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American Electric Power (AEP) is one of the largest investor-owned electric utility holding companies in the U.S., engaged in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity for retail and wholesale customers through multiple operating segments. The company operates an extensive infrastructure, including approximately 225,000 circuit miles of distribution lines and 40,000 miles of transmission lines, and maintains a diverse generation portfolio spanning coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydropower, solar, wind, and battery storage. AEP is executing a five-year, $54 billion capital investment plan focused on expanding and modernizing the power grid, supporting over 20 gigawatts of new power demand expected by the end of the decade.

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American Electric Power (AEP): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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American Electric Power

american electric power

Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Lacey, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the American Electric Power second quarter 2026 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Andy Gurgol, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to American Electric Power's second quarter 2026 earnings call. A live webcast of this teleconference and slide presentation are available on our website under the Events and Presentation section. Joining me today are Bill Fehrman, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Trevor Mihalik, Chief Financial Officer. In addition, we have other members of our management team in the room, including Kate Dixon, Senior Vice President, Controller, and Chief Accounting Officer, and Darcy Reese, Vice President, Investor Relations. We will be making forward-looking statements during the call. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement we make today. Factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially are discussed in the company's most recent SEC filings. Please refer to the presentation slides that accompany this call for reconciliation to GAAP measures. We will take your questions following opening remarks.

Please start on slides four and five as I hand the call over to Bill.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter 2026 earnings call. As we close out the first half of 2026, in my first two years at AEP, I am very pleased with the progress we have made and the positive momentum we continue to build across the business. Four main themes are key to this progress, as shown on slide seven: enhancing our financial performance, driving affordability, capturing significant growth across our portfolio, and improving regulatory and operational outcomes. We are executing exceptionally well across each of these areas, strengthening our platform for outsized growth and long-term shareholder value creation. Turning to slide eight, I will start with our focus on enhancing AEP's financial performance. We delivered operating earnings of $1.36 per share or $742 million for the second quarter.

I recognize our operating earnings are below last year at this stage due to the 2025 transmission minority interest sell and timing-related tax items, I am highly confident in our business performance. Much so that we are raising our 2026 full year guidance to a range of $6.25-$6.55 per share from our previous range of $6.15-$6.45 per share. I also remain committed to supporting strong investment-grade credit metrics, including our targeted FFO to debt ratio of 14%-15% as we move through this incredible period of growth that's expected to last well into the next decade. Trevor will go into more detail around the financial performance later on in the call. AEP's size, scale, and attractive geographic footprint continue to provide differential advantages as we drive affordability, all while executing on our robust growth strategy.

As one of the largest utility holding companies in the country, we benefit from economies of scale that enhance our ability to procure, build, operate, and finance infrastructure in a highly efficient way. Combined with the tremendous strides we have made improving regulatory outcomes and cost recovery mechanisms, these advantages help us deliver safe, reliable, and affordable energy service for customers while generating increasing value for our shareholders. Over the past two years, we have seen significant customer demand across our footprint, and AEP's focus on execution positions us to be one of the best to capture that growth. Just during the second quarter, AEP contracted an additional six gigawatts of load, primarily driven by fully executed LOAs in Texas. Trevor will also provide more details on our incremental large load pipeline later on in the call.

To be clear, our future is extremely bright as it pertains to growth, exceptional counterparties, and incredibly supportive strategic partnerships that will allow us to deliver for our customers and our shareholders. As shared on our first quarter call, AEP's five-year capital plan from 2026 through 2030 is $78 billion, which is expected to result in nearly 11% rate base CAGR. To put this growth into perspective, AEP's five-year capital plan stood at just $38 billion only four years ago. This significant step change underscores the strength of our portfolio and differentiated organic growth seen across our expansive footprint. In summary, we intend to deliver, and our customers know it. That is why we have such a significant backlog of growth, which creates long-term upside for AEP over the next decade.

We also shared on the first quarter call that we have line of sight to over $10 billion of incremental investments that are not included in the $78 billion, consisting of the fuel cells for the Wyoming project, the Piketon transmission opportunity, and incremental power generation. We continue to work with the hyperscaler on the Wyoming fuel cell initiative and remain highly optimistic about the project's advancement. Based on a contractual June 30 deadline, we reached an amendment to the agreement with the offtaker, which modified some key protection terms so that AEP is adequately compensated for their requested timing accommodations.

Under the original December 2026 milestone, which remains intact, the hyperscaler has the ability to choose to deploy the fuel cells at an alternate location if the Cheyenne Wyoming site does not advance. If the December 2026 milestone is not met, or if there are additional requests to change the agreement terms, AEP retains financial protections for our shareholders. Separately, we continue to advance the Piketon transmission opportunity in Ohio and are working towards definitive agreements with the prospective offtaker, SP Energy. Following execution of definitive agreements, the projects would proceed through the required regulatory review and approval process. This project further highlights the strength of AEP's transmission franchise, and in particular, our industry-leading expertise in developing and operating 765 kV transmission infrastucture.

As we have discussed previously, AEP has taken a very proactive approach over the past two years to secure critical gas-fired turbine generators, leveraging our scale as one of the nation's largest owner-operators of electric generation, industry expertise, and long-standing supplier relationships. Just over this past quarter, we have secured an additional three gigawatts of turbines. This increases our total secured turbine capacity to approximately 13 GW for deployment through 2031. These strategic procurements position us to meet the growing energy needs of our customers while providing greater certainty around future resource deployment in AEP's footprint. When we introduce a new five-year plan for 2027 through 2031 during our third quarter earnings call, these generation investments are expected to be an important driver of our long-term growth outlook.

In addition, we are leveraging our sizable market position and strategic manufacturer relationships to secure up to 10 GW of incremental turbine capacity through 2035. This level of access to critical equipment underscores a key competitive advantage for AEP and enhances our ability to support customer growth, strengthen reliability, and create long-term value for shareholders. Regarding nuclear, we continue to advance an early-stage nuclear generation strategy. This is being driven by demand from potential customers who value alternative forms of long-term baseload generation to support their rapidly growing demand. While we want to be proactive and work with customers to jointly develop their projects on a fee-based arrangement that limits risk for AEP, we will remain highly disciplined to ensure that we are protecting our existing customers, shareholders, and balance sheet. Please turn to slide nine. Affordability remains a core tenet of our customer strategy.

As new large load comes online, it enables a shift of fixed costs currently borne by existing customers to new data centers and hyperscalers. As we noted on our first quarter call in May, we are projecting fixed cost offsets for residential customers of up to $16 billion in our vertically integrated utilities as a result of new large load interconnections that are supported by fully executed take-or-pay electric service agreements. The benefits of this changing customer mix are already being realized. Together with our disciplined focus on operational efficiency, these offsets have supported planned base rate reductions in select AEP operating companies. For example, an order has been received in Ohio, and Indiana Michigan Power plans to submit a base rate reduction filing later this summer, reinforcing our commitment to delivering safe, reliable, and affordable service while supporting economic growth.

We are also continuing to access sources of lower-cost capital, including federal grants and U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantees to further drive customer savings. Earlier this month, AEP Texas secured a DOE loan guarantee for up to $3.3 billion to finance a portfolio of transmission projects spanning approximately 2,800 mi, which is expected to deliver an estimated $685 million in customer savings over the life of the loan through lower financing costs. With this financing, AEP has now secured approximately $5 billion in DOE loans across our portfolio, supporting an expected $1 billion in projected customer savings. This, combined with almost $400 million in awarded DOE grants, are expected to deliver nearly $1.4 billion in estimated customer benefits over the life of the loans and grants. Turning to slide 10.

We continue to obtain constructive regulatory outcomes across our portfolio with notable progress achieved this past quarter, which should improve cost recovery and our earned ROEs over time. In Ohio, we secured commission approval of the distribution base case settlement, which includes an affordability measure featuring a base rate decrease driven by the timing of regulatory liabilities being passed back to customers. AEP Ohio also secured a 9.84% ROE, up from 9.7%. This, coupled with the forward-looking tester in the next rate case, will improve cost recovery and their earned ROE. In Texas, Southwestern Electric Power Company reached a base rate case settlement in principle with key stakeholders in late April, which positions us well to advance our growth plans and enhance safe, reliable, and affordable electric service for customers. In Oklahoma, Public Service Company of Oklahoma filed a base rate case settlement with several key interveners.

While the proposed authorized ROE decreases slightly from 9.5%-9.375%, the settlement includes an enhanced transmission cost rider, which we expect to result in a meaningful improvement in Public Service Company of Oklahoma's earned ROE. Public Service Company of Oklahoma also received a separate order in May approving its request to procure 1.3 GW of generation resources, supporting reliable and affordable service for our customers. Taken together, these outcomes support continued investment in Oklahoma while keeping customer affordability front and center. In Virginia, we completed a $1.4 billion securitization in May, enabling Appalachian Power to file its lowest increase in a base rate request in nearly 30 years, driving further customer affordability measures. Additionally, in June, we received approval in Virginia for our proposed large load tariff, bringing the total number of approved tariffs across the portfolio to five.

We have three additional filings pending for proposed large load tariffs, and our teams are working closely with key stakeholders to advance them through the approval process. Collectively, the constructive regulatory outcomes we have achieved this quarter and over the last couple of years reflect a more focused engagement strategy across our footprint by listening to what our customers, regulators, and states want. That approach is helping us achieve balanced outcomes that create value for our shareholders and certainly for our customers. In summary, AEP is entering the second half of the year with extremely strong momentum, building on the significant progress we have achieved since I joined two years ago. We are serving growing customer demand, investing in critical infrastructure, keeping affordability central to our approach, and maintaining the financial discipline needed to create long-term value for our customers and shareholders. Let me be very clear.

AEP now has significant management and leadership depth. Our board is highly supportive and with our new board additions, growing in their expertise that is directly tied to our long-term strategic plan. This team is second to none and well-suited to deliver this impressive plan that will drive significant long-term value for investors. Our future is all about growth well into the next decade. That is what is expected of me, and that is what I intend to deliver with this team. I will now turn the call over to Trevor, who will review our second quarter performance drivers and additional financial and business updates.

Thanks, Bill. I will begin with our financial results and then turn to load growth, the capital plan, and our financing strategy before I conclude with some final thoughts. Starting on Slide 12 of the presentation, as Bill mentioned, for the second quarter of 2026, AEP delivered operating earnings of $1.36 per share compared to $1.43 per share in the second quarter of 2025. At a high level, our second quarter results were primarily impacted by several timing-related items, most notably Transmission Holdco performance and income taxes. Transmission Holdco earnings reflect the impact of the 2025 minority interest sale, which closed in June of last year. While this timing affected year-over-year comparability in the second quarter, we expect Transmission Holdco earnings to provide a favorable year-over-year contribution by the end of 2026, driven by the continued investment in infrastructure.

The corporate and other segment includes some income tax timing items related to the consolidated impacts of the effective tax rate, which are expected to reverse by the end of the year. The same transmission sale and timing-related tax items are reflected in our year-to-date performance on Slide 13. Year-to-date operating earnings were $3.01 per share compared to $2.98 per share during the same period last year. Overall, our underlying results continue to demonstrate the strength of the business. Earnings benefited from constructive regulatory outcomes, higher normalized sales, and growth in transmission revenues. These drivers were partially offset by prior year's favorable weather and this year's increased O&M spend to enhance system reliability as we continue to execute on our commitment to provide safe and reliable service to our customers. As Bill discussed, we continue to make material progress across a number of regulatory proceedings throughout our footprint.

Our regulated earned ROE for the quarter was 9.2%, consistent with our forecasted expectations for the year-end 2026. Through continued execution of our regulatory strategy centered on customer affordability, along with structural rate-making improvements such as the UTM in Texas, SB 998 in Oklahoma, and a forward-looking test year in Ohio starting in 2028, we believe there is a strong path for regulated earned ROE to improve to 9.5% by 2030. The progress we are seeing across our regulatory initiatives, continued growth across our footprint, and strong execution year-to-date have increased our confidence in delivering strong 2026 financial performance. As a result, we raised our 2026 operating earnings guidance range to $6.25-$6.55 per share.

We're also reaffirming our annual operating earnings growth rate of 7%-9% and continue to expect an operating EPS CAGR of greater than 9% through 2030 based off of our 2025 guidance midpoint and supported by the $78 billion capital plan. Turning to Slide 14. One of the most important drivers of our sustained long-term growth outlook continues to be large load demand. We now have 69 GW of contracted load additions through 2030, up 6 GW from the 63 disclosed last quarter, all supported by a combination of fully executed ESAs and LOAs. This represents another meaningful increase in customer commitments and further reinforces our confidence in the strength and durability of demand across our diverse, high-growth service territory. From a geographic perspective, Texas continues to represent our largest opportunity with 45 GW of contracted load through 2030.

Ohio accounts for 12 GW, followed by Oklahoma, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Virginia, which combined make up the remaining 12 GW. While the scale of this opportunity is significant, it is equally important to highlight the protections embedded within our growth strategy. Our large load tariffs require customers to make long-term commitments and support the investments necessary to serve their demand. That structure helps ensure that this growth drives value creation for shareholders, while also supporting affordability for existing customers by bringing new load onto the system and expanding the base over which costs can be shared. These tariff frameworks also provide strong protections against project delays and changing development timelines, giving us confidence that we can capture this growth while appropriately managing potential risk. The quality of the customer base is another important differentiator for AEP.

The vast majority of these projects are being advanced by well-capitalized hyperscalers and large industrial customers with significant financial resources and long-term infrastructure needs. As we have previously emphasized, our focus is not simply on the volume of the contracted load, but also on the quality, durability, and creditworthiness of the customers who are driving that growth. Turning to Slide 15. As I previously mentioned, ERCOT continues to represent the largest source of incremental demand across the footprint, with 45 gigawatts of Senate Bill 6 compliant contracted load additions in AEP Texas through 2030. As a reminder, our approach to forecasting load, including ERCOT load, is both rigorous and conservative and is supported by fully executed LOAs in Texas. These agreements require customers to secure land, complete interconnection studies, provide detailed load forecasts, and fund the associated infrastructure investments.

As a result, the projects reflected in our incremental contracted load have progressed through a disciplined filtration process and represent credible customer commitments with a high degree of confidence. Additionally, we view the recent approval of ERCOT's batch framework as a meaningful step forward. The new framework is designed to better distinguish committed projects from more speculative requests and provide greater visibility into the timing of large load opportunities. A key milestone occurred last week when we submitted 45 GW of projects into ERCOT's Batch Zero process, forecasted between now and 2032. ERCOT is currently reviewing those submissions and is expected to determine eligibility for inclusion in the Batch Zero study on August 7th. Based on the quality of the projects we submitted and the work completed with our customers, we believe that the projects are well-positioned and qualify for inclusion in a Batch Zero category.

In fact, just over the past month, we have collected nearly $2 billion in cash or collateral for load commitments in ERCOT, which represents all the required credit support for the full 45 gigawatts included in AEP Texas's Batch Zero filing. The 45 GW of Batch Zero load submitted by AEP Texas, all backed by fully executed LOAs and meaningful credit support, underscores the strength and credibility of demand in Texas. Importantly, our $78 billion capital plan does not anticipate this magnitude of load growth. While ERCOT's review process, available generation, and the timeline for transmission development may impact the timing of certain interconnections, these customers remain committed to connecting to our system. If some of the projects are pushed out, that does not diminish the investment opportunity. In fact, it provides greater confidence that AEP Texas's growth story will continue well into the next decade.

The bottom line is that the demand fundamentals in Texas remain exceptionally strong, and the additional visibility we are gaining continues to reinforce the robust long-term growth projected there. Turning to Slide 16. Let me conclude with a few brief summary remarks regarding our significant progress achieved across the four key themes that reinforce our positive outlook and position us for continued success. First, enhancing financial performance. We continue to execute on our financial plan and remain focused on delivering consistent results for our stakeholders. Based on our year-to-date performance and the trends we're seeing across the business, we raised our 2026 operating earnings guidance by $0.10 per share. We have reaffirmed our annual operating earnings growth rate of 7%-9% and continue to expect an operating EPS CAGR of greater than 9% through 2030, based on the $78 billion capital plan.

During the second quarter, we also substantially de-risked our financing plan through the successful execution of our $3 billion marketed equity transaction, which is expected to be settled under forward contracts by May 2028. With this transaction, we have addressed all the anticipated marketed equity needs to support the $78 billion five-year capital plan. We are now well-positioned to focus on the robust growth we are seeing across our footprint. As we evaluate incremental investment opportunities, we will continue to assess a broad set of financing tools with a focus on shareholder value. We remain committed to supporting strong investment-grade credit metrics, including our targeted FFO to debt ratio of 14%-15%. Second, driving customer affordability remains a key priority. The large load frameworks we have established across our jurisdictions support rapid growth while creating meaningful benefits for existing customers, including up to $16 billion of projected cost offsets.

In addition, our DOE financing initiatives are expected to generate significant customer savings of $1.4 billion while supporting needed infrastructure investment. Third, capturing system-wide growth. Customer demand continues to accelerate as we now have 69 GW of contracted load additions through 2030, supported by high-quality, well-capitalized customers. This demand continues to provide a significant runway for future investment and growth across our service territory. We also look forward to obtaining additional clarity on the timing of ERCOT load as the batch process review continues. We continue to advance our $78 billion base capital plan and the $10 billion of opportunities beyond the base plan, including the fuel cells for the Wyoming project, the Piketon transmission opportunity, and incremental power generation. We look forward to providing a more comprehensive update on our capital plan, financing strategy, and growth trajectory as part of our regular third-quarter financing plan update.

We remain focused on improving regulatory and operational outcomes. Whether it's securing a significant amount of generation resources, advancing critical transmission investments, strengthening regulatory outcomes and relationships, or preparing the grid for unprecedented low growth, our teams are committed to delivering results for our customers and our shareholders while maintaining operational excellence. Taken altogether, we believe AEP is one of the best-positioned utilities to capitalize on the generational growth occurring across the electric sector, which is supported by a robust capital investment pipeline, a disciplined financing strategy, diverse footprint, and strong execution across the business. I will now ask the operator to please open the line for questions.

I would like to remind everyone if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Shar Pourreza with Wells Fargo. You may go ahead.

Morning, Bill. In West Virginia, I know one of your peers is seeing obviously a lot of growth from hyperscalers and potentially looking at a GenCo structure. I guess given the governor's goals around new gas, I guess how are you thinking about potential opportunities to serve hyperscalers in the state using maybe an alternative financing structure as we're kind of thinking about speed to market, like bypassing the CPCN process? Is a GenCo structure a potential opportunity you see down the road in West Virginia and maybe some of the other states?

Thanks. Thanks for that question, Shar. We are clearly looking into the GenCo structure. We're finding it very intriguing, I think it will obviously be something we're closely analyzing. At a broader point with regards to West Virginia, really love where we're at in that state. I think you probably saw we already announced one project in West Virginia for about 1.2 gigs. We've got a number of other projects that are heading down the pathway to support the governor's goals of his 50 by 50 targets. I really like where we're at in West Virginia. We've made a tremendous change in atmosphere there. We're very aligned with all of the stakeholders, I think as the next several months go on, you'll see some pretty significant opportunities come to life there.

Got it. Okay. That's perfect. Then just maybe around the guidance and disclosures. Obviously, you guys have Batch Zero, some of that goes beyond 2030. At Batch One, you have 195 gigawatts figure out there. I guess, is there a point where you would think about maybe enhancing your disclosures? Some of your peers talk about like EPS ranges for every gigawatt of new large load that comes on. I guess, is there a point where you move away from this 7%-9% longer-term number out there? Clearly, Bill, what you're displaying is you guys are nine-plus and a huge amount of CapEx. I guess, is there a way you can provide a little bit more visibility beyond 2030 longer term, just to give investors some more confidence that this isn't sort of a short-term phenomenon? Thanks.

Appreciate that viewpoint. I'll let Trevor hop in here to finish up on this question. There's a number of folks who have been quizzing us sort of like, what's our cost per line mile of transmission or cost per kilowatt of a plant? I've sort of kept our team from looking at it in that way because there's so many different variables across these projects, that trying to put a number in place like that on some metric I don't think is really all that accurate and meaningful. I'm really keeping our team focused on these things at a project-by-project basis. As far as sort of additional disclosures, Trevor, maybe give your viewpoint on that.

With regards to the growth rate and beyond 2030, we really are looking forward to laying out our 2027 to 2031 plan. As you say, we've got that 195 gigs of folks trying to actively interconnect to the queue. I think what this really does is it shows that we have a pretty long runway of continued outsized CapEx growth well into the next decade. From that perspective, we will continue to generally talk about what the five-year growth rate is Then we will contemplate as to what we want to do in the third quarter when we roll out the new revised plan to maybe give some line of sight into anything beyond that. Again, I think right now what we remain very committed to is this greater than 9% growth rate over that five-year period.

Again, seeing the amount of CapEx around generation transmission and distribution extending well into the next decade.

Got it. Okay. That's perfect. Thank you guys very much. Appreciate it.

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Fleishman with Wolfe Research. You may go ahead.

just maybe a little bit on the Batch Zero disclosure. Thanks for that. Is there any way to tie what's actually in the current capital plan for expected growth for AEP Texas to that?

Yeah. Steve, what we've done is historically we've said that, generally the $78 billion five-year capital plan was disclosed, that it really was based on a 13 gigs of interconnection in Texas. We have raised that now, as you've seen, to the 45 gigs. Again, what we don't want to assume is that that's a dollar for dollar increase, what it is doing is giving us line of sight to an increasing capital plan as we lay out what's going on in Texas. From that perspective, again, I think what's more meaningful is if you look beyond the 45, we also have, I think it's almost 100 GW in Texas behind that 45 gigs.

Again, we know not all of that will come on, I think what that really does is it shows line of sight beyond the five-year plan, with continued transmission build-out in Texas in support of these large loads interconnecting.

Okay. No, that's helpful. I guess the 13 gigs in the current plan is still below even what's in the base.

Batch Zero. Okay. Maybe just one clarification.

Again, I would say I wouldn't put that as a multiple of 13, it's going to be three times bigger on the CapEx plan prospectively.

There is going to be some increased CapEx in Texas associated with this.

Understood. Both you and CenterPoint have given these disclosures, which are helpful. Do you have any idea, just the likelihood that ERCOT's going to change them when they finalize? Was this pretty explicit how they were set? Is there likely to be some adjustments? Do you have any insights on that? Yeah.

I think if you take a look at what even ERCOT published recently, I think on July 28th, on their preliminary overview of the Batch Zero eligibility and what they were putting out there, what I would draw your attention to is within the 205 gigs that they had in the Batch Zero process that were eligible, we're roughly call it a quarter of that. Whether that gets pushed between base or allocated, I really look at those as probably pretty firm amounts, and maybe if it's a slip between base and allocated, it could slip one year. What that really does is gives us, again, confidence that you've got a longer term line of sight to deploy the capital. We feel very good about the 45 gigs.

Again, as we said in the prepared remarks, the filtration process that we go through, we are pretty rigorous in what we put forward on that. Again, we've gotten all the financial commitments in $2 billion of cash and other forms of collateral in support of those 45 gigs. We're pretty confident in the 45 gigs. However ERCOT tries to move that around, I think that's pretty set. It just may move from Batch Zero to Batch One in worst case scenario.

Okay. One other just follow-up to the question on West Virginia. One of the things that FirstEnergy mentioned yesterday was also looking at kind of bridging opportunities for some of the new load there. Is that something that you think you could do for customers there as well?

Absolutely. That's something that I would say we actually pioneered early on with our deal with Bloom Energy. In fact, as we started deploying bridging strategies, obviously we noticed others sort of picking up on that idea. As we communicate with customers, we're giving them a very clear line of sight to how much capacity they can get immediately. Which in West Virginia, we do have some reasonable opportunities there in that regard. Also, how we can supply them energy as we build out the transmission to go get them and/or the generation. I would say the customers we're talking with right now have been very pleased with the optionality we've provided them.

We have a number of active discussions in progress. Super excited about what's happening in West Virginia.

Your next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies. You may go ahead.

Hey, good morning, team. Thank you guys very much, I appreciate it. Nicely done again. If I can take a further focus on PJM here, one, would love to hear your latest thoughts of how you think about just engaging in non-utility avenues, right? You just alluded to BTM, for instance, as behind-the-meter bridging. When you think about segments, reporting, when you think about where some of this shows up, and your flexibility in helping customers, in a restructured geography, how do you think about participating? Or, for instance, would you engage in acquiring existing generation to rate base and effectively flow that through your traditional tariffs? Just curious on the different permutations both in West Virginia and in your other PJM properties, especially Ohio.

Yeah. Thanks, Julien, and good morning. I think we've proven that we're willing to go out and procure generation in our regulated utilities. In PJM, we've got a number of projects that we've announced in the past that have been purchased for instance, for Indiana Michigan Power. We're always on the hunt for good quality assets that we can use to really supplement what we have in these vertically integrated utilities. I also think that the benefit of PJM, obviously, is that we can have these assets in other locations and get that power delivered to where we need it. The benefits of the way we look at the system more broadly, is that the footprint really offers us significant advantages in this market.

Because of the fact that a number of the hyperscalers now want to be in more rural areas, our ability to find generation sort of wherever and get it delivered, again, is a pretty significant key advantage for us as we go forward.

Got it. Okay. Then just as you think about other novel avenues here to bring generation in, how do you think about new nuclear in the context of a GenCo, or how do you think about the new nuclear construct as it's evolving here with the rating agencies and other parties here? Ultimately, how is that coming together? You guys have been particularly outspoken on this.

Well, I think just on the broader topic of a GenCo, it's clearly something that we're doing significant evaluation of as we think it provides some pretty significant advantages to us as we go forward and look to serve these customers on a very significant size. On the new nuclear front, as we evaluate these new nuclear opportunities, whether they're in a GenCo or whether they're tied directly to a specific customer, just to reiterate, we're continuing to remain extremely prudent in the capital allocation and near-term spending on this to make sure that we're aligned with our broader financial strategy. As we've said in the prepared remarks, we're going to continue to require robust capital protection measures around this, some very strong balance sheet and credit safeguards and clear regulatory and policy support in order to move forward with anything.

While the structures are interesting, we continue to look at other opportunities and trying to find a way to serve these customers in a manner that gives them the timing that they want.

Sorry, just a quick one just to clarify the response to Shar earlier. You said you're committed to this greater than 9% growth rate over the five-year period. We've seen your peers kind of say, look, we're not going to be overly prescriptive. We're going to leave it as a kind of a 9+ and you could do the math, if you will. Is that the construct that you're thinking about here? Obviously, given what you're even alluding to here, there's more latitude than what nine would suggest. I'm just curious how you would think about communicating that. Or do you just leave the plus with maybe another plus?

My view is plus, plus, I'll let Trevor answer.

Julien, I think from our perspective, given that we are at a greater than 9% over the five-year period, which I think is probably one of the industry-leading growth rates out there, I think we're comfortable with that because as you look beyond the five-year plan, we continue to see a lot of opportunity to continue to invest capital and an increased growing capital plan. We just want to be careful that we're not getting ourselves into a situation where it's making financing that difficult or anything to that effect. Again, I think for a utility with a TSR of 10%-13% is pretty robust.

I think, again, we've alluded to the fact that, on this call and what we're happy to come out with on the third quarter call, a continued increase in the capital plan, which we'll continue to see that growth rate into the next decade.

Your next question comes from the line of Richard Sunderland with Truist Securities. You may go ahead.

Hey, good morning, and thanks for the time today. I want to stick with some of these PJM topics, but zoom out a little bit more. Just thinking back to last quarter, you had some comments on kind of the state of PJM, there have been numerous developments on the PJM front since then. I'm curious kind of on balance of all those developments and what's to come into the fall, how you're thinking about the sort of PJM push and takes as you see them right now.

As we highlighted back on the first quarter call, just to remind everybody, we saw three main issues as it pertains to serving new customer load in PJM: governance, the speed of interconnect, and then resource adequacy. Since that call, I want to say to all that the pace and intensity of productive conversations with PJM has significantly increased. We're seeing very positive engagement across the board, including the team at PJM, FERC, other key stakeholders, our states. We continue to analyze all of the options, and we're hopeful that we can all come together and create a set of solutions that allow us to meet the needs of the customers. We certainly recognize that PJM is seeking to address a number of these issues.

Coming out of the July 23 technical conference, we are very optimistic that there's going to be alignment around some of the solutions. As these issues continue to evolve, it's obviously important that any of the frameworks that get put forward ensure fairness to all of the participants and protect customers and appropriately assign costs to those who are causing them. I'm very hopeful with where we're at. Obviously, this is an important topic for us. We were significantly engaged in the technical conference, I'm hopeful then that as the next few weeks pass, that there's going to be a good solution set that can be supported by ourselves and FERC and a number of our other stakeholders and collaborators.

Great. Thank you for the color there. Briefly outside that, I know you ticked through some of the considerations around fuel cells and Piketon. I guess across both those two in particular, how are you thinking about milestones into the 3Q plan update and if those projects will be ready for inclusion in the base plan, I guess particularly for fuel cells with that December date you highlighted?

Richard, this is Trevor. I think we feel pretty optimistic with regards to both projects. I think we've been pretty public about the fact that I think the Piketon project in particular, we're advancing towards executing docs on that, and we anticipate that we would have executed docs in the third quarter. I think that would then roll into the five-year capital plan that we would roll out on the third quarter call. With regards to the Wyoming fuel cell project, there again, I think we continue to work with the hyperscaler. We did make some accommodations with regards to timing, and we're adequately compensated for that adjustment.

Again, what we're really hopeful for is that that project will advance, and I think timing is key on that, just because those fuel cells need to be installed and ready to go by the end of 2028 to qualify for the investment tax credit. I think likewise, we will see some positive movement, hopefully by that third quarter call, and then roll that into the five-year plan. Likewise, we also have, as we've said on the call, the 13 GW of incremental generation. Some of that, call it maybe roughly about half, was in the existing $78 billion five-year capital plan. The incremental other half of those generation projects will roll in, and that's also some tailwinds going into the revised five-year capital plan for 2027 to 2031.

Your next question comes from the line of David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on what types of agreements you're looking at for that 10 GW of turbines that you're kind of exploring access to in the 2030s. Is this framework agreements for gigawatts over that timeframe? I guess, what gives you the visibility also and kind of the line of sight looking out that far as to your current needs?

As you look at our overall planning, we're obviously one of the nation's largest owner-operators of electric generation. We've been very proactive since I arrived over the past couple of years to be securing turbines and other critical long lead time equipment, basically, essentially using our size and scale and our relationships with namely GE Vernova and Mitsubishi to get this equipment locked up. As we looked at, and are looking at our new five-year plan this fall, the new generation investments are going to play a pretty central role in driving the long-term growth as we look to deploy this 13 GW of turbine capacity across the regulated businesses.

We've been obviously extremely proactive to get these turbines. As we think about where this is going, we know that generation is going to be a driving force, and because of that, it's a scarce resource and will become increasingly more valuable. This has certainly played out, and we're going to continue to be aggressive in our positions on this. We're continuing to actively work with the key suppliers, and are very confident that not only with what we have locked up, but we've got clear line of sight through certain framework agreements and such, that we can get what we need to continue to deliver for customers. Trevor, anything to add?

Yeah. Thanks, Bill. Just two things. One, David, I would say that the 10 gigs is an option for us, so we're not committed to that, but we have the option to step into those slots. More importantly, I would also say, when you take a look at what the timing of those 10 gigs would be, it dovetails well into our existing plants that are aging and will be retiring. What this is really doing is setting us up really well to continue to replace potentially some of the coal plants and some of the retiring gas plants in our vertically integrated utilities. Again, it's just us taking a very forward-leaning approach to ensuring we've got access to the assets for the support of the entire portfolio.

Got it. That's helpful. I appreciate that. Separately, I was just wondering, as we head, I guess, into your 3Q and the update to the CapEx plan, as I'm looking at the new generation resources, just wondering, are there other incremental load opportunities coming between now and then, between now and 3Q? Is there further potential upside to, let's say, the Batch Zero? You've been obviously very active, very successful in the quarterly progress on contracting new large loads with 6 GW here. Could that continue to increase as we go in the coming months into 3Q?

I think what we have seen is that executed LOAs and ESAs increase every quarter over the last call it six, seven quarters here. We do continue to see active interconnection requests to connect to the system. Again, we do know that a lot of that is limited by generation in some of those states like Texas and Ohio. For our vertically integrated utilities, this is where we've been very forward-leaning in trying to secure those 13 gigs to ensure that we can meet that potential load. I would say this is something that we continue to see a lot of opportunity where large, well-capitalized, and not just hyperscalers, but industrial customers continue to actively try to interconnect to our system. I think you will continue to see that number continue to move and refine over the next several quarters.

American Electric Power (AEP) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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