Harry Sideris
Analyst · Wells Fargo
Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. It's great to be with you today for our third quarter 2026 earnings call. Today, we announced adjusted earnings per share of $1.99 compared to $1.81 last year, building on the solid performance we've delivered throughout the year. Results were driven by growth at our electric utilities as we make critical infrastructure investments to meet growing customer demand in our service territories. With the strong performance year-to-date, we are narrowing our 2026 guidance range to $6.70 to $6.80 and expect to finish the year near the top end. We're also reaffirming our long-term earnings per share growth rate of 5% to 7% through 2030, and we remain confident that we will deliver in the top half of the range beginning in 2028 when we experience accelerated growth from the economic development projects already secured under electric service agreements. Our earnings growth is underpinned by our $103 billion capital plan, and we have $5 billion to $10 billion of upside capital to support generation and transmission investments to serve large load customers as we finalize additional contracts, particularly in Indiana and Florida. We recognize that this is a time of accelerated change for our industry. With growing energy needs in our vibrant jurisdictions, disciplined execution and a relentless focus on customer value are more important than ever. I'm proud of how our team at Duke continues to meet this extraordinary growth in a way that benefits all customers. We are careful stewards of our capital, and we look forward to providing more details on our updated financial plan during the fourth quarter call in February. Moving to Slide 5. Across our jurisdictions, we're demonstrating how excellent execution is supporting both reliability and affordability. Building on our strong foundation of cost management and operational efficiencies, we continue to work with policymakers to pursue federal funding opportunities to help keep costs as low as possible. In September, we were selected by the Department of Energy for a $50 million grant to support advanced transmission projects in North and South Carolina. This award brings total announced DOE grant funding this year to nearly $150 million, which helped offset the cost of projects to meet increased demand, strengthen local communities and maintain the dependable service our customers expect. We were also pleased to receive an EEI Emergency Recovery Award, the industry's highest honor for storm recovery, for our response efforts to Winter Storm Fern earlier this year. We safely restored nearly 200,000 Carolina customers in January within 48 hours. We similarly responded to a rare derecho event in the Midwest this summer and then again last month, the Hurricane Isaias, which impacted our Florida and Carolinas customers. I am proud of the team for maintaining their strong track record of operational excellence throughout the year. On the regulatory front, we are making significant progress advancing outcomes that support cost-effective investments to improve reliability and modernize our fleet. Just after the second quarter call, we reached another comprehensive settlement with North Carolina Public Staff and other interveners, this time in our Duke Energy Progress rate case. We believe the DEC and DEP settlements support a balanced outcome with customer rates expected to remain below the national average. We expect orders on both cases by mid-November with rates effective in January of 2027. We also reached a settlement with Public Staff and several large customers around the proposed large load tariff in early October. We believe the settlement achieves a constructive outcome that balances the goals of protecting existing customers while supporting economic growth. We expect the commission to issue an order on the tariff along with the rate cases. Our guiding principle on large loads is simple: ensure everyone benefits from the influx of economic development projects, preserving reliability, powering economic growth and producing shared value. The large load tariffs we are advancing align with our Customer Protection Plus commitment and the key provisions in our existing ESAs, including long-term contracts with minimum demand charges, early termination penalties, interruptibility, credit support and capital advances. The progression of large load tariffs across our states ensures large customers, users, cover the cost of serving their facilities and deliver billions of dollars in benefits for our customers and communities over the life of their contracts. Turning to Indiana. We have provided notice of our intent to file our first multiyear rate plan later this year. We share the goals of Indiana customers, regulators and policymakers to keep bills as low as possible, maintain reliability while supporting growth in the state. We start from a strong position with some of the lowest residential rates in the state and a track record of effective cost management and operational excellence, including storm response. We look forward to developing a cost-effective plan that delivers continued value to our customers. As outlined on Slide 6, we continue to make significant progress on one of the largest generation expansion programs in the industry, adding 16 gigawatts of capacity by 2031. We're advancing resource plans in our largest jurisdictions to reflect the once-in-a-generation growth we're experiencing. In August, we filed the 2026 Carolinas Resource Plan in South Carolina. The plan reflects our all-of-the-above generation strategy with additional combined cycles, combustion turbines, increased battery storage and continued solar development. The commission will hold a hearing on the resource plan in April of '27 and issue an order by June of '27. Our resource plans made clear the important role natural gas will play in the near term to ensure reliability. That's why we're advancing regulatory filings specific to natural gas generation with more than 5 gigawatts under construction in the Carolinas and Indiana and another 5 gigawatts in development. Since our second quarter call, we received approval from the North Carolina Commission on our first out-of-state CPCN filing for the Anderson County combined cycle plant and a construction monitoring request for the first Person County unit. Just last month, we prefiled CPCNs for 2 combined cycle plants totaling near 2,800 megawatts at the Davie-Davidson site in North Carolina and expect to file CPCNs early next year. We continue to evaluate a liquefied natural gas storage facility on the site to support our generation fleet, which would provide greater supply flexibility and diversity while reducing exposure to price volatility to support reliable and affordable service. In closing, we are leveraging our economies of scale to create value as we progress these generation projects. We are focused on delivery certainty, utilizing our framework agreements and repeatable execution models to derisk every dollar and ensure we deliver on time and on budget. With that, let me turn the call over to Brian.