Jeanne M. Jones
system performance and capacity expansion across our platform, supporting incremental data center load in addition to the gradual replacement of an aging network. Our plan also includes an additional year of investment of our two largest transmission projects, Brandon Shores and Tri County, going into service in 2028 through 2030, along with the early spend of the MISO Tranche 2.1 project, which goes into service in 2034. Our annualized rate base growth of 7.9% over the next four years reflects an increase from the prior year plan, with a projected addition of nearly $23 billion in rate base from 2025 to 2029. Having executed within 2% of our capital plan since 2023, we are confident we will execute this next stage of growth, driving progress towards economic and energy goals and always prioritizing our customer needs in everything that we do. Moving to slide 11, our size and scale, award-winning reliability, and expertise in owning and operating 765 kV lines uniquely position us to capitalize on additional transmission opportunities that enable us to grow our transmission rate base CAGR by over 15% from 2025 through the end of the guidance period. Coupled with our strength in execution, we now have line of sight to an additional $12 billion to $17 billion transmission opportunities over the next decade that strengthen and lengthen our plan, of which over 60% includes projects associated with our existing infrastructure, supporting continued reliability, generator deactivations, and providing additional operational flexibility and efficiency. This upside also includes an estimated $1 billion of transmission-associated high-density load projects with signed TSAs, where we now have a foundation for additional certainty in our pipeline. Agreements are presented to customers coming out of our cluster study process. We also remain optimistic about the work associated with MISO Tranche 2.1, with over $1 billion of investment in our ComEd service territory, which is now getting a cost allocation filing at FERC. Beyond these opportunities, we anticipate additional investment required to support our state public policy goals, particularly as our jurisdictions assess energy security and economic development needs. For example, achieving CEJA's goals amid growing economic development in Illinois will likely require billions in transmission investments. Finally, as we discussed in prior quarters, success in winning competitively bid projects offers additional upside. From our success in winning the Tri County project to the $1.2 billion in Exelon Corporation investment PJM has recommended in this recent window, our size, scale, and expertise position us well to pursue competitive opportunities outside of our service territories within and outside of PJM. Our ability to deploy almost $10 billion of capital annually over the next four years is only possible with a rigorous focus on cost management and delivering value through those investments, supporting customer bills at rates 19% to 20% below national averages. This focus is saving our customers approximately $580 million in O&M annually relative to what it would have been growing at a standard inflation level over the last decade. We feel confident we can continue to keep our expense growth well below inflation levels, demonstrating nearly flat expense growth from 2024 to 2026 and targeting no more than 2.5% adjusted O&M growth through 2029. As we talked about last year, our institutionalized team and a One Exelon culture are committed to delivering value. We have taken advantage of our focused operations along with our size and scale to continue to standardize and streamline our structure and operations. Driving out $580 million in annual O&M savings is no small feat, but it is something our customers and shareholders have come to expect. Exelon Corporation's unique platforms and industry best practices enable us to build upon these savings with a line of sight to additional opportunities. As investment needs grow to meet unprecedented load growth and reliability needs, our customers remain our top priority. Since 2021, Exelon Corporation's portion of the average customer bill as a percent of median income has remained relatively flat, growing only 10 basis points while maintaining top quartile reliability, which saved customers $1 billion in avoided outage costs last year alone. We have reduced annual customer interruptions by nearly 2 million since 2021 and made significant economic impact in our communities. Since 2021, we have employed 20,000 people, sustained 50,000 jobs, and have fostered nearly $60 billion in economic activity in our communities. Bringing value to our customers is foundational to what we do, and it is why we invest in the grid. That is why we have committed to keeping our O&M costs relatively flat from 2024 to 2026 and, in partnership with our jurisdictions, committed to support our customers through nation-leading programs and advocacy efforts. Conversely, the supply side of the average monthly residential bill in the Mid-Atlantic has increased up to 80% or more over the last five years. Customers are now paying more for less. Since July 2024, PJM customers have paid more than $32 billion as supply in the market declined 1.2 gigawatts. That is why we continue to be at the forefront of advocating for our customers across federal, PJM, and state levels, ensuring that every dollar our customers spend can be tied to additional value they receive. We are pleased that federal discussions proposed the extension of the PJM capacity auction collar, saving customers tens of billions of dollars through 2030. But our advocacy efforts do not stop there. We are committed to advocating for other policies, such as queue and rate design reforms that protect customers and support economic development. Our first-of-its-kind transmission security agreements filed at FERC do just that, providing a clear path to interconnection while protecting existing customers. We believe all solutions are required to support energy security and drive affordability. This includes encouraging state-procured solutions such as utility-generated power, which can bring certainty that the supply will be there, offer our states control, and ultimately benefit our customers. Turning to slide 14, with prudent O&M spending and $41.3 billion of projected capital spend driving 7.9% rate base growth, along with earning ROEs of 9% to 10%, we are projecting compounded annual earnings growth near the top end of 5% to 7% from our 2025 guidance midpoint of $2.69 per share through 2029. We continue to build momentum across our jurisdictions as we make progress on Pepco and Delmarva rate cases, the ComEd grid plan, and as BGE prepares to file later this year. We look forward to working with our stakeholders to align on the investments that benefit our customers, enable us to maintain and improve upon our operational excellence, all at a fair return. Maintaining our commitment to transparency, we have provided assumptions associated with our expected annual growth in earnings through 2029 on appendix slide 23. As you can see, we expect to deliver the out years near the top end of the 5%–7% range, allowing for flexibility of rate case timing and keeping us on track to deliver near the top end of our 5% to 7% annualized growth rate from 2025 to 2029. We also continue to project an annual dividend growth at 5% and anticipate paying out a dividend of $1.68 per share in 2026 in line with that growth. Finally, turning to slide 15, I will conclude with a review of our balance sheet and financing activity, where we have continued to de-risk and secure cost-effective capital to invest for the benefit of our customers. In December, Exelon Corporation corporate issued $1 billion in convertible debt, pulling forward over half of our planned long-term corporate debt needs for 2026. Through 2029, we expect to fund the $41.3 billion capital plan with $22 billion of internally generated cash flow, $13 billion of debt at the utilities, and $3 billion of total debt at the holding company, with the balance funded with a modest amount of equity. As a reminder, our policy is to fund incremental capital needs approximately 40% with equity. Specifically, our total equity needs of $3.4 billion over the four-year plan implies approximately $850 million of annualized equity needs, less than 2% of Exelon Corporation's annual market cap. We have already made progress on 20% of these equity needs, having priced $700 million in 2025 using forward contracts under our ATM. Our financial plan has been designed to accommodate the issuance of other fixed-income securities that receive equity credit in place of senior debt at our holding company, identifying opportunities to mitigate risk and maintaining a strong balance sheet continues to be core to our strategy. Ending 2025, our average credit metrics of 13.5% exceeded our downgrade threshold of 12% at Moody’s by 150 basis points. With our balanced funding strategy in place, target credit metrics of 14% over the planning period provide 100 to 200 basis points of financial flexibility on average over our downgrade thresholds at S&P and Moody’s throughout our guidance period. We also continue to advocate for language that incorporates all tax repairs for calculating the corporate alternative minimum tax, which is now reflected in our disclosures. As a reminder, without the implementation of tax repairs deduction, our anticipated consolidated credit metric would average over the plan closer to 13%. Supported by our history of execution, I want to close by reiterating our confidence not only in the plan we have laid out, but also in the broader opportunity we have to deliver value for our customers and our shareholders for another twenty-five years and beyond. I will now turn it back to Calvin for his closing remarks.