda remains closely aligned with our capital investment strategy and the growing needs of our customers.

During the quarter, we made significant progress advancing projects that support both reliability and economic development across our service territories. Our recent regulatory advancements and active filings are shown on Slide 9. In Wisconsin, we recently received approval of our individual customer rate agreement, supporting Meta's data center development in Beaver Dam. In response to that order, we expect to file a broader large load tariff later this quarter. We also received written approval for the expansion of our Bent Tree Wind Farm, adding approximately 150 megawatts of renewable generation and have now advanced that project into construction.

In Iowa, we continue to advance the energy resource investments included in our long-term capital plan. During the quarter, we filed generation certificates for the 720-megawatt Morgan Valley and the 1.2 gigawatt Riverhawk Simple cycle natural gas projects and a generation certificate for an energy storage project totaling approximately 125 megawatts. From a project execution perspective, our storage, wind repowering and generation enhancement projects remain on schedule. We recently placed into service the final 2 generation enhancement projects at Neenah and Sheboygan.

These projects allow us to efficiently unlock an additional 260 megawatts of near-term capacity from existing assets while enhancing customer value. We also recently started construction activities on the Bobcat Energy Center, a 720-megawatt simple cycle natural gas project in Marshalltown, Iowa, and the 95-megawatt RICE project in Burlington, Iowa. Later this year, we anticipate further filings to support customer growth, including an individual customer rate application associated with QTS' Clinton data center in Iowa and our recently announced 370-megawatt electric supply agreement. Our focus on execution positions us well to deliver sector-leading growth, help our customers and communities grow and thrive and create long-term value for customers and shareowners.

Thank you for your continued interest in Alliant Energy. We look forward to speaking with many of you over the coming months.

Operator, please open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Shar Pourreza with Wells Fargo.

So, Lisa, Iowa has been kind of like this growth story for you guys. It's been like a pretty good hedge against some of the Wisconsin noise. But now you're seeing both Republican and Democratic candidates have been somewhat more guarded around data center developments and their comments. So Iowa is getting a little bit noisier than people would have thought. They're not calling for a statewide moratorium, but can we get your latest thoughts around the political backdrop in the state? It's getting noisier than I think a lot of people would have thought. So just a little lay of the land would be great.

Sure. I mean while it's always disappointing that some PJM narratives are being repeated more broadly, we tend to see this more from an election standpoint. Look, the math is self-explanatory. By growing, we're able to keep rates flat in Iowa. And the more we grow, the longer we can do that, quite frankly. I think it's important when you're thinking about moratoriums and hearing about them. One, these are big states.

So rest assured that the -- whether it be ordinances or moratoriums that we're seeing, they're not impacting our projects nor our pipeline. I'll also say that there's not a one size fits all when it comes to moratoriums. The language really matters. And one of the things that we're really excited to see is that the data centers are really focusing on transparency. They're having early conversations with communities, making them feel more comfortable. It's something we're focusing on as well, whether it be open houses for generation or just being there and available to answer questions that they have with respect to data centers.

But I tell you one of the things that I just love hearing is the fact that we'll get some phone calls from communities saying, "Hey, how do we get a data center in our backyard?" And that just to me shows that Iowa remains and will continue to remain open for business.

Got it. So political rhetoric is rhetoric. Okay. I appreciate that. And then obviously, you guys are seeing good growth across the footprints and you've got new generation. You've signed 370 megawatts ESA, which is in the plan. You have another 3.4 gigs out there. It sounds like from Robert's comments that you're going to revisit the CAGR. I guess as we're thinking about it, are you married to the plus? Or could we get back into a range, albeit higher?

Obviously, we have to account for the lumpiness of the projects and this being kind of a politically sensitive year. But I guess, how are you sort of thinking about how you would guide in the third quarter?

Yes. Great question, Shar. Yes. So we're looking forward to sharing more information in the third quarter call and as part of that process is typical for us, we'll update our 4- to 5-year capital expenditure plan, and that will really drive kind of our confidence level with how we might be able to change the EPS CAGR going forward. So more to come on that in the future.

We're evaluating probably wanting to probably provide more transparency is how we characterize more details in the future. And so historically, when we were going into last year, we wanted to use the plus to give us a little more flexibility, but I think we'll have more confidence when we get to the third quarter and provide a little more specificity if that will help the investors.

Got it. So not to lead the witness, but it sounds like it will go back into a range at some form.

Yes. Yes, more specificity, whether it's a range or more specific targets for each year. As you indicated, there is some lumpiness to it in the sense of if you look at our capital expenditures on an annual basis, there will be some years that are higher than others and that could drive some of the earnings higher than the others.

Your next question comes from the line of Stephen D’Ambrisi with RBC Capital Markets.

Just had a quick one on the QTS amendments and the ramp. Can you just speak a little bit to kind of either what that means from a financial plan perspective or a shaping of capital deployment perspective or like a staff perspective. There's a lot of questions in there, but I guess the way we've been thinking about it is maybe you'd be utilizing tax credits a little more upfront and then the load ramp ramps in later and allows you to earn your returns on higher invested capital balances. And just wondering if this increased accelerated load ramp, kind of how that changes the financial plan.

Yes. Thanks, Steve. And I'm going to talk to a couple of things that I'm incredibly proud of with respect to our team. We've been consistent in our approach and making sure that we're targeting near-term growth opportunities and being able to accommodate an accelerated load ramp with QTS is something that makes sure that our communities see the benefit sooner from a property tax standpoint, other customers see the benefit and shareholders as well. So I'll turn it over to Robert to kind of walk through some of the more details with respect to your question.

Yes. So if I think about it, our CapEx plan is aligned with the ramp rates right now. So I wouldn't expect much of a change there for CapEx. But we are expecting to have higher revenues, specifically in the years 2027 and 2028. And what that really does for us, it really helps our existing customers in the sense of allows us to not use as many tax credits through the kind of the growth phase of our business here and could potentially translate into helping us to stay out over a longer period of time.

And just a data point, QTS as of today has got over 40 megawatts worth of load, which is great to see.

That's awesome. Thanks Lisa and Robert. And then just a follow-up on that. Just can you talk a little bit about discussions around expansion of the existing customers in Iowa? Like obviously, you have the 900 megawatts at ICR that you're filing at QTS 2. But just if QTS 1 or Google and Cedar Rapids have existing extra acreage they could potentially expand into or just any thoughts on that?

Yes. So when you think about the 2 to 4 that we talk about with respect to the plan, we're super excited that we had -- even though we announced the 2 to 4, not less than a year ago that we're able to announce 370 megawatts worth of additional load growth, conversations are all of the above, new sites, existing sites, all of that. We're, of course, not able to share that at this time, but just stay tuned with respect to our third quarter update, which will have any load, whether it be load accelerations or new load growth opportunities reflected in the resource plan and our CapEx plan.

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Weisel with Scotiabank.

First question, just if I could elaborate on Shar's a little bit and get more specific. Can you talk about the status of the Linn County data center moratorium? How does that work with the city of Cedar Rapids and your projects there? Would they be impacted? Or if they were to expand, might they be affected? And if so, would that depend on the timing of announcements or construction? How would that all work?

No impact. It's the unincorporated area of Linn County. It has no impact on the data center growth opportunity. In fact, I don't think we can have a better advocate out there with Mayor Tiffany O'Donnell. If you follow any of her feed, she's got an active podcast and so forth. She continues to call out the benefits that they are seeing real time in Cedar Rapids tied to these data centers.

Terrific. That's what we thought. I just wanted to confirm. Okay. Next question, I just wanted to ask about the load growth forecast. From the slides, it looks like you're taking up the numbers for 2026 now 2% to 3% from 1% previously. Is that a function of data centers ramping up faster than expected or better growth from the rest of the customer base? And is that going to bode well for '27 and beyond? Or is that more of like a near-term positive that might not be sustainable?

And then similarly, on the O&M side, that number went up by 1 percentage point as well. But with a comment that it's weighted to the first half. So is that onetime expenses that have already happened? Or is that more of like a higher run rate due to inflation or whatever?

Yes. Great question, Andrew. I think of the sales as probably higher than expected for us. We're seeing some positive developments, not only with the data centers going a little bit faster than we expected originally here. So we see some uplift there, but also just our core business, when you think about all the other businesses throughout our service territory seem to be doing better than we originally expected. So I don't think that that's temporary. I think that's probably more of a function of what we're seeing as far as ongoing economic impacts.

And some of that we would actually attribute to the data center developments themselves, specifically in the city of Cedar Rapids, it's driving a lot of economic benefits when you think about all the construction workers there. We have 2 projects right now underway, one for QTS and one for Google, and they have in excess of 10,000 workers in that city. And if you think about the size of that city of roughly 150,000 in population, it's got a pretty big impact. And so that's driving more hotel usage, more restaurant usage and other things. And so we're seeing some of the ancillary benefits of some of that data center development activities that we're looking forward to spreading throughout other parts of the state into Wisconsin as well.

Specifically related to your O&M question, yes, as we continue to manage the business as we're seeing higher, what I'd say, temperature normalized sales, that gives us an opportunity to continue to invest in the business. And so we're investing in generation, energy delivery. We want to make sure that we have a very reliable system for our customers. And so we're making sure we're making prudent investments to make sure that, that happens. So -- and we had kind of expected that we were going to have a little bit higher expenses in the first half of the year. Some of that's related to things like the timing of generation outages. So all in all, I'd say the first half of the year is pretty much what we had expected. The second half will be a little bit lighter, but we may see if we continue to have some higher retail sales, continued investments in the business to make sure we, like I said, focus on the reliability and customer service.

That's great. So it's essentially pulling forward some of these expenses and increasing a good situation to be in. And just to clarify, the construction workers and the benefits from them, should they be expected to continue to be there in line with the load ramps that you detail in Slide 4 there, like through '28, '29, '30?

It's -- they're there for quite some time, exactly. I mean there's just a lot of development that's being undertaken. When you think about -- I'll just use QTS as an example, their 7 building campus. I mean they're doing one building and the next building and so forth, and they're really moving at a very quick pace. And we're glad we could accommodate.

With potentially more to come if you secure more of the 2 to 4 gigawatts and then some potentially.

Well placed for development, quite frankly. We've seen this other locations in Iowa even.

Your next question comes from Nick Campanella with Barclays.

I just wanted to come back to the kind of the magnitude and the potential of what could come on the third quarter plan and just you have the 2 to 4 gigawatts out there. Is there any way to understand realistically within that, what you have visibility to? Is it more about just increasing the load ramps that you currently have a couple of hundred megawatts or extending those counterparty contracts a couple of hundred megawatts? Or do you have visibility to some kind of larger 1 gigawatt deals within that just as we kind of consider the back half of the year, is clearly going really well.

Yes. I mean it just -- that is a wait and see. We'll announce with respect to the resource plan. Just keep in mind, when we have these discussions with these large load customers, we need to sit there and make sure that they have their load ramp in place that they've got land control. We're loving the fact that they're investing time with the communities to bring them up to speed so that there are no surprises because quite frankly, that's very consistent with our approach on making sure we're taking the risk out.

That risk is it's been consistent with our approach, making sure that we're not relying on long lead time transmission and so forth. We continue to see inbounds with respect to interest in the state. So we're feeling very positive about the economic development efforts that we have underway. And you'll get clarity when we have this resource plan buckled up.

Okay. No, I appreciate that. And I mean, I know you talked about it a little there, too, but you're trying to match the supply with new large loads and make sure you're out there sourcing the right equipment. So just can you kind of talk about the state of supply chain? And do you have better visibility first quarter? Is it the same? How to think about that?

Sure. I mean this is something that we have -- these discussions are not new discussions. So we have the opportunity to figure out not only with our transmission partners, what's needed in terms of the timing of necessary transmission upgrades, but also what's necessary on the generation side. That's just something we do all the time. That's our business. We issue RFPs and things like that to make sure that we've got access to generation. But we feel very confident in our ability to meet the needs of our customers and communities as we expand.

Okay. And just one more, if I could. Just your peer in Wisconsin with their own VLC, there's just been heightened credit requirements being kind of circulated in the state. And I'm just wondering if that has any impact to how you guys view the potential for new sites in the state and just, I guess, the total addressable market there and if that's causing at all discussions to pivot increasingly towards Iowa?

Yes. Great question. So with respect to tariff, you've seen that a number of utilities have filed tariffs. We will be filing a tariff in Wisconsin later this year. Ours will very much be aligned with Xcel's. We see that benefit associated with a slice of system approach. With respect to the credit impacts and so forth, I think it's really important from an economic development standpoint to recognize that. It applies to all large loads, right, large manufacturers and so forth. So I think it's appropriate that the commission in the state take a measured approach with respect to credit requirements and so forth. But I will say this, I mean, we have a track record of having very, very high-quality counterparties. And so we're not seeing this adversely impact our growth trajectory at all.

Your next question comes from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies.

This is actually Tanner on for Julien. So at the risk of being repetitive here on the data center conversation, in terms of the funnel or the pipeline opportunities, you guys have arguably one of the more disciplined approaches in the sector. Just kind of ahead of this 3Q update, gauging your comfort with some of the outer parts of the pipeline and whether there might be a higher threshold for future projects to reach for them to be integrated within the disclosed funnel? Just how should we think about kind of on the ground, the outer parts of that pipeline?

Yes, great question. I mean we continue to see a robust level of inbound calls. We like our disciplined approach. We have not changed it from how we talked about it last year. We want to make sure that our data centers have land control. We want to make sure that they've got the load ramp. We want to make sure that the transmission studies are either in progress and pretty far along or completed. And we want to make sure that we've got a line of sight with respect to the generation.

And again, kind of going back to what I said earlier, just really excited that the data centers are spending a little bit more time with the communities, that the communities are asking questions, even the ordinances and so forth that you're seeing in place, it's giving them flexibility. It's allowing them to zone for data centers. And all of that, I think, is just a great early indicator of Iowa continuing to be open for business.

Great. And maybe switching gears here. On the slides, you call out FERC's policy decision on the self-funded network upgrades as a potential watch item. Can you maybe just remind us of the potential net benefit to Alliant here, whether it be in spend or an ease of customer activity if this decision goes your way? Just kind of help us size the potential benefits of this.

Yes. I'd say that's an item that we continue to monitor. Obviously, we're awaiting a decision before we know what the potential full implications of that are. But there is quite a few projects that we're building right now from a generation standpoint that will require some transmission upgrades that could provide us the opportunity if we so choose to invest in those for ourselves. We see that as a potential opportunity for not only additional CapEx, but it could provide some customer benefits as a result of our cost of capital being slightly lower than what we see with the transmission company. So I think that would be a win-win for both our investors and our customers if that were to come about.

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Fremont with Ladenburg.

I was hoping you would talk a little bit about some of the recent changes in the Wisconsin Governor race, Mandela Barnes just dropped out. So if you could maybe summarize the positions of Hong versus Tiffany on their views of data center development in the state. Hong seems very much in the camp of wanting a statewide moratorium.

Yes. Good question. I mean it's a very active political landscape here in Wisconsin. And quite frankly, the state has always enjoyed a practical and pragmatic approach with respect to really pretty much everything in the state. It is disappointing that there are some narratives that I do think play very well in PJM and maybe more true in PJM. But I tell you, the math is self-explanatory.

The Brattle Group reinforced that our approach makes sense, and we'll continue to use this as an opportunity to speak with all candidates on this topic. I think once we get through the primaries and see who comes out of that, that's just another great opportunity for us to educate folks on what we're doing, why we're doing it and provide the details because it's the details that matter. And with respect to working with either Republicans or Democrats, again, that's what we do. That's in our DNA, and we look forward to having those more detailed opportunities.

So would you say at this point that the likelihood of new data center development in Wisconsin is much, much lower than potential new announcements in Iowa?

No, I don't think so. I mean -- and even when you -- like I mentioned earlier, Paul, the moratoriums and ordinances that you've seen, they're not impacting our projects or our pipeline. Now what we've always mentioned is that we have more land mass in Iowa. It's just -- it's a -- from a service territory standpoint, a larger state.

And then I think in the past, you've talked about a potential stay out through at least the period where you are -- you have a GRC rate freeze in effect. How much additional sort of runway does the QTS ramp-up provide you with? Is it like a year? Or how can we sort of put that into perspective in terms of adding to your stay out?

Yes, Paul, good question. Yes. So as a reminder for folks, we have a commitment to stay out of rate reviews in Iowa for our retail electric business through 2029. And we really are focused right now on trying to add more data centers and try to accelerate load. The combination of that could give us an opportunity to stay out even longer. So we think that's the right thing to do for our customers and our communities. And so we're going to focus on that. So it will largely depend on how many additional data centers we sign up, probably more so than what I would consider the ramping. If we can add several hundred megawatts more of data centers in multiple different examples, we could see an opportunity to potentially go beyond '29 into the future.

And the one thing that I just want to note is in Iowa, I don't think there's another state in the country that can say for the next -- for 5 years, 0% rate increases. And that's something that we also help drives additional economic development.

And then last question for me. Sort of the treasury modifications on repairs deductions, does that have any impact on your -- on you in terms of your cash flows?

Yes. I don't know if you're referring to the AMT implications. We're not in AMT. It's not having any impact on us. We obviously continue to have opportunities with repairs, and we try and maximize those for the benefit of our customers, but we're fortunate that we're small enough that we don't have to worry about the AMT issues.

Ms. Gille, there are no further questions at this time.

With no more questions, this concludes our call. A replay will be available on our investor website. Thank you for your continued support of Alliant Energy, and feel free to contact me with any follow-up questions.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Hello. Thank you for holding, and welcome to Alliant Energy's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference call is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Susan Gille, Investor Relations Manager at Alliant Energy.

Good morning, and thank you for joining Alliant Energy's First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. Joining me today are Lisa Barton, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Robert Durian, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Following their prepared remarks, we will have time to take questions from the investment community.

Last night, we issued a news release announcing our first quarter 2026 results and reaffirmed 2026 full year earnings guidance. That release, along with our earnings presentation, will be referenced during today's call and is available on the Investors section of our website at www.alliantenergy.com. Before we begin, please note that today's remarks and responses will include forward-looking statements.

These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Those risks are described in last night's earnings release and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. In addition, this presentation contains references to ongoing earnings per share, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. Reconciliation to GAAP results are provided in the earnings release available on our website.

At this point, I will turn the call over to Lisa.

Thank you, Sue. Good morning, everyone. I appreciate you joining us today. 2026 is off to an excellent start. First quarter ongoing earnings delivered approximately 25% of the midpoint of our full year guidance despite very mild temperatures across our service territory. We remain firmly on track to achieve our 2026 earnings targets while executing on our strategic priorities.

At Alliant Energy, our focus is straightforward, unlocking the potential of our customers and communities, prioritizing affordability while delivering long-term value for investors. As I have shared previously, we remain committed to driving economic development and prosperity across the states we serve.

Today, I am pleased to share our progress on our 2 to 4 gigawatts of large load opportunities. In April, we executed a new 370-megawatt electric service agreement with a hyperscale customer in Iowa with a full load ramp expected by the end of 2030.

To support this growth, we've entered into an agreement with a high-quality counterparty to construct a simple cycle natural gas facility. Our third quarter update will include a refreshed Iowa resource plan, reflecting any incremental load beyond the 3 gigawatts already in our plan as well as the impact of updated MISO accreditation assumptions. We expect to finance these incremental investments with a balanced mix of equity and debt to maintain a resilient financial profile.

We now have 5 fully executed data center agreements representing approximately 3.4 gigawatts of contracted demand with 3 of these projects under active construction. Importantly, we have secured the generation resources needed to reliably serve this load, which represents now more than a 60% increase in our current peak demand. And looking ahead, we continue to make strong products on the 2 to 4 gigawatts of future large load opportunities we first announced 6 months ago.

Our commitment has remained consistent, creating wins for existing customers immunities, a win for new customers and a win for our investors. We are strategically positioning our company in the states we serve for sustainable long-term growth while keeping customer costs as low as possible. Our approach ensures we remain a trusted partner to customers and communities by delivering reliable, affordable energy solutions that support their long-term ambitions. Evidence of this strategy in action shown through last week when we joined the QTS leadership in Cedar Rapids to welcome U.S. Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright and Iowa legislators to tour the site.

This $10 billion development, the largest economic investment in Iowa's history underscores our role in enabling innovation, job creation and long-term economic diversification in the communities we serve. This is the Alliant Energy advantage, a disciplined, solutions-oriented approach to growth. We guide data center customers to low-cost transmission ready sites in our service territories. And because our more recent electric service agreements are capacity only, the investments required to serve this load are primarily energy storage and natural gas combustion turbines. This approach creates strong alignment between capital investments and revenue growth while preserving flexibility to serve future energy needs as demand for capacity and energy continues to evolve.

Economic growth drives job creation expands tax base and strengthens communities. It also benefits customers by increasing load, which helps us maintain cost competitiveness for all customers. As electricity sales grow, we can spread fixed system costs over more kilowatt hours. In Iowa, our regulatory framework enables us to keep base electric rates stable through at least the end of the decade. That is at least 4 more years of no retail electric base rate reviews in Iowa while earning our authorized return through retaining tax credits and energy margins from new generation investments.

A foundational principle of utility regulation is cost responsibility. At Alliant Energy, our policy is clear customers driving large incremental demand are responsible for funding the infrastructure required to serve them through individual customer rates, large users, funds, transmission interconnections, system upgrades and incremental investments, protecting affordability for all customers.

In closing, I want to thank our employees their dedication and solutions-oriented execution are the foundation of our operational excellence and the driving force behind the progress we continue to make. I would also like to recognize the outstanding efforts of our field teams in restoring service following recent storm activity across our service territory. Despite the heavy storm activity, we achieved strong reliability and safety statistics through the first part of 2026, which is a testament to the quality of the work by the field organization.

I will now turn the call over to Robert for details on our financial results, financing plans and regulatory activity.

Thank you, Lisa. Good morning, everyone. Yesterday, we announced solid first quarter 2026 GAAP and ongoing earnings of $0.87 and $0.82, respectively. As shown on Slide 5, our ongoing earnings year-over-year change was primarily due to higher revenue requirements and AFUDC from capital investments at our Iowa and Wisconsin utilities. These positive drivers were offset by higher operations and maintenance expenses related to new energy resources and planned maintenance at existing generating facilities as well as higher depreciation and financing costs.

Temperatures in the first quarter of 2026 reduced electric and gas margins by approximately $0.04 per share compared to a reduction of $0.03 in the prior year. Excluding the impacts of temperatures, electric sales in the first quarter were essentially even year-over-year. First quarter ongoing earnings exclude a $0.05 benefit from the remeasurement of deferred tax assets, reflecting updated state income tax apportionment assumptions, driven by higher projected electric utility revenues from commercial and industrial customers, including data centers.

We are reaffirming our 2026 earnings guidance with Slide 6 reflecting several of our key 2026 assumptions. Our longer-term earnings outlook remains intact. And based on our current plan, we expect our compound annual earnings growth rate across 2027 through 2029 to be 7% plus. We will continue to assess our long-term earnings growth potential as we execute our data center expansion and update our capital expenditure plans later this year.

Turning to financing. As shown on Slide 7, during the first quarter of 2026, we had parent level and align energy finance maturities of $1.1 billion, and we retired these maturities with available cash and new debt issuances, including a $400 million term loan. Our remaining 2026 debt financing plans include up to $800 million of long-term issuances consisting of up to $300 million at WPL and up to $500 million at IPL. We are continuously working to capture low-cost capital for new infrastructure investments to help lower costs for our customers and have 2 positive developments at IPL in the first quarter.

First, we increased the capacity of our sales of receivable program at IPL from $110 million to $180 million; and second, Senador Poor's upgraded credit rating from BBB+ to A-. As a reminder, our 4-year capital plan is funded through a balanced mix of cash from operations, including proceeds from ongoing tax credit monetization and new financings, including debt, pipe instruments, and common equity. As shown on Slide 8 of the approximately $2.4 billion of expected common equity needs over the next 4 years, we have already raised approximately $1.3 billion through forward equity agreement.

These forward equity agreements take care of planned equity needs through 2027. This leaves approximately $1 billion of remaining equity to be raised through 2029, excluding equity expected to be raised under our share direct plan. A new $1 billion at-the-market program was filed during the first quarter to enable issuance of this remaining equity. Our financing plan and proactive execution to date provides flexibility to support the efficient implementation of our strategy.

Turning to our regulatory matters. Our 2026 regulatory agenda remains closely aligned with our capital investment plans and individual rate applications for new large load customers as we have no active rate reviews planned in 2026, reducing regulatory uncertainty. As shown on Slide 9, we recently received 2 constructive regulatory decisions for new wind projects at our utilities. In Iowa, the Iowa Utility Commission approved the settlement for advanced ratemaking principles for up to 1 gigawatt of new wind generation at a current blended ROE of 9.8%, which will be updated each year through IPL's base rate stabilization period in Iowa. And in Wisconsin, we received approval from the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin for the 153-megawatt Ventre North wind project. We expect these wind investments will allow our utility customers to avoid significant fuel costs and generate tax credits while supporting investment in cost-effective, responsible energy resources.

Looking ahead, we currently have one active Iowa docket for a 720-megawatt natural gas combustion turbine project, which was filed earlier this week and 5 active Wisconsin dockets, including the individual customer rate filing for the Meta data center in Beaver Dam and Construction Authority filings for LNG storage, additional wind and increased capacity at Riverside. We expect decisions on these matters over the next 12 months. We expect to make additional filings throughout the year to support planned customer investments. In addition, we anticipate filing individual customer rate applications with the Iowa Utility Commission related to the second QTS data center and the recent 370-megawatt of center electric supply agreement.

I will now turn the call over to Lisa to provide closing remarks.

Thank you, Robert. Alliance Energy's consistent financial performance reflects our strategy to unlock the potential of customers and communities. This is what sets us apart and defines the Alliance Energy advantage, being solutions-oriented, supporting growth, driving affordability for all customers and delivering lasting value to our shareholders. Thank you for continued trust. We look forward to connecting with many of you at upcoming investor conferences.

I will now turn the call back to the operator to open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Shar Perusa with Wells Fargo.

Hey guys, good morning. Just on the 370 megawatts ESA that was signed -- I mean, obviously, you're calling out, it provides upside to the current plan. These opportunities are starting to accrete, you have this 2 to 4 gigs out there that's very mature. It sounds like we'll get more disclosures. Are we thinking EPS disclosure, some sensitivities around the opportunities?

And Lisa, do we ever get to a point where we could see a more definable EPS guidance range given that you're already at the higher end of that 7%. And visibility is improving for you?

Yes. Great question, Shahriar. So we're going to do similar to what we've said in the past is every time we have an ESA, we will be announcing that on a quarterly basis. And our third quarter earnings call and EEI, we will be providing that full update of our resource plan, which would include providing the generation necessary to support the 370 megawatts, an update on our EPS growth trajectory. So looking forward to that call.

Got it. Got it. Okay. Perfect. And then obviously, there's been a lot of noise in Wisconsin between sort of local pushback and more trims on new data center developments. Can you just talk a little bit about where your conversations are directed with potential hyperscalers? Are they still looking at Wisconsin? Or are they more focused on Iowa?

I know you called out you had this a lot of role and in that is zoned industrial in Iowa, so that's attractive for a data center. Just want to get a temperature gauge on where the conversations are going between the two states.

Sure. So I mean Iowa does, we have more land mass. If you think about it in terms of our service territory, it's about twice the physical territory in Iowa and very strong transmission interconnections. We still have very strong transmission interconnections and opportunities in Wisconsin as well. But as I think we've mentioned in the past, Iowa's got almost about 75% of the communities that we touch there versus 40% in Wisconsin.

We are very much looking forward and awaiting a decision by the Wisconsin Public Utilities Commission with respect to our Dam facility. And there's rhetoric that's out there that I think is spillover, quite frankly, from PJM. We are actively addressing countering that as we mentioned in our remarks, we have our customer pledge, making sure that everybody knows that they are not paying for data centers, the cost of supporting data centers. So stay tuned on all of that, but conversations do continue in Wisconsin.

Got it. Perfect. I appreciate it, Lisa. Congrats on the execution.

Your next question comes from Nicholas Campanella with Barclays.

Thanks for the update. Good morning. So it just sounds like you're going to do a 370-megawatt simple cycle for this build for the ESA that you just signed. So just what's the right kind of dollar per kilowatt cost that you're seeing for those types of investments right now?

Sure. So as we mentioned, we've entered into an agreement with a high-quality counterparty there to build it. We will be updating on the size of that. That unit will be sized according to our resource plan. And similar to what we've done in the past in Iowa, we're using a low, medium and high low growth trajectory. Obviously, we continue to have discussions with hyperscalers and we'll be refreshing all of that at EEI. We cannot disclose the cost due to confidentiality agreements, but you can expect those to be in line with what you're seeing in the marketplace today.

Okay. Okay. And then it seems like you're definitely having success in working with the current customer base, and you have visibility on the 2 to 4 gigs. You signed another 370 today. You mentioned that each time you have an ESA, you'll announce those on a quarter basis. So is this just kind of like the run rate that we should kind of expect as we get to the second quarter?

And maybe you could kind of talk a little bit about like the 2 to 4 gigs, how many customers are in there? Like could we see a 1 gigawatt deal when you do the next one, for instance? Or should we continue to kind of see you put up these 300 to 500-megawatt call a deal?

Yes. SP1 So there really is no one specific answer to any of that. These represent conversations with all different size entities. What I can say about the 2% to 4% is, remember, we hold ourselves to a very high standard. These are mature opportunities where we have a higher level of confidence than maybe out there. We have made sure that they've got land control. They are in active discussions with our team. The transmission studies are either ongoing or complete.

We make sure that we have a firm understanding of the load ramp and that they have a firm understanding of the load and that we've got the line of sight with respect to the timing of the transmission upgrades and the generation. So that can take a little bit of time, but they really come in small meeting and large, quite frankly, sizes.

Can I just ask one follow-up just on the 370. Is that something as it ramps into 2030 that could be increased and you can -- would that customer and do more of? And does that represent part of this 2 to 4. I'm just trying to -- or is the 370 largely just locked and loaded today and that's it.

Well, we're not going to talk really specifically about the 370. As you know, we have confidentiality agreements in place for all of this. I would just point you back to we've got these mature opportunities with a higher level of confidence in these. And the 2 to 4 is in essence made up of new entities as well as entities that might want to further expand.

Your next question comes from Paul Zimbardo with Jefferies.

Good morning, team. And just a follow-up quick on my friend, Nick's question. Just for the 370 megawatts, is there a land and kind of zoning capability for that customer to expand if they so choose to in the future? Or is that more a constrained site?

So any of that information is really theirs to share rather than ours to share. But what I can say is we are talking about Iowa. What we have mentioned in the past, I mean, we've got great access to transmission. We are not in -- other than Cedar Rapids, really large population areas. So you can make your assumptions as you wish.

Okay. Okay. And just going more generically even kind of for a demand of that size kind of with the reserve margin and kind of accreditation, just how much resources in terms of megawatts would you need to support that?

Well, that's why we're so thrilled to have that really flexible resource planning process that we have in both states, and we really see that as a strategic advantage to Alliance Energy. So what we will be doing is -- later on this year, basically filing a resource plan, it will take into account what we need in terms of reserve margins. It will take into account any capacity that we need with respect to changes in the MISO accreditation process.

It will also take into account any generation needed to support additional ESAs that we may announce between now and the end of the year. So it really puts us in a very good position to be flexible and to grow at the pace of our customers because, quite frankly, that's what we have said from the very beginning. We need to make sure we've got a win-win-win, win for new customers, win for existing customers, win for investors.

And that's foundational to our ability to grow at their pace.

Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. And if I could sneak in one unrelated. Just checking, is there any update on the time line for the FERC policy for those self-funded network interconnection upgrades. And I just assume the opportunity set for yourself will be larger, assuming that goes in one direction, just given how much new generations have been at it. But just curious on the time line there, if you have one.

We are anxiously waiting as are you, but no -- no line of sight on that.

Your next question comes from Bill Appicelli with UBS.

You've mentioned a couple of times that the MISO accreditation assumption impact. I know that they're shifting to this direct loss of load framework over time here. But how does that maybe differ from what your base plan assumes? Or I would assume that -- there's sort of -- the net capacity value of the installed base would be somewhat less and so does that require more generation? Or maybe you can just sort of speak through what the potential implications are of the accreditation assumptions?

Sure. So we take this into account in terms of all of our modeling. We're certainly in a dynamic time where there's a lot of growth. So our modeling assumptions are going to have basically our load assumptions, how that's changing, what we need from a reliability standpoint, what do we need to serve other customers, any environmental changes and so forth. MISO is still working on some of that. And so we'll have a cleaner line of sight as we get closer to Q3.

And then, the other question here is just on the generation, you sort of -- I know we're getting and kind of get in front of what you're going to update in Q3. But the resource mix that you see -- I mean, is it really a sort of a full boat of capacity fixes in terms of storage and peakers? Or is it going to be -- is that going to include baseload potentially as well? Or is it more around shaving the peaks and having the capacity resources there to satisfy the MISO requirements?

Yes, that's primarily batteries and peakers. So recall that we have focused on simple cycles that allows us to basically invest later in these facilities should we need the energy resources. As you may recall, Iowa, in particular, is very steep and wind resources that provides a lot of energy. And what we like about this solution is both batteries and your simple cycles allow us to really capture that speed to market. Very fortunate to be in this region where we've got so many wind resources. That's very location specific. Not everybody can do that.

Right. And then just lastly, the CT you referenced today, what's the size of that? Is that roughly the size of the load? Or would I assume there would be some reserve margin to that?

Yes. So when -- it's basically 1.1 gigawatts.

Okay. So the CT you're talking about today is 1,100 megawatts?

Upto.

Your next question comes from Paul Fremont with Ladenberg.

Great. Congratulations on a great quarter. In terms of the 2 to 4 gigawatts. Can you give us a sense of how many potential developers are represented in that 2 to 4?

No. All we can say really is that they are very high-quality counterparties. Remember, the threshold that we have when we talk about the 2 to 4 is that we have active negotiations in place. We've got transmission studies that are either completed or ongoing and land control. So think of it as a combination of hyperscalers as well as developers.

Great. And is all of the 2 to 4 in Iowa?

No, it's not.

And can you give us like any type of a distributional breakout of what would be Wisconsin versus Iowa?

It's really fluid, Paul. So we can't. It's one of these things where it's always a moving target.

Great. And then you've given us sort of aggregate rate base. Is it fair to think about year-end '25 rate base as being sort of $6 billion Wisconsin and $11 billion Iowa?

Yes. We provided that information in the slides that we've disclosed publicly, Paul. So you should be able to see that information.

Okay. Because I mean you also provide like an aggregate 12% growth rate in rate base, but the level of investment is obviously heavily skewed to Iowa. So, is it possible to get a sense of how fast rate base is going in Iowa stand-alone and Wisconsin stand-alone?

We've also provided additional information in some of our supplemental information that we shared publicly that's got the details. We'll have Susan follow up with you to share that information and point you to the right direction there.

Great. And then last question for me. The 5% to 7% EPS growth, what should we use as the base for that -- 7% plus?

Yes, we update it every year once we complete the year. So you can use the '25 final number that we accomplished there, and then we'll just keep on updating that each year we complete the year.

It's '25 actual?

Yes.

The next question comes from Andrew Weisel with Scotiabank. Andrew?

Hi, good morning. Different question on the new CP. Are you able to share the service date? Would it be online by the end of 2030 to map the new ESA?

[indiscernible].

Okay. Great. And then while 1.1 gigawatts for new CT seems quite large. You also reminded us that you had the 720-megawatt CP going through the approval process. My question is, help us understand the thinking behind pursuing simple cycles as opposed to bigger baseload GPs with higher onetimes, especially you've had such fast growth in demand, and you've got the 2 to 4 gigawatts that are potentially coming next. Is it a question of speed or cost? And then longer term for these assets, could they be converted to CCGT if demand justifies it? And with the hyperscalers pay for those upgrades?

Yes, great question. So we are always very focused on certainly customer affordability and flexibility and making sure that we can move at the pace of our customers. And so what we have found is that these data center or customers, these hyperscalers are very much interested in speed to market. And because of the very wind-rich area, in which we operate. Just kind of that reminder, in Iowa, there's about 6 gigawatts worth of load today between Mid-American and Alliant and about 15 gigawatts of wind.

So it pretty much means your energy is coming from wind, and so that's something that we can take advantage of. That's by batteries and simple cycles work really well for us. And what it also does is it allows us to -- when that energy market changes, when these data centers are interested in having that provided by us, we can also add basically the steam turbine to have the simple cycle converted into combined cycles. One data point that I just want to mention on the 1.1, basically, we've entered into a contract for up to the 1.1 that allows us to be very flexible. You're going to see all of those details in the third quarter earnings call, where it reflects everything in our resource plan. Remember that, very flexible resource planning process allows us to take into consideration a lot of different moving parts.

We have a slice system approach. So we're not building one plant for a data center. It's a slice system. And so we're thinking about all of the needs that we have from an investment point.

If the 2 to 4 gigawatts were to come to fruition, should we expect more CTs for capacity and that would be more likely than CCGTs?

Yes. Yes. CTs, batteries. I mean, we've always had an all of the above approach with respect to generation. That's all a part of that resource planning process. And again, as I mentioned earlier, we're basically tying it with low, medium and high, low growth opportunities, right? So that allows us to basically be very flexible in our process.

All of the above except CCGT -- sorry, using just myself. Thank you very much. I appreciate the help there.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Steve Debris with RBC Capital Markets.

I just had a quick one. When I look at Slide 4 and it talks about the 2 to 4 gigawatts of upside load and the 370 megawatts that you just added in. Can you talk a little bit about what that does in Iowa for your ability to potentially stay out longer than the 5 years you've agreed to?

Because when we look at our numbers, we think it just even in the base plan [indiscernible] before adding these 370 megawatts, you were probably pretty able to keep rates flat and potentially provide benefits to customers. And so just want to hear how that kind of continues to shape up as you add more load when we go into the middle of next decade?

Incrementally, it's going to be beneficial. When we go through the process of contracting these data center loads as well as the new generation need to support it. We're always focused on ensuring that we capture some level of margin such that we'll be able to share back with the rest of the customers, the differential between the revenue stream from those data centers and cost related to the generation.

And so think of it as incrementally better, but we're not in a position right now to give you any kind of definitive time frame as far as what they might do to the current stay out.

Steve, the one thing that I would add is that this is where the load ramp is also very critical in our ability to navigate that. Again, why we're really focusing on how do we position ourselves to make sure we can move as quickly as possible.

Okay. That makes sense. And then just on the CTs or the potential CP, you talked about '31 and you talked about speed to construction. Can you just give a flavor if like a CCGT takes 4 years to build, like what's a typical CT build time?

It's about 3 to 4 years?

Your next question comes from -- my apologies, Ms. Gille, there are no further questions at this time.

With no more questions, this concludes our call. A replay will be available on our investor website. We thank you for your continued support of Alliant Energy, and feel free to contact me with any follow-up questions.

That concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.

Thank you for holding, and welcome to Alliant Energy's Fourth Quarter Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference is being recorded.

I would like to turn the call over to your host, Susan Gille, Investor Relations Manager at Alliant Energy. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I would like to thank all of you for joining us today for Alliant Energy's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. We appreciate your participation.

With me here today are Lisa Barton, President and CEO; Robert Durian, Executive Vice President and CFO. Following prepared remarks by Lisa and Robert, we will have time to take questions from the investment community.

We issued a news release last night announcing our fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results and affirmed 2026 earnings and dividend guidance. This release as well as an earnings presentation will be referenced during today's call and are available on the Investor page of our website at www.alliantenergy.com.

Before we begin, I need to remind you the remarks we make on this call and our answers to your questions include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different. Those risks include, among others, matters discussed in Alliant Energy's news release issued last night and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

In addition, this presentation contains references to ongoing earnings per share, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. References to ongoing earnings exclude material charges or income that are not normally associated with ongoing operations. The reconciliation between ongoing and GAAP measures is provided in the earnings release, which is available on our website.

At this point, I'll turn the call over to Lisa.

Thank you, Sue. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. 2025 was defined by major shifts in public policy, global trade, tax legislation and the acceleration of electric demand. We delivered another year of strong financial and operational performance while making significant progress across our strategic priorities. From a financial perspective, we continued our consistent track record of performance with 10-year compound annual EPS growth of 6.3%.

Our ongoing 2025 EPS growth of 6% exceeded the midpoint of our guidance and aligns with our long-term earnings growth target of 5 to 7-plus percent. We also increased our dividend, marking the 22nd consecutive year of dividend increases and delivered a total shareholder return of over 13% for the year.

Regulatory execution was another area of strength. In Wisconsin, we achieved a highly constructive outcome in our 2026, 2027 rate review, a unanimous settlement approved by the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin. We executed well against our customer-focused investment plan. During the year, we completed 275 megawatts of energy storage investments; we completed the Nina and Sheboygan Falls turbine upgrades; and we proactively protected future customer investments by safe harboring, land, renewable and energy storage projects amid evolving tax legislation, preserving flexibility and enabling cost-effective future energy solutions.

Strategically, unlocking the potential of our customers and communities remain central to our approach. Data centers represent significant capital investments in local communities. That's -- local tax price and support schools -- providing mentor community in Iowa, the approval of our first Mary contract for opto support economic development while delivering benefits for all customers.

Combined with our commitment to keep Iowa retail electric base rates flat for existing customers through the end of the decade, this a -- ability to deliver win-win solutions -- capturing growth that helps absorb fixed costs and reduces rate pressure for existing customers. We are utilizing individual customer rates in both Iowa and with Wisconsin to ensure all customers benefit studies is at the heart of everything we do. The Alliant Energy Advantage is our ability to move at the speed of our customers, aligning capital, infrastructure and regulatory solutions to enable growth, while advancing outcomes that meet customers, communities and share owners' expectations, -- pivoting when our customers pivot is part of that advantage and a key differentiator for Alliance Energy.

We aim to be a partner of choice with the goal of continuing to attract these customers to our service area. In furtherance of that goal, we closed the year with 4 executed ESAs totaling 3 gigawatts of load, translating to a 50% future growth in demand. We have a solid execution plan and a backlog of opportunities to drive future waves of growth for our share owners, customers and communities.

Navigating this environment requires agility, disciplined decision-making and a steadfast focus on long-term value. As we previously shared, QTS, one of the data center customers we serve made the decision to relocate its Greater Madison, Wisconsin data center project. After assessing multiple sites within our service area, QTS has selected a new location within our Iowa service territory. I am pleased to share that we have signed a new electric service agreement for this relocated QTS project and our 4-year consolidated capital expenditure program and investment growth expectations remain on track. Robert will provide additional details on these updates.

The speed and effectiveness of our response to the QTS data center relocation highlights the strength of our partnerships, the flexibility of our planning and our disciplined focus on near-term execution. Looking towards 2026, we are focused on pursuing industry-leading demand growth and successful project execution against those opportunities. We are actively engaged with customers and continue to pursue between 2 to 4 gigawatts of additional large low growth opportunities beyond what is already reflected in our current capital and financial outlook.

Importantly, these growth opportunities are in addition to the 4 previously announced contracted projects. We expect to provide updates as we make further progress with new electric service agreements.

Driving affordable energy solutions is foundational to our strategy, and we have built a strong foundation that positions us well for sustainable growth and delivering meaningful value to customers. This is supported by maximizing existing resources, extending asset life, investing in natural gas resources and strategically integrating renewables and energy storage facilities. These remain the most cost-effective ways to maintain reliability, proactive safe harboring of renewable and energy storage investments, prioritizing plug-in ready sites which minimizes transmission investments and accelerates our ability to serve new customers. In addition, we continue to unlock ancillary value through the optimization and monetization of our fiber network, creating unique financial benefits for existing customers.

As I reflect on my second year as CEO, I am incredibly proud of what our team accomplished and I'm excited about the opportunities ahead. The commitment of our employees enhances our ability to serve customers and communities, contributing to sustainable long-term value generation for share owners.

As we prepare to celebrate National Engineers week, I want to recognize the exceptional contributions of our engineers whose innovation and expertise continue to propel our industry forward. I sincerely thank our generation teams, line crews, gas techs and extended workforce for their dedication, especially in maintaining safe and reliable systems during extreme winter weather events. Your efforts are the foundation of our success.

There is tremendous opportunity ahead and Alliant Energy is well positioned to help build a stronger, more resilient energy future, one that benefits customers, communities, employees and shareowners alike.

I will now turn the call over to Robert to provide our financial update and an update on regulatory matters.

Thank you, Lisa. Good morning, everyone. Yesterday, we announced 2025 GAAP and ongoing earnings. For the full year 2025, Alliant Energy delivered ongoing earnings per share growth of $0.18 compared to 2024. This year-over-year improvement was driven primarily by increased revenue requirements from rate base increases, reflecting continued investment in generation and energy storage as well as favorable temperature impacts on electric and gas sales. These positive drivers were partially offset by higher operating and maintenance expenses, primarily related to planned generation maintenance activities and the addition of new generation resources, as well as higher generation development costs to support long-term growth.

Increased depreciation and financing expenses associated with expanding capital investments also offset a portion of the earnings improvement. Temperatures in 2025 contributed approximately $0.03 per share to electric and gas margins. For comparison, 2024 temperatures reduced margins by approximately $0.15 per share. Excluding the impact of temperatures, electric sales increased by nearly 1% in 2025 compared to 2024, driven by higher commercial and industrial sales across both IPL and WPL.

Our ongoing earnings for 2025 exclude two nonrecurring items, including a $0.05 charge related to the suspension of production at Travero's wind turbine blade recycling operations based on a review of strategic options for the business, and a $0.03 charge associated with remeasurement of deferred tax assets. This tax item reflects updated state income tax apportionment assumptions, driven by higher projected electric utility revenues from commercial and industrial customers including new data center agreements. With these results, we continue to deliver the consistent financial performance investors expect from Alliant Energy. We have now achieved annual ongoing earnings growth of over 6% for more than a decade while maintaining our focus on customer affordability.

Turning to our capital plan. As Lisa mentioned earlier, our consolidated 4-year capital plan remains on track, as shown on Slide 6. Following the relocation of the QTS load from Wisconsin to Iowa, we reallocated certain gas, wind and energy storage investments between our state utilities. This update represents a repositioning of resources within our consolidated portfolio. With flexible and proactive resource planning, we have strong confidence in our ability to execute the projects within our updated capital expenditure plan. We have secured gas turbine reservation agreements and project locations for all planned self-developed gas resources. Our plan includes simple cycle gas resources to address increasing capacity needs while retaining flexibility to expand these gas resources to combined cycle facilities in the future.

The additional Iowa wind investments would be part of our advanced ratemaking proposal for which a settlement has been filed and a final IUC decision is pending. And we have taken action that protects tax credits, for our planned renewable and energy storage projects through proactive safe harbor and development activity. This ability to pivot while maintaining execution certainty reflects the strength of the Alliant Energy Advantage.

As a result of the new electric service agreement for QTS' relocation and with our capital plan remaining materially consistent, we are affirming our 2026 earnings guidance. As shown on Slide 7, our 2026 earnings guidance reflects several key assumptions. These include higher earnings from growing capital investments, including allowance for funds used during construction, expected retail sales growth of approximately 1%, inclusive of sales to new data centers during construction, higher O&M, depreciation and financing costs, consistent with increasing capital investments and the ability to utilize investment tax credits from energy storage placed in service in 2025 and 2026 to support earning our authorized IO electric ROE while maintaining stable base rates for our electric customers in Iowa.

With respect to our longer-term outlook and incorporating QTS' new load expectations, we expect our compound annual earnings growth rate across 2027 to 2029 and to be consistent with what we shared in November 2025, 7% plus. This growth rate is based on current projections for the timing and execution of capital expenditure plans and data center load. We will continue to assess our long-term earnings growth potential as we execute on our data center expansion and capital expenditure plans.

Turning to financing. As shown on Slide 8, our 2026 debt financing plans include up to $1.2 billion of long-term issuances, consisting of up to $400 million at the parent Alliant Energy Finance, up to $300 million at WPL and up to $500 million at IPL. With our strong liquidity position, we are well positioned to address upcoming parent-level maturities in March 2026. And we have already retired our $300 million term loan with a new term loan expected in the first quarter.

As a reminder, our 4-year capital plan is funded through a balanced mix of cash from operations, including proceeds from ongoing tax credit monetization and new financings, including debt, hybrid instruments and common equity. Of the approximately $2.4 billion of expected common equity needs over the 4-year period, we have already raised approximately $1 billion through forward equity agreements. This leaves approximately $1.3 billion of remaining equity to be raised through 2029, excluding equity expected to be raised under our shareholder direct plan. Overall, our financing plan provides flexibility to support efficient execution of our strategy.

Turning to our regulatory matters. We achieved several constructive regulatory decisions throughout the year as listed on Slide 10. Our 2026 regulatory agenda remains closely aligned with our capital investment plans as we have no active rate reviews planned in 2026, reducing regulatory uncertainty. In Iowa, the Iowa Utility Commission recently approved certificates of public convenience and necessity for two generation facilities. A 720-megawatt natural gas facility using simple-cycle combustion turbines in Marshall County, Iowa, referred to as the Bobcat Energy Center; and a 94-megawatt natural gas price unit in Burlington, Iowa.

We are also awaiting an IUC decision on the settlement for advanced remaking principles for up to 1 gigawatt of new wind generation, which we expect to allow customers to avoid significant fuel costs and generate tax credits while supporting investment in cost-effective, responsible energy resources. We anticipate a decision in this proceeding during the first half of 2026.

In Wisconsin, we currently have 5 active dockets, including 3 requests for pre-approval of customer-focused investments. These include our first-ever liquefied natural gas storage facility to add physical gas capacity and enhance winter reliability and request to add approximately 430 megawatts of new wind generation to deliver 0 fuel cost energy and tax credit for our customers. We expect decisions on these matters over the next 12 months.

We are also awaiting a decision from the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin on the individual customer rate filing associated with the meta data center in Beaver Day and Wisconsin. Earlier this month, interveners submitted testimony that was generally supportive while offering proposals for additional company and existing customer protections. We are expecting a decision on this docket in the second quarter. Looking ahead, we expect to make additional filings throughout the year to support planned customer investments. In addition, we anticipate filing a new individual customer rate application with the Iowa Utility Commission related to the relocated QTS data center in the first half of 2026.

I will now turn the call back over to Lisa to provide closing remarks.

Thank you, Robert. Delivering consistency and financial performance year after year, growing at the pace of the people and places we serve is the Alliant Energy advantage that sets us apart. Our proactive approach and commitment to economic development is a strength as we continue to serve the needs of our communities. By pursuing win-win solutions, we're driving affordability, fueling growth and creating lasting shareowner value.

In closing, thank you for your continued support and engagement with Alliant Energy. We look forward to connecting with many of you at upcoming investor conferences.

I will now turn the call back to the operator to open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] First, we will hear from Shahriar Pourreza at Wells Fargo.

So just firstly, on the 3 gigawatts of data centers you haven't planned, can you just remind us what's the minimum take agreements? And is that minimum is assumed in your current plan? So if we look at it this way, if these hyperscalers were to ramp faster and take on more power over time, would that sort of be accretive to your current planning assumptions?

Yes, that would absolutely be accretive to our planning assumptions.

Got it. Okay. Perfect. And then obviously, we're seeing a lot of noise in Wisconsin around sort of data center developments and moratoriums, et cetera. Just can you talk about how your conversations are going with the hyperscalers? And are you kind of now implementing somewhat stricter safeguard, so a situation like QTS doesn't happen again? Or has the conversations really shifted to more deals being done in Iowa versus Wisconsin between active in incremental deals, you guys have like 4 to 8 gigawatts out there?

Yes. No, great question. I mean we've always talked about the fact that the differences between Iowa and Wisconsin with respect to growth that Iowa does have some strategic advantages. As you may recall, we serve 75% of the communities in Iowa versus 40% of the communities in Wisconsin, there's a little bit more of an advantage in terms of access to transmission and a bit of a broader access to gas. So Iowa does have some strategic advantages. As it relates Wisconsin data center growth, we are committed to making sure that Wisconsin is open for all business, including data centers.

And I'll remind folks about some of the uniqueness associated with the QTS to forest opportunity. Is that required not only annexation but rezoning as well. So it was a higher bar there than we would traditionally have with this other sites.

Got it. So just maybe a follow-up to that. If more of the deals strategically, you're going to be shifted towards Iowa. Is there anything Robert wants to call out fundamentally that could be advantageous for us?

Yes. When I think about it, both jurisdictions have very strong regulatory environment. So I don't see a lot of difference between the two. We are fortunate that we've got a construct in Iowa right now that is very receptive to growth when you think about what we agreed to in the last rate case. We really have structured ourselves to be able to grow at the pace of our customers while achieving our authorized returns and maintaining base rates that are stable through the end of the decade at least, and we're trying to extend that over a longer period of time.

Next question will be from Nicholas Campanella at Barclays.

So just I wanted to ask on the QTS2, and it's good to see that this was shifted to a new site. Can you maybe just kind of talk about what is required there from a permitting zoning approval process? Anything that you really to kind of move forward with construction. I think you said in the prepared you're going to be making a para filing for that in the state soon, but just what's the path to construction?

Yes. Just as a point of clarity, it would be an ICR. We have the individual customer rate constructs that we use in both Wisconsin and Iowa. So we have been super pleased with our ability to pivot and quite frankly, pivot on a dime with respect to this. And I think this shows the strength of our team as well as the robustness of the opportunities that we have across our service territory. So we offered them opportunities basically in both states. If you think about it, it's got a similar demand, similar timing -- same demand, similar timing, similar ramp rates, and they have land control and it is zoned industrial.

Okay. And then just on the 2 to 4 gigs, is there anything else that you can kind of give us around your goals for timing when you could bring in another deal to the plan? I know you said that you'll announce them as they come. But is that something that you think you could see by the first half of this year? Or what would you say in terms of timing?

Yes. No, great question. And it's always very fluid. As we've mentioned, we've got 2 to 4 gigawatts in terms of active discussions. I'll give it to you in maybe a little bit of a breakdown which might be helpful. In essence, have 3 buckets. We've got expansion opportunities at existing sites. We have existing customers in new locations, and we have new customers in new locations. And I will remind folks that we have set ourselves up with a pretty high bar with respect to making sure that -- we've got high-quality ESAs. And then with those ESAs, there's a very high degree of success off of it. First and foremost, we make sure that we've got a very clean understanding of the timing of the project, the peak load, the load ramp. In doing so, we're also identifying the generation investments that would be needed we make sure we've got comprehensive transmission studies so that they can understand what the cost of the interconnection is as well as land control, and we do think that, that land control element is particularly important in these situations. As you all know, we have been talking about growing at the pace of our customers and communities and really in our strategy trying to make sure that we are first movers, and we feel that, that combination gives very high-quality ESAs for our investors to count on for growth.

Next question will be from Paul Zimbardo at Jefferies.

And just to continue the comment theme a little bit. You mentioned the land control on the 2 to 4 gigawatts. Does that include kind of industrial and the appropriate zoning and annexation. Just any color you could provide there would be helpful.

Yes. So we can certainly provide color to all of the folks who are out there and all of the land. But what we can say is that certainly for land that we own, and we own a amount of land. This has been part of our economic development strategy for the past couple of years. And in doing so, all of that land is owned industrial, if that's helpful.

That is helpful. And then just turning to 2026. I see you're assuming about 1% retail sales growth, which sounds like it's consistent with what you experienced in 2025. I don't know if you think that's a fairly conservative assumption just as the data centers start to ramp or there's other dynamics at play there.

No, yes, I think it's fairly consistent. We are expecting to see some level of data center load start in the second half of 2026. But really think about most of the load coming in for the data centers in 2017 and beyond, and that's when you'll see the much higher growth rates that we're expecting in our plan.

Next question will be from Paul Fremont at Ladenburg.

Congratulations on the shift in QTS. Does the shift in renewables in your CapEx from the gas generation supply, is that the expected supply for QTS? Or is there something else that's...

plant within the planned time horizon, but we've shifted that out beyond the planned horizon, really in favor of trying to get to simple cycle facilities quicker because we know the capacity is important for our customers to be able to get them online quicker. So I'd still say that combined cycle is an opportunity for us, and really upside opportunity to us when you think of beyond the planning horizon of 2026 through 2029.

One thing that I would add is just a reminder of the fact that from a -- we don't have an IRP process, a litigated IRP process. So that allows us to be in terms of our resource planning and to be able to pivot as we identify other projects that we can get into service fairly quickly to grow at that pace of our customers. It is speed to market, which is what we are acutely focused on and one of the advantages, I think, that we have with respect to attracting these large loads.

Great. And when -- I guess, when I look at some of your peers in base growth, you're -- many of those peers that are at very high levels of rate base growth have somewhat more robust EPS growth rates. Is there something we should think of that's sort of holding you at lower levels.

Paul, I'd say we're probably pretty consistent with most others when it comes to the level of dilution we're going to see from the equity that we need to be able to finance this rate base growth, maybe something that's a little bit different from us is we do have some current level debt that we're going to need to refinance in the current debt at pretty low interest rates. And so we've built in.

Next question will be from Andrew Weisel at Scotiabank.

I want to echo the kudos on the change there, like you said, nice to see you pivot on a dime as you called it. [Audio Gap] remind me or help me understand what do you mean by what's in the plan? Specifically, does that cover everything related to the 3 gigawatts for the 4 projects that have -- Would that cover some of the 2 to 4 gigawatts of upside? Just how are you thinking about serving all of those needs or potential needs from a generation perspective? I know you alluded to that a little bit in the last question, but maybe you can get a little more specific, please.

No, that's fine. With respect to the 3 gigawatts, that is all in the plan. And as we look towards the 2 to 4 gigawatts a that we're in active negotiations on. We're also working on the generation side, and I'll just point folks to a recent RFP that we had issued here in '25. So we are [Audio Gap] continuing to pair low growth with generation.

Okay. So the comments refer to the 3 gig, but not the 2 to 4, is that right?

Correct.

Okay. Got it. And then in terms of moving the CapEx around, I know you talked about moving generation from Wisconsin to Iowa related to the QTS relocating, looks like some of the timing change as well, some spending moved up from '27 to '26 and then a little bit got pushed back from '28 to '29. Is that just fine-tuning? Or was that related to [Audio Gap]

We continue to work through completing all of the contracts and stuff for the capital expenditure planning. So I wouldn't read anything more to just more refinement than anything. .

Okay. Very good. And then maybe this is just kind of a nitpicky one. But just to clarify, the 50% increase in projected demand, that stat is not a change. But it looks like the best did change. Now you're saying off of 2025 base of 5.5 gigs. Previously, it showed off of a 2024 base of 6 gigs. So it looks like -- and now you're saying by 2031 versus by 2030 previously. Just trying to understand, are you now saying it's going to be a little later and a little smaller? Is that meant to be a change in the messaging of future demand? Or how should we think about that?

I would think of most of those numbers are just refinements and rounding issues more than anything. There is some as we think about this relocation of QTS from Wisconsin, Iowa. There's a little bit of a delay in the ramp as you can imagine, because we're starting out a little bit later with the development activities, but it's less than a year. And so again, we're just probably getting a little more fine-tuned on the numbers and the dates, but I wouldn't read anything more into that than that.

[Operator Instructions] Next will be Rinny Singh at Bank of America.

Just a quick question on the So with heading into those races in Wisconsin the incumbents are running I guess how are you thinking about like regulatory continuity and potential policy shifts like basically around generation planning and large loads?

Great question. And this is fundamental to our philosophy of making sure that -- you've heard us talk about Rubik's cube. We're solving for reliability, resiliency, growth and affordability. That is core to everything that we do. We actually posted recently this week on our website to ensure that there was clarity in terms of our philosophy, our commitment to our customers, which is -- they will not be paying for this data center growth. They will be benefiting from this data center growth. So we're really trying to make sure that, that message is Obviously, we have in both states, governors who have elected not to run for reelection. In Iowa, the primaries are coming up fairly soon in the June 2 time frame. -- got 5 Republicans running, 3 Democrats in Wisconsin. It's very early days. August, I think, 11. It is that the primaries are set for. There's 2 Republicans and 9 Democrats really in that race. And we expect the races to very much be focused on health care, housing costs, potentially energy costs and so forth. But that's why how we're navigating this growth is so critical. And we've certainly had the support of the Public Utilities Commission as it relates to our approach. And again, as a reminder, with the individual customer rate contract that we submit to the commissions, it really gives commissions that opportunity to truly understand the details of it to make sure that all customers are benefiting make sure that they've got that opportunity for oversight on an individual basis, and we think that that's a strength as well.

That makes sense. And then just secondly, keeping one thing with the data centers. Do you like -- in Wisconsin, do you kind of view it as the challenges being tied to local or talent ship concerns? Or is it kind of more broadly based in Wisconsin? I know Iowa has a strategic advantages. But do you think, like, for example, at the ICR, there's more need to provide more disclosures on this content? Or is this kind of to ship level?

Truly township level is how we're viewing it. And again, just as a reminder, that the forest community is just outside of Madison, very close to Madison and it did require anestation and rezoning -- it certainly was a lift for the community. Governor Evers in his state of the state address was extremely supportive of data centers and highlighted the importance of data centers or the growth of the state making sure that we continue to be a bit of a tech hub and so forth. And that is very much in line with how we're seeing it. So this is just a local issue in our mind.

There are no further questions at this time.

With no more questions, this concludes our call. A replay will be available on our investor website. We thank you for your continued support of Alliant Energy, and feel free to contact me with any follow-up questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending. And at this time, we do ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have a good weekend.

Thank you for holding, and welcome to Alliant Energy's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference call is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Susan Gille, Investor Relations Manager at Alliant Energy. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I would like to thank all of you on the call and the webcast for joining us today. We appreciate your participation.

With me here today are Lisa Barton, President and CEO; and Robert Durian, Executive Vice President and CFO. Following prepared remarks by Lisa and Robert, we will have time to take questions from the investment community.

We issued a news release last night announcing Alliant Energy's third quarter and year-to-date financial results. We narrowed our 2025 earnings guidance range, provided 2026 earnings and dividend guidance and provided our updated capital expenditure and financing plans through 2029. This release as well as the earnings presentation will be referenced during today's call and are available on the Investor page of our website at www.alliantenergy.com.

Before we begin, I need to remind you that the remarks we make on this call and our answers to your questions include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different. Those risks include, among others, matters discussed in Alliant Energy's news release issued last night and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

In addition, this presentation contains references to ongoing earnings per share, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. References to ongoing earnings include material charges or income that are not normally associated with ongoing operations. The reconciliation between ongoing and GAAP measures is provided in the earnings release, which is available on our website.

At this point, I'll turn the call over to Lisa.

Thank you, Sue. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our third quarter earnings call.

Today, we're pleased to share our Q3 and year-to-date results, another quarter and year where we delivered solid financial and operational performance. We will also share the outlook for the remainder of this year, update you on our strategic initiatives, including our capital expenditures, financing plans through 2029 and discuss how we're positioned to accelerate and extend our earnings expectations.

We are well positioned because of the Alliant Energy Advantage and the realization of additional near-term low growth opportunities from data centers. We are continuing our consistent track record of execution and financial performance. Our performance is driven by our customer-focused investments and supportive regulatory environments, a winning strategy for driving continued growth, while prioritizing affordability and reliable service.

Our focus on customers and building stronger communities is at the heart of everything we do. With our compelling large load opportunities and diverse capital investment plans, we are well positioned to continue meeting customer, community and investor expectations.

We will cover each of these advantages today, as shown on Slide 3, as they power Alliant's future. To start, I am pleased to share updates for the quarter. Our projected peak demand growth by 2030 has increased to an industry-leading 50% through the execution of a fourth electric service agreement with QTS Madison. We signed a new agreement with Google that further accelerates the load ramp in Cedar Rapids, and we continue to cultivate an active pipeline of additional opportunities.

Our focus has been on prioritizing plug-in-ready sites, which minimize transmission investments and accelerates our ability to serve new customers. As a result, we can deliver project certainty, near-term earnings and near-term positive community and customer benefits.

Concurrently, we continue to execute well against our capital plans. We completed construction of the Grant and Wood County energy storage projects totaling 175 megawatts and completed the Neenah and Sheboygan Falls Unit 1 advanced gas path projects, which increases the efficiency and capability of each of these Wisconsin facilities.

These load growth opportunities and continued investments in our existing generation show how we're continuing to efficiently grow at the pace of our customers to foster economic developments across our service territory.

Next, our financial highlights. We delivered strong performance through the first 3 quarters. We are maintaining our midpoint and narrowing our 2025 ongoing earnings guidance range to $3.17 to $3.23 per share, as shown on Slide 5, and we are trending towards the upper half of this range.

As shown on Slide 6, we are initiating 2026 earnings guidance of $3.36 to $3.46 per share, which represents a 6.6% increase over our 2025 midpoint. Our 2026 annual common stock dividend target is $2.14 per share, a 5.4% increase from the 2025 target of $2.03 per share. And we're increasing our 4-year capital expenditure plan by 17% to $13.4 billion. This translates to a projected rate base and investment compound annual growth rate of 12% from 2025 to 2029.

We expect our compound annual growth rate across 2027 to 2029 to be 7% plus. This is based on the planned growth in rate base and the expected data center revenues during that period. We will continue to assess our long-term earnings growth potential as we execute on our data center expansion and load growth plans.

As shown on Slide 9, construction is well underway on 3 of the 4 data centers under agreement, 2 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and 1 in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. This progress clearly demonstrates that we are focused on meaningful near-term opportunities, each of which serves to unlock the potential of our customers and communities. The contracted demand from the 4 facilities totals 3 gigawatts, translating to 50% peak demand growth by 2030.

Accordingly, we've updated our 4-year capital plan, and we will invest $9 billion in both new and existing generation, complementing investments we are making in electric gas and technology enhancements.

Looking beyond the plan, we have a solid outlook of investment opportunities that extend our growth potential. Investment upside would be driven by additional load growth beyond what is included in the base plan.

We are focused on enabling real near-term growth, attracting high-impact projects to accelerate economic development as part of our commitment to Iowa and Wisconsin, and providing investors with a clear view of well-developed opportunities.

As we continue to expand our pipeline, we remain committed to proactive community and stakeholder engagement, positioning Alliant Energy and the communities we serve for growth.

Advancing win-win outcomes that maintain affordable service for customers and communities ensures Alliant continues to deliver value while unlocking the potential of our customers and communities.

To share a few examples of win-win outcomes. First, the Iowa retail construct stabilizes electric base rates for customers through the end of the decade, serving as a perfect example of a win for our existing customers through stable rates.

Second, we executed an agreement to enable fiber connectivity to one of our data center customers by leasing our underground conduit in our service territories, which provides substantial financial benefits to our existing customers.

And third, last week, QTS advanced its Wisconsin data center plans with meaningful community contributions, full funding of all infrastructure and the purchase of renewable energy credits from new projects, reducing costs and creating value for all WPL customers.

Support from our regulators has been key to moving our plans forward. The Iowa Utilities Commission approved the individual customer rates for our 2 data centers currently under construction in Cedar Rapids. Through these filings, we've demonstrated that our approach effectively protects existing customers, while allowing them to benefit from additional growth.

And yesterday, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin approved our unanimous retail electric and gas rate review settlement for forward test periods 2026 and 2027. This rate review cost effectively advances responsible energy solutions, strengthens the safety and resilience of our energy network and expands options available to customers.

Our strategy is rooted in being a trusted partner in delivering outcomes, customers and regulators seek with a strong focus on customer value and forward-looking investments. We are well positioned to provide competitive rates for both new and existing customers over the long-term as a result of our economic development success and our continued focus on cost controls.

The Alliant Energy Advantage is an acute focus on driving near-term growth, making smart investments to serve that growth while keeping bills low and benefiting new and existing customers. In short, being plug-and-ready enables stronger alignment between our revenue growth and capital investments.

I will now turn the call over to Robert to provide our financial results, earnings and dividend guidance, financing plans and an update on our regulatory matters.

Thank you, Lisa. Good morning, everyone. Yesterday, we announced third quarter and year-to-date ongoing earnings. With third quarter ongoing earnings of $1.12 per share, we have realized over 80% of the midpoint of our 2025 earnings guidance.

As shown on Slide 5, our ongoing earnings change year-over-year was primarily due to higher revenue requirements from capital investments at our Iowa and Wisconsin utilities and the positive impacts of temperatures on electric and gas sales.

These positive drivers were partially offset by higher operations and maintenance expenses, driven by increased generation costs from planned maintenance activities and the addition of new energy resources as well as higher generation development costs to support long-term growth. Additionally, higher depreciation and financing expenses contributed to earnings fluctuations.

Through September of this year, net temperatures positively impacted electric and gas margins by approximately $0.02 per share. In comparison, net temperatures negatively impacted electric and gas margins for the first 3 quarters of 2024 by $0.10 per share.

Margins from our temperature-normalized electric sales have also been better than planned with higher-than-expected sales to commercial and industrial customers in both states. Electric margin comparisons to last year have experienced timing differences through the first 3 quarters of this year as a result of the new rates implemented in Iowa in the fourth quarter of 2024.

The new seasonal rates are flatter, resulting in a less pronounced increase in summer rates, which has distributed earnings more evenly throughout 2025, resulting in quarterly timing differences from last year's margins, but no material impact on full year results.

Turning to our full year 2025 earnings forecast. As a result of our solid earnings through September and our projected fourth quarter results, assuming normal weather, we have narrowed our 2025 earnings guidance and are trending within the upper half of the $3.17 per share to $3.23 per share updated range.

As Lisa mentioned, we also announced our projected 2026 earnings guidance range and dividend target. We are expecting to continue delivering an attractive total return to our investors through a combination of earnings growth and dividend yield.

The 2026 earnings growth represents a 6.6% increase from our 2025 guidance midpoint, which is higher than our typical 6% forecasted growth. And our 2026 annual common stock dividend target is $2.14 per share, a 5.4% increase from 2025. We are moderating the pace of expected dividend growth to efficiently fund our increased capital expenditure plan. We will continue to target a dividend payout range of 60% to 70%, but expect to be in the lower end of the range during the period of our plan with higher investment opportunities.

As shown on Slides 11 and 12, we have updated the capital expenditure plan, which strengthens the diversity of our resources. We are investing in natural gas generation and energy storage projects to meet the capacity requirements of our growing customer demand. We are also making improvements in our existing fleet to enhance the capacity and energy output of those resources. And we continue to invest in our renewable portfolio by adding new wind and repowering existing wind sites.

We have proactively safe harbored our energy storage and wind projects in our plan in order to preserve tax benefits for our customers, making these projects more cost effective, providing lower fuel costs and delivering greater affordability for our customers. With our refreshed investment plan, we now have a compounded annual growth rate of 12% for rate base plus construction work in progress, reinforcing our confidence in meeting our long-term growth objectives.

Moving to our financing plans. In the third quarter, we successfully refinanced $300 million of debt issuances at IPO and issued $725 million of our first junior subordinated notes at our parent company. We plan to use the proceeds from the junior subordinated note issuance to retire maturing debt in March 2026. The equity content of this debt issuance is expected to assist us in maintaining cushion in our FFO to debt metrics to retain our current credit rating.

As we look to future financings and with the increase in our capital expenditure plan, we provided an updated financing plan through 2029 on Slide 13. Of note, our capital expenditures will primarily be financed with a combination of cash from operations, including proceeds expected from the continuation of our tax credit monetization and new debt, hybrid and common equity issuances to maintain authorized regulatory capital structures and a desired consolidated capital structure of approximately 40% to 45% after factoring in the equity component of hybrid instruments.

We have significant growth opportunities. The $2.4 billion of new common equity included in our current financing plan for 2026 through 2029 will primarily be used to invest in the resources needed to supply our customers' growing energy needs. We believe the equity is manageable over the 4-year planning period and are anticipating settling the planned equity issuances ratably over that period of time.

We plan to continue derisking our planned equity issuances on a forward basis, utilizing the ATM, while also being opportunistic with favorable market conditions.

Of the $2.4 billion of new common equity, we have raised our planned 2026 amounts already through forward agreements. And therefore, we have only $1.6 billion of remaining equity to be raised over the next 4 years, excluding equity expected to be raised under our Shareowner Direct Plan.

As shown on Slide 14, our 2026 debt financing plans include up to $1.1 billion of long-term debt issuances, including up to $300 million at Alliant Energy Finance or parent, up to $300 million at WPL and up to $500 million at IPL.

Finally, I'll update you on our regulatory initiatives included on Slide 16 and 17 as well as those filings planned for the future. In Wisconsin, we have 4 active dockets currently in progress, 3 of which involve requests for preapproval of customer-focused investments.

First, a request for investments to refurbish the Forward wind farm, targeting additional production tax credits from the project for the benefit of our customers. Second, a request for investments in a liquefied natural gas storage facility, our first ever, to add firm natural gas capacity. This will ensure we can reliably meet current and anticipated gas supply needs, while maintaining an adequate reserve margin during Wisconsin's coldest winter days.

And third, a request for investments to expand the Bent Tree Wind Farm, adding over 150 megawatts of new wind to provide more 0 fuel cost energy and additional tax benefits for our customers.

We are also awaiting the PSCW's decision on the individual customer rate filing for our Beaver Dam data center. In Iowa, we have 3 active dockets in progress. We have requested advanced remaking principles for up to 1-gigawatt of wind, which has the potential for customers to avoid significant fuel costs, while investing in cost-effective and responsible energy resources.

And we requested 2 certificates of public convenience, use and necessity, one for 720 megawatts of natural gas-fired simple cycle combustion turbines, which will be located in Marshall County, Iowa; and a second for a 94-megawatt natural gas RICE unit in Burlington, Iowa. We expect decisions from the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin and the Iowa Utilities Commission on these dockets in 2026.

Turning to our planned regulatory filings in the future. We expect to file our individual customer rate tariff for QTS Madison later this month. And in conjunction with our updated capital expenditure plan, we also expect to make future regulatory filings in both Iowa and Wisconsin for additional renewables and dispatchable resources to enhance reliability, continue to diversify our energy resources and meet growing customer energy needs.

I'll now turn the call back over to Lisa to provide closing remarks.

Thank you, Robert. In conclusion, we're excited about our year-to-date performance and the growth opportunities in front of us at Alliant Energy. What sets us apart? Unlocking the potential of our customers and communities is at the center of our strategy. By pursuing win-win solutions and focusing on near-term opportunities, we're driving affordability, fueling growth and creating lasting shareholder value.

Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to speaking with many of you at the EEI Financial Conference and plan to post updated materials on our website later today.

At this time, I'll turn the call back over to the operator to facilitate the question-and-answer session.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Bill Appicelli with UBS.

Just a question around -- the color, if you could provide on the ramp on the demand, right, around what that could mean for the trajectory of earnings above that 7% as the load starts to come on to the system?

Yes. Great question. So the way to think about the 7-plus is that it would be at least 7% to 8%, and this is before upside to the plan. And as a reminder, this is all known projects and so forth. One of the things to keep in mind in terms of that time frame, and we've talked about this being our desire to create cascading ways of growth. And as such, timing is important. So there's some lumpiness. When you think about the 50% load growth, that's really significant. So timing is something that we'll certainly be watching on a going-forward basis.

Okay. So the 12% rate base growth. So when we just think about backing off of that, it's really the equity dilution. Is there anything else to think about when you walk that back to earnings growth?

Yes. Great question, Bill. I think of the 12% is a combination of both rate base growth plus QIP growth. So roughly about 10% rate base growth, but also about 2% of QIP growth over that time period. Given the volume of capital expenditures we've got in our plan, the QIP balances are going to increase pretty significantly.

But to your specific question as far as the walk between the 12%, the combination of those 2 and what we're signaling here for at least 7% to 8%, most of that is related to the equity dilution. We've also got what I would characterize as a conservative set of financial assumptions when it comes to interest rates. And then there might be what I would characterize some small regulatory lag, but it's pretty modest. So it's primarily the equity dilution and just kind of probably more our conservative nature with some of the interest rate assumptions.

Okay. And then just one follow-up there. Specific to Iowa because of the uniqueness of that regulatory framework. I mean, what are the assumptions here in terms of earned returns? Is it just at your authorized across the plan? There is some optionality for you to the upside to retain some of those benefits if you can outperform, right?

That is correct, Bill. Yes, think of the State of Iowa right now, we've got the electric side of the business that does have a new regulatory construct that was put into effect last year that does provide us a lot of certainty of our ability to be able to earn our authorized return and does have some upside opportunity for us. If we go beyond our authorized return, we share those benefits with our customers. Right now, we've just assumed that we're going to earn our authorized return.

And then on the gas side, it doesn't have that similar construct. We will have to go in for future rate cases to be able to minimize the regulatory lag there, and we'll time those based on future capital projects to ensure that we can get as close as possible to earning that authorized return.

The next question comes from Nicholas Campanella with Barclays.

Maybe just your kind of calling out that it seems that this 7-plus is pretty conservative. You're in active negotiations for the 2 to 4 gigawatts of additional load. Can you just give a little bit more color on what stages of those incremental opportunities are, and what your line of sight is to maybe have another kind of signed load contract in 2026?

Yes. No, great question. So yes, I'm going to go back to last year. When we talked at EEI last year, we announced a gigawatt, Q1, 2.1 gigawatts. And today, we're at 3 gigawatts. We have been very focused on making sure that there are near-term opportunities that they are less transmission dependent. And we're also having a very high bar in terms of what we're sharing with you all.

So these are ones that we are in active negotiations on. These are ones where we have our transmission interconnection studies done and so forth. And so this is something to very closely watch over the next 12 months and some of which, of course, will be sooner. We will -- we are committed as we have in the past to continuing to give you a very clear line of sight and to avoid speculation on all of these.

And then just so I'm kind of understanding it correctly, that would then kind of put this growth rate above 8%. Is that the right way to think about it?

It would be above that, yes, above that 5% to 7% that we talked about. So this is all great upside to our plan.

Maybe I could also just ask, thank you so much for the financing commentary. What is your FFO to debt going to be at the end of '25? Where do you kind of see it through '26? And then also just you have $300 million of tax credits through '26. Does that continue at that level through 2030? And just understanding if you have to eventually replace that cash flow down the line?

Great question, Nick. So yes, if you think about our FFO to debt metrics, throughout the planning period, we're really targeting to try and have roughly about 50 to 100 basis points of cushion. And really, that's going to let us further grow into the plan. When you think about the 2 to 4 gigawatts that Lisa indicated, we want to make sure we've got strong balance sheets to be able to grow into that at even higher levels than we've got kind of currently indicated with the 7% to 8% plus.

So -- and as we think about the tax credits, there's roughly about, I want to say, $1.5 billion, $1.6 billion in the plan over the next 4 years. We've had a lot of strong interest from counterparties to be able to buy those credits and have a lot of confidence in being able to execute those as far as generating the credits and then turning those into cash. And so I feel really good about the plan with all of those aspects.

One more, if I could. Just the 12% load growth CAGR is large. And I understand the timing of how you get above this 7% plus could also be related to just the load ramping. So just what's the starting point that's embedded in '26, so we have a base to work off of?

It's actually pretty modest in 2026. We do start to see some of the data centers taking more what we call production load instead of construction load in the second half, mainly in the fourth quarter of 2026. And you'll see that continue to ramp through 2020 -- sorry, 2030 is when we expect to be at that full level of the 3 gigawatts of max contract demand that we have in our plan right now.

All right. Looking forward to seeing you guys soon.

The next question comes from Julien Dumoulin with Jefferies.

Just a follow-up on the 2 to 4 gigs in the pipeline here. Previously, you've identified something like 1.5 gigawatts of mature opportunities with a high probability of conversion, maybe 85%. Taking out QTS Madison, there's something like 600 to 800 megawatts theoretically still in that bucket, perhaps more.

But how would you characterize the probability of conversion over time for the remaining 3 to 3.5 gigs there? And then -- and maybe how fragmented is this pipeline? Is the demand dispersed across Iowa and Wisconsin evenly? Just any commentary you have there.

Yes, I appreciate that. So everything that we had in the 1.5 that I'll call it the blue zone from previous decks means still an incredibly high level of confidence in that. Quite frankly, we've got a high level of confidence in all of this.

And think about -- this is how I think about it. You look at Iowa. We serve 75% of the communities in Iowa. We serve 40% of the communities in Wisconsin. If you're a data center, what do you need? You need fiber, you need land, you need transmission, you need a utility that's willing to work with you and that is well positioned to be able to deliver on its commitments.

And that's where I think when you think about the Alliant Energy Advantage where we hit it out of the park, we are in rural Iowa and rural Wisconsin, surrounded by transmission. We've been focusing these data centers and continue to focus this 2 to 4 gigawatts on those locations where they don't have to wait for a 100-mile transmission line or anything else. We're really trying to make sure that we can bring this load in sooner and faster.

So that gives us a lot of confidence in being able to price appropriately and why we're just so excited about our ability to unlock the potential of our customers and communities. And not only that, we're in MISO. And MISO is acutely focused on making sure it's got robust transmission planning, that it's got an interconnection process, both for new generation as well as for loads that allows us to grow at this very active pace. Last thing I'll mention is we've got really constructive states between Wisconsin and Iowa.

Right now, it's -- Iowa is very well positioned. As is Wisconsin, I think you'll see more of the data centers gravitating a little bit more towards Iowa, and that's just simply because we've got a lot of sites there. Remember, we've invested heavily over the years in land, and we've been able to have that as an attractive source for folks. But we're confident in the fact that in both jurisdictions, the significance of this load growth is really going to be driving affordability for all customers.

And I think that, that's another key differentiator for us. And that allows us to be very well positioned from a regulatory standpoint. Regulators, as we mentioned earlier in my comments, are at the key -- they're just a key gating item for the entire sector. And our performance here that you've seen with the approvals of the ICRs and the approvals that you're seeing with the generation projects and the approval of the rate settlement, the unanimous rate settlement, it really just tells you that we've got the wind at our back when it comes to making sure that we're aligned with what our regulators care about. That's what you have to solve for in this space.

Yes, absolutely. No, I mean, given your execution thus far and kind of the plan you've set out here, that 8% plus after 2027, it seems reasonably achievable here.

I kind of want to follow-up on that specifically, just as you mentioned in the slides that you have, as you integrate more load and growth into the plan, you could reassess guidance looking forward. Your current look-forward period, it coincides sort of with the end of the stay out in Iowa or there could be some uncertainty to the timing kind of as to whether you'd like to file then or how you'd like to approach the construct. But how should we think about rate case timing here?

The way you're going to look at the outer years of your plans, the growth rates you're willing to commit to, knowing that you have that regulatory further out, you might have regulatory uncertainty in the forward period. Just kind of going -- bringing that together with the idea that you've got this really visible above-average growth plan that you could potentially attain with upside here. How should we think about all these factors in the outer years?

So let's start with Wisconsin. Wisconsin, we've got forward-looking test years every 2 years. That positions us very well to have that clean line of sight on what we need from a generation investment standpoint, really ensuring that we're able to minimize lag.

As you recall, in Iowa, we did not have that. And the introduction of the individual customer rate in combination with the structure that we have really allows us to make sure we're able to earn our authorized every year and be able to grow at the pace of our customers.

So in terms of how we're thinking of that over the period, I'm just going to point back to how successful MidAm has been. And over the past 10 years, they have not gone in for a rate review because of this construct. So that is why we are doubling down on our focus on making sure that we're unlocking the potential of our customers and communities.

Rural Iowa, which is what we serve at 75%, they want to grow. They want data centers. They want to grow. This allows the property base to go up as well as driving costs down for customers. So we're going to continue to focus on that. Ideally, we wouldn't have to go in for another rate review. So I don't know, Robert, any additional commentary you'd like to provide?

Yes, we feel confident about the future of the plan. We only went through 2029 just because that's our standard process of just adding another year to the previous year, but don't read into that, that we have any concerns about beyond 2029. With all the growth that we see in front of us, we've got a really strong plan and feel like that's going to go well beyond 2029.

Understood. So with the certainty you kind of have here in the construct, are you confident that there's a possibility here post '27 into the '28 time frame, you could be considering an 8% plus EPS guide? Is there further upside to the upside you've said here?

You really want to look at what's coming online from a data center standpoint. Everything is timing related. If we can get data centers to be coming online sooner, that's certainly good. We have transmission investments that both ATC and ITC are making. They're relatively minimal in the scheme of things, but a lot of that is going to be associated with timing.

And I think a really good indicator is what we announced with Google. And Google is working with us to accelerate that load ramp. So those are all the kinds of things to be watching for. And as we mentioned earlier, we're going to be very transparent. We're not going to throw a bunch of speculation at you. We're going to give you that clean line of sight. So that should -- I'm hoping that will be very helpful to you all.

The next question comes from Aditya Gandhi with Wolfe Research.

Just on your 7% to 8% plus commentary, what should we think of as the base for that 7% to 8%? Is that the midpoint of 2026 guidance for now? Is that a good way to think about it?

It is.

Okay. Great. And then on the 2 to 4 gigawatts of negotiations that you're having, can you give some more color on whether these are expansions of existing facilities or customers you've contracted with? Or are they new customers? And then just how should we think about the cadence of updates going forward? Will you just update your plan in Q3 next year? Or could we see an update potentially before that like you did in Q1 of this year?

Yes. I would think of the 2 to 4 gigawatts is a combination of expansions of existing sites as well as, as Lisa indicated, we have a lot of additional sites across our service territory that have transmission capabilities, land availability that we think are going to be great spots for new data centers. So it's a combination of those 2.

When I think about the counterparties to these, these are all very high-quality hyperscalers or colocators. And so that's what really gives us a lot of confidence in being able to get these to the finish line because we know they're motivated customers with a lot of financial wherewithal to be able to kind of get us to the finish line on these.

And as far as the timing goes, I would say in the next 12 months, we'll probably have a lot more clarity within the 2 to 4 gigawatts. And as Lisa indicated, every quarter, we'll give updates as far as the status of those. And if we make progress within the next 3 to 6 months, we'll obviously share with you information on the quarterly call.

Great. And just one more, if I may. Could you give us some more color on sort of the agreement that you signed with Google to accelerate the load ramp there? Can you just remind us what the load ramp looked like earlier and what it's looking like right now as you're trying to accelerate it?

Yes. I think of that as of the 3 gigawatts, it's about 300 megawatts in total. And yes, they were interested in just going faster. I'll go back to my earlier comments. You'll see some of that starting to come in, in the second half of 2026, and then just going to ramp quicker than we originally anticipated. So you'll see more load in '27 and '28 than we originally expected. But that's built into our base model right now and included in the plan.

Understood.

3 of the 4 projects are under active construction. So it's an amazing thing to watch how quickly these folks grow.

Ms. Gille, there are no further questions at this time.

No more questions. This concludes our call. A replay will be available on our investor website. We thank you for your continued support of Alliant Energy, and feel free to contact me with any follow-up questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.