CMS Energy Corporation Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Good morning everyone, welcome to the CMS Energy 2026 second quarter results. The earnings news release issued earlier today and the presentation used in this webcast are available on CMS Energy's website in the investor relations section. This call is being recorded. After the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star followed by zero. Just a reminder that there will be a rebroadcast of this conference call today beginning at 12:00 P.M. Eastern Time, running through August 4. This presentation is also being webcast and is available on CMS Energy's website in the investor relations section. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Jason Shore, Treasurer and Vice President of Investor Relations.

Thank you, Abby. Good morning, everyone, thank you for joining us today. With me are Garrick Rochow, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Sri Maddipati, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This presentation contains forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Please refer to our SEC filings for more information regarding the risks and other factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially. This presentation also includes non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the appendix and posted on our website. Now I'll turn the call over to Garrick.

Thank you, Jason, thank you everyone for joining us today. Our investment thesis remains consistent, focused, and durable. It is a simple but powerful business model built on more than two decades of consistent performance, deliberate execution, disciplined capital allocation, and industry-leading results. With our long capital runway, top-tier regulatory environment, and our commitment to affordable customer bills through the CE Way plus digital and other cost savings, CMS Energy continues to deliver. This proven model drives a premium total shareholder return made up of 6%-8% adjusted EPS growth compounded annually and paired with an approximately 3% dividend yield. For you, our investors, it means predictable earnings growth, a competitive dividend, and long-term shareholder value.

Today, I'm going to share with you our plans to further simplify and strengthen our model as we plan to exit non-utility renewables development and focus on what we do best. Following a comprehensive strategic review of NorthStar Clean Energy, we are taking a deliberate step to simplify our business model and sharpen our focus on utility investment. We plan to exit non-utility renewable development while retaining a portfolio of Michigan-based assets, including Dearborn Industrial Generation, or DIG, several small gas peakers, and four commercial solar projects, all of which generate strong cash flow and support our long-term growth strategy. Let me share a little more about how this plan benefits the company and our investors. First, we plan to reallocate capital away from NorthStar Clean Energy and exit non-utility renewables development. Our current five-year plan has approximately $1.7 billion dedicated primarily to non-utility renewables.

This shift of capital will reduce parent funding needs. Second, the retained assets will not require significant capital investment, and they generate strong cash flow, further optimizing parent financing and supporting our large utility capital investment plan. Additionally, as we look to the future, proceeds from the sale of our non-Michigan assets and development projects will further reduce external funding needs at the parent, including equity. Collectively, these three items equate to a reduction of over $500 million of funding through 2030, optimizing parent financing. Beyond 2027, we expect NorthStar's earnings to be driven primarily by DIG and the peakers. On a consolidated basis, this means nearly 100% of our earnings and future growth will be rate base driven within the utility, supporting higher quality growth while simplifying and strengthening our overall business strategy and outlook.

We are targeting the restructuring to be complete by the end of this year and anticipate providing an interim update on future earnings calls as we execute the repositioning of this business. Let's talk about our growth in Michigan. We continue to see momentum across multiple sectors of Michigan's economy. On the data center front, we have made meaningful progress and have taken an additional step, reaching an agreement under our large load tariff. This includes both the extraordinary facilities agreement and the rate agreement. We have one of the most constructive frameworks in the country for data center growth. Our large load tariff ensures new large load customers bear all costs to serve them, supports economic growth, and protects existing customers. In fact, our average residential electric customer could see approximately $7.50 per month of bill benefit with every gigawatt of new large load.

Clear evidence of how disciplined growth supports customer affordability. The next step in the process is for the customer to receive local zoning approval, and we will incorporate the load growth associated with the agreement into our integrated resource plan, or IRP, which we will file in September. I continue to be confident in the progress we see here and the future benefit realized for all our customers. In addition to the large load growth we are seeing, year to date, we have also contracted roughly 135 megawatts of manufacturing and industrial load. This insistent momentum is a reflection of Michigan's economic growth and why Michigan, for the fourth year in a row, was ranked number 6 in CNBC's top states for business. We continue to see strong interest from technology, advanced manufacturing, and supply chain companies looking to expand in Michigan.

These opportunities create new jobs, strengthen our communities, and continue to create long-term value for our customers and shareholders. Looking at our regulatory calendar. In June, we filed our electric rate case requesting a $456 million revenue increase, a 10.25% ROE, and a 51.75% equity ratio. We have also requested two-year investment recovery mechanism, or IRM, as we make needed customer investments to harden and strengthen our electric grid. In our gas business, in June, we revised a revenue request in our gas rate case to $232 million, well aligned with staff's position on our distribution spend. We also increased our equity ratio to 51.75% to align with our electric rate case and reflect the need for a higher equity ratio to support affordability and efficient financing. These investments are outlined with clear and deliberate plans focused on continuing to deliver safe, reliable, and affordable energy for our customers.

As I previously highlighted, we have moved our IRP filing to September to reflect the recent data center agreement and ensure we are putting the best plan forward for Michigan. Now, onto the financials. For the first half, we reported adjusted EPS of $1.50 and are executing on our plan to deliver full-year guidance. We are reaffirming our full-year 2026 guidance of $3.83 to $3.90 per share with continued confidence toward the high end. We also have a clearer line of sight on our 2027 guidance given the change in strategy at NorthStar. Excuse me, in our introducing full-year 2026 guidance of $4.08 to $4.17, which maintains growth within our long-term guidance range of 6%-8% off of 2025 actuals. This guidance reinforces and demonstrates our confidence in the continued growth and earnings power of our business post NorthStar restructuring.

Longer term, we continue to guide toward the high end of our adjusted EPS growth range of 6%-8%. With that, I'll hand the call over to Sri.

Thank you, Garrick, and good morning, everyone. I want to thank those of you who have reached out over the last few weeks with kind words of support as I've stepped into the CFO role. I've enjoyed getting to reconnect with many of you and look forward to seeing those I haven't over the remainder of the year. Today, I'll focus on three things: first half results, the path to delivering our 2026 guidance, and how our investment and financing plans support durable long-term growth. I'll start on slide eight, where we have the standard waterfall chart, which illustrates the key drivers of our financial performance through the first six months of 2026 and our year-to-go assumptions for meeting our expected guidance range. Through the first half of 2026, the company delivered adjusted net income of $464 million or $1.50 per share.

The $0.23 year-over-year unfavorable variance is primarily due to benefits realized in the first half of 2025 from liability management that were already contemplated in our 2026 plan and do not impact our full-year guidance. Relative to our planned assumptions so far this year, the primary headwind has been the impact of storms, which we have identified actions to offset, including, but not limited to, the pending storm referral filed with the commission. From a top-line perspective, an unfavorable weather comp from last year and slightly lower cooling and heating degree days in Q2 versus normal resulted in an unfavorable variance of $0.08 for year-to-date results.

New rates, net of investment costs, drove a positive $0.20 of earnings, which continue to move up year to date with the benefits of last year's gas rate order, new electric rates, which commenced in May, and continued investments in renewable projects at the utility. The $0.19 of unfavorable O&M variance was primarily driven by the previously mentioned storm activity. The $0.16 of unfavorable parent and other includes items planned in our full-year guidance, as well as positive sales trends year to date. For the remaining six months to go, we'll continue to plan for normal weather. The unfavorable variance of $0.18 reflects the absence of weather upside in 2025. While July temperatures have been helpful, we don't count on weather upside as part of our planning. However, it does mitigate potential headwinds or allow reinvestment to benefit customers and strengthen the plan for the future.

As I mentioned, we continue to see ongoing benefits from the previously mentioned rate orders and renewable investments. We are also planning a constructive outcome in our pending gas case. In total, we see rates and net investment costs driving $0.22 of positive earnings in the second half. We expect a positive $0.25 of O&M-driven earnings, in part by constructive outcome in the pending storms referral docket, as well as normalized storm activity through the balance of the year. The last piece of the to-go portion of the walk results in a positive variance of $0.16-$0.23 and has several components, including, one, the absence of pull aheads from last year that were funded by favorable weather in 2025. Second, the continued performance of NorthStar, including DIG's higher contribution since last year's outage and new contracts this year.

Third, a conservative assumption for non-weather sales, which, as I mentioned, are trending positively year to date. While Garrick has already affirmed our financial objectives, I'll reiterate my confidence in our ability to deliver on this year's EPS guidance, our 2027 guidance that we have initiated today, and our long-term EPS growth. Turning to slide nine, the foundation of our long-term growth is the robust $24 billion utility investment plan, which drives 10.5% compounded rate base growth. Our decision to reposition NorthStar enables us to efficiently fund the current five-year plan and, over time, allocate incremental capital to the utility, providing high-quality, durable earnings with strong long-term value.

You'll note we are highlighting a $2 billion capital opportunity for utility renewables related to the already approved Renewable Energy Plan, or REP, and an additional $1 billion of electric distribution reliability opportunity represented in the roadmap we've already filed with the commission. These investments are opportunities in the back half of the plan as we continue to improve distribution reliability and meet Michigan's energy law requirements. As we have highlighted in the past, non-rate base earnings differentiate our model from a typical utility and have future growth potential. Energy efficiency incentives and the financial compensation mechanism, or FCM, on power purchase agreements are key parts of Michigan's legislative framework and benefit customers and investors. While energy efficiency remains a component of our long-term plan, it's a relatively mature program.

The FCM has the potential to drive additional opportunity through this decade and the next as we continue to procure electric supply resources that ensure reliability as well as meet the renewable energy, clean energy, and battery storage requirements of Michigan's energy law. Let's move to slide 10, where I'll cover the company's funding needs and progress in 2026. We remain on track to complete our 2026 financing plan, including planned debt issuances at the utility and the remainder of our common equity issuance under our established ATM program. While we don't typically update our long-term financing plans during the year, in the context of the NorthStar decision, I would like to provide direction as to when and how future financings will likely be impacted. Our current five-year plan assumes a total of $3.75 billion of new equity.

This year, we plan to issue $700 million and have already completed nearly $500 million at attractive prices. This leaves approximately $3 billion over the remainder of the plan. As we redeploy cash from NorthStar, we would anticipate reducing at least $350 million of equity from the current plan. We'll provide an update on our financing plan during the Q4 call as part of our normal annual planning process. Turning to slide 10, I want to spend a moment describing what gives us confidence in our investment thesis and how it delivers customer value and maintains affordability. This slide depicts how growth and affordability reinforce one another and do so year in and year out, delivering 6%-8% earning growth for investors while keeping customer bill growth at or below inflation.

Our utility investments drive 10.5% rate base growth, and those investments help reduce customer costs and drive earnings growth. Long-term investments in our electric supply and natural gas storage allow us to deliver significant cost savings as well as resiliency and reliability benefits to customers during the hottest days of the summer and the coldest days of the winter. We have demonstrated the ability to manage operating costs through our lean operating system, the CE Way. This relentless focus on eliminating waste and driving efficiency through better process and automation enables us to deliver savings year after year, creating the headroom to make needed investments in distribution reliability and gas safety. Support for financially healthy utilities in both legislation and regulation means we can use our balance sheet to make long-term investments and leverage efficient financing to lower costs for our customers.

Finally, with 2%-3% sales growth anticipated and the ongoing customer benefits of energy efficiency, which is up to 2% on the electric side, we see lower customer bills as individual customer consumption is reduced and fixed costs are spread across increasing loads. This proven and durable business model allows us to provide safe, reliable, and affordable service to our customers and deliver consistent financial performance for you, our investors. While I'm new to my role, I'm not new to CMS. The foundation of our business model is strong, and in the 12 years I've been with the company, the opportunities to serve our customers, grow our state, and drive long-term value for our investors have never been better. I'm confident in the strategy we are executing in the years and decades to come. Now, I'll turn it back to Garrett before we take your questions.

Thanks, Sri. At CMS Energy, we deliver 23 years now of consistent industry-leading performance, regardless of circumstances. Year in and year out, you can count on CMS Energy to deliver for all of its stakeholders. With that, Abby, please open the lines for Q&A.

Thank you very much, Garrett. The question and answer session will be conducted electronically. If you would like to ask a question, please do so by pressing the star key, followed by the number 1 on your touch tone telephone. If you are using a speaker function, please make sure you pick up your handset. We will proceed in the order that you signal us, and we'll take as many questions as time permits. If you do find that your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 1 again. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Richard Sunderland with Truist Securities. Your line is open. Hey, good morning.

Thanks for the time today, and thanks for all the details and the update. I guess starting with NorthStar, to throw out the first question of kind of why now? Is this all with an eye to higher utility growth, and are you thinking about other opportunities related or outside of that business any differently, whether it's big recontracting or the progress on the data center efforts? Just kind of looking at the big picture here, can you speak a little bit more to the process and timing?

Yeah, let me just walk a little bit through it from a process perspective leading up to this, and then I'm sure Sri is going to want to jump in as well to the conversation here. You would expect as good fiduciaries of the business that we're always looking on a regular basis at our businesses, and we do that. We look at it from an all stakeholder perspective, from customers all the way to investors. From an investor standpoint, we're looking at how we deploy capital to bring the highest value back to our owners. The decision we're sharing here today does just that. Right? We talked about reallocation of capital, the capital assets we're going to maintain with light capital investment and bring cash back to the parent, the disposition of assets.

We walk through all that, Sri will go into some additional details of that. I would also point out just the guidance we've provided as well, long-term, 6%-8% toward the high end. We're deliberate about 2027 guidance because we're giving you the visibility, but also sharing our confidence in the growth and earnings power of this business. What you should read through that is no rebase. That's what you should see in there. Just the bigger picture here, because you talked about what other things we could do, we are simplifying. That is the key message, right? We are improving the financials of our overall business, and we are focused on the utility. Nearly 100% of the earnings after 2027 come right out of regulated utility. That is a high-quality earning. That's high-quality growth. That's what our investors expect.

Sri, please. Rich, I appreciate the question.

I'll hit on Garrett's comment. We're focused on utility investment. We have a robust plan, I hit that in my prepared remarks, at $24 billion. What this repositioning of NorthStar and restructuring does, allows us to more efficiently finance that capital, both at the parent, because we're reducing our financing needs. That really strengthens and lengthens our plan. It improves our balance sheet flexibility as we continue to finance utility capital. Really, across the financing as well as the allocation of capital, we're strengthening the business and simplifying it.

Great. Thanks for running through all of that. Turning towards the utility, looks like great progress in terms of the agreement with the data center. Curious if you could speak a little bit more to what still has to go on the customer side, your thoughts on that in light of expected inclusion in your IRP filing, and just, I guess, progress overall there relative to sort of expectations earlier in the year and how things currently stand on sort of final agreements.

As I shared in the Q1 call, we'd continue to provide updates on progress, and I'm pleased with the progress. We talked about the signature, both in the rate construct and a rate agreement, as well as the extraordinary facilities agreement. All that kind of fits under this large load tariff, and I talked about the benefit of that in my prepared remarks, what that means for not only economic growth and capital investment, but ensures the existing customers don't pay for that. In fact, there's a benefit associated with that. We're very clear to share the zoning is still underway. The customer is working through that, and we want to be respectful of the locals, and they're doing their due diligence. I've also talked about that on calls in the past, so we're going to let that play out.

What gives me optimism is the customer is working through multiple locations in the state, and that tariff, because it's a tariff, that contractual piece can apply anywhere in our service territory, which is great. Then we'll build that in September into our Integrated Resource Plan, that load growth. Sri, would you like to add anything to that?

The only thing I'd add, Garrick, is that the capital plan that we have today doesn't reflect that load growth. There continues to be upside opportunity that will be reflected in the IRP that we'll incorporate over time into our plans.

Great. Thanks for all that. I'll leave it there. Our next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

Your line is open. Hi, good morning.

Good morning, Jeremy. Good morning.

Thanks. Just wanted to dive in on the 2027 guide a little bit more, if I could. Just wondering, any preliminary thoughts at this point in time, obviously depends on where full year falls for 2026, but how you think you could land within the range there and I imagine the renewables timing would also come into play here. Just any thoughts on how you think you could trend within that range.

Hey, Jeremy, it's Sri. Thanks for the question. I'd give you a couple of things. One, we're not biasing the range. We provided confidence in that range. It's really driven by the utility growth. That's the underlying assumptions to the plan. As you think about 2027, we already incorporated the repositioning of NorthStar into that guidance, so we're confident with the assumptions we've made. Now, as we execute over the course of 2026 and into 2027, we'll update part of our normal planning process as we go through the course of this year and next.

Got it. Thanks for that. Just wanted to maybe dive in a little bit more. You talked about cost efficiencies and NorthStar restructuring. I just wondered if you could talk a little bit more detail about what categories these could look like and what type of magnitude.

Yeah. Jeremy, as we exit renewables development, there is costs associated with having that type of platform, both from engineering and development perspective. We can get cost efficiencies from our business as we exit that business and deploy capital elsewhere.

Got it. Thank you. I'll leave it there.

Our next question comes from the line of Nicholas Campanella with Barclays. Your line is open. Hey, good morning.

Thanks for all the information and the early look on 2027. I guess I'm just trying to frame, NorthStar last year was about $0.30, and our understanding is about half of that is the renewables, and there's some debt costs in there as well. What is the offset besides lower parent financing? Or maybe that's just entirely it. When I think about the year to go, there is about $0.16-$0.23 of benefit from parent financing tax and other. I'm just wondering, how much of that is one time in nature that we have to take out of 2027? Really just trying to understand is parent going to continue to see a year-over-year benefit net of all these drivers as we look towards 2027?

Jeremy. I'm sorry, Nick. I'll break the question apart a little bit. As you think about 2027 and beyond, we are retaining DIG and a handful of renewables assets. Those will continue to provide earnings into 2027 and beyond. When you think about the incremental cash from those assets that are no longer being deployed into renewables development, they'll offset parent financing. Over time, the utility growth will be more efficiently financed. You'll see continuing benefit at the parent year-over-year.

Continued benefit year-over-year. Okay, thank you. Then maybe just an update on how you're thinking about the storm deferrals in the plan that you've outlined today, maybe based off precedent and what's currently pending in front of the Commission and just your underlying assumptions there. Thank you. Yeah, we are assuming a constructive order in that pending Docket.

As I noted in my prepared remarks, that's not the limit to how we're going to consider planned or identifying offsets to storm costs over the course of the year. We do have good precedent for that from last year, and our performance continues to get better. We expect a constructive outcome in that Docket.

Okay, thanks. Our next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies.

Your line is open. Hey, good morning.

Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. I appreciate the time, Sri. It's a pleasure. Congrats again. Wish Reggie the best here. Just wanted to come back on the announcement here this morning. Just with respect to the outlook, I wanted to ask, how accretive is this transaction as best you guesstimate here today? I mean, obviously, there's a number of different moving pieces here, but is there any way to kind of give us a number by 2030 and how to think about what the increment decrement is based on what you're announcing? I know that obviously 2026, 2027, but as you look at the tail end of the outlook here, if you can comment to that and the relative accretion.

Hey, Julien, nice to hear you. Yeah, appreciate the congrats. Couple things. Our outlook, our long-term growth trajectory hasn't changed, 6%-8%. Garrick reiterated that, I'll reiterate the same. What really this plan does is it doesn't change our growth outlook, it changes the composition of growth. We're reallocating capital away from NorthStar, so more of the upside and more of the growth will come from the utility. Over time, we're financing that more efficiently by not allocating capital to renewable development at NorthStar. So you'll see our strength and then lengthen our plan over time as we have more efficient financing at the parent. Is there a way to think about what the contribution would've been, shall we say it this way, when you think about the prior plan for 2030 and just what the assets would've contributed out in that time period?

Just the pre and post, had it not been for this transaction, what the composition would've been out in the 2030 time period from those assets?

Julien, we are exiting the renewable development piece of it. Those were generating largely development gains related to developing those assets. What we're retaining is DIG, and so the earnings from that and the cash from that are being retained. What that's doing is offsetting parent drag over time. As you're thinking about your modeling out to 2030, you're seeing more. The outlook for the utility stays the same. We have 10.5% rate base growth there, but you're going to see less and less drag at the parent, which is offsetting any of the renewables development earnings over time.

Right. It was a positive earnings contribution in the 2030 timeframe, previously.

The way. The question is what you're selling it and replacing it for.

Yeah, go for it. Yeah.

The way I think about it, Julian, is 6%-8%, we continue to have confidence in that growth. This is strengthening and lengthening the plan and is creating more durable earnings as we go out, not only through the plan but beyond the plan.

Got it. Okay. All right, guys, I'll leave it there. Thank you all very much. Appreciate it. All right. See you soon.

Thanks, Julien. Our next question comes from the line of Shahriar Pourreza with Guggenheim Partners.

Your line is open. Hey, guys.

Good morning. Welcome, Shar. Morning.

Congrats, Sri, by the way, on your first role as CFO, first call.

Appreciate that, Shar. Yeah. Garrick, I know we've seen, obviously, Microsoft struggle a little bit with zoning in some of their sites in Michigan.

I guess, does the 20-year contract survive if zoning drags materially or fails outright? Is there a drop-dead date or a ramp in the agreement? Then obviously you just mentioned that they could be looking at multiple locations in the state. Could that be outside of your territory, maybe closer to Detroit? Thanks. Here's one of the wonderful things about our succession plan.

When you've got a financial expert assuming the role of CFO who's also spent time in operations, who has also not only dealt with power supply costs, but been in the conversations with the data centers. I'm going to ask him to respond to the question, just given his expertise.

There's a couple pieces to this, Shar. It's more than one customer, it's more than one location. That's what's giving us confidence. Like Garrick said, our construct for large load, I think, is one of the best in the country. It protects customers, it drives affordability, and it drives certainty from an investment and credit perspective over the long run. I think we're well positioned to continue to attract large loads, both in the near term and the long term.

What I would just add to that, I said it in my prepared remarks or in response to a question, that tariff, it's a tariff. Right. As that customer thinks about different locations in the state, that has the flexibility to move along with them in those other locations. That's the really the beauty of it. Thanks for your question, Shar.

Got it. Just lastly, on just the DIG recontracting, obviously that's called out as upside. How should we be thinking about the timing of recontracting and the contracted merchant mix there? Thanks. Hey, Shar. Some of that will layer in into the back half of this year and even into next year.

You should think of that as we try not to leave a lot of merchant outstanding to provide predictable earnings. Think of that in the back half of the plan 2029, 2030 and beyond.

Okay, perfect. Appreciate it, guys. Thanks. Our next question comes from the line of Travis Miller with Morningstar.

Your line is open. Good morning.

Thank you. Thanks, Travis. Contrasting that with what you would save in future development.

Right? Just trying to get an idea of how it's either earnings neutral or earnings accretive proceeds versus savings and capital over the next three to five years.

Yeah. Travis, I'll walk through the assets a bit with you and then hand it over to Sri to finish the conversation. Think of this as those out-of-state assets that are renewables. Some of them are constructive and some of them are development assets. There's also a bit of assets in Michigan that are being dispositioned as well. We've been very clear to talk about what's in. Again, I'll just reiterate that Dearborn Industrial Generation, a couple small gas peakers, they go by the names of Kalamazoo and Livingston, and four commercial solar projects in Michigan. That's what we're retaining as part of NorthStar. Sri, please. Yeah. Travis, a couple pieces, and Garrick highlighted some of this in his prepared remarks.

One, you have lower capital allocation to NorthStar. That's the $1.7 billion of capital. That frees up capital efficiency at the parent. That's one piece. The second piece is the cash flow from DIG and the peakers and the retained Michigan assets that were otherwise going into development at NorthStar will now fund and offset parent funding needs. Lastly, over time, we can sell the non-Michigan assets, and we've incorporated all of that into the $500 million-plus of funding offset that we've disclosed here. All three of those combined give about $500 million of funding offset over time.

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Sullivan with Wolfe Research. Your line is open. Hey, good morning.

Another congrats to Sri. Welcome back. I just wanted to clarify on the utility CapEx opportunity. Is the $3 billion upside you spoke to in the plan and part of the long-term growth rate reaffirmation? If not, how do you think about the financing there? You talked about bringing down the equity needs, what happens with the equity needs? How do you fund the incremental CapEx if that wasn't included today?

Yeah. Hi, Michael. Appreciate the question and thanks for the congrats. A couple of pieces there. No, it's not in the plan. Those are upside opportunities in the plan in the back half and beyond. Part of the benefits that we have from the repositioning of NorthStar is the strengthening and the increased flexibility of the balance sheet. We wouldn't necessarily take up the equity for that incremental capital. We'll incorporate that and update our financing plans over time as we incorporate that capital into the plan.

Okay. Understood. I'll take another crack at some of the questions just on NorthStar, like what's still assumed or was previously assumed. Is it fair to say that when you talk about nearly 100% utility, it's predominantly just DIG at that $70 million a year pre-tax run rate, is the residual non-utility earnings in the plan now?

Yes, that's the right way to think about it.

Okay. Last one, what specifically would enable starting to target the high end of 2027? Is it just getting through more of the year, or are there other levers or opportunities that you're looking to capture in the coming months that could help get you there?

Yeah, Michael, I'll just remind you, it's early for 2027. We're comfortable with the assumptions we've gotten embedded. As we execute over the course of 2026 and get visibility on those assumptions, we'll incorporate that into our planning process. Like I said, we typically don't provide guidance this early, but given the change in NorthStar Clean Energy strategy, we wanted to make sure investors had visibility into how we were thinking about the business. We'll update that as part of our planning process over the course of this year and into early next.

Understood. Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from the line of Sophie Karp with KeyBanc. Your line is open. Hi.

Good morning, Sophie. Good morning.

Congratulations on the first earnings call in the new role, Sri, and thank you for taking my question. Can we talk a little bit about the economics of the remaining peakers and the solar, I guess, assets in Michigan? Are those also long-term contracted, similar to DIG? Is there upside from those? And kind of related to this, would you consider down the road an option to absorbing those into your rate base somehow?

Yeah, let me answer. When we think DIG and the peakers and the capacity position, those are contracted in a similar fashion. Then the retained solar assets are on long-term contract as well. While we're not assuming significant earnings past 2027, they do generate cash flow that helps the parent as well.

In terms of rate base, I think that's too early. That's not going to be incorporated into this IRP. It obviously provides flexibility over time. We're comfortable with the way those assets are contracted outside of the utility.

Got it. Thank you. Then, going back to the data center topic, how are you thinking about demonstrating, I guess, customer benefits from data centers from your contract? Is that just offsetting a rate cycle or maybe reducing future rate asks, or is there a more explicit way to show it to people via a bill credit of some kind? If you could maybe talk through some kind of rule of thumb, like for every gigawatt you sign, how much of the rate increase would be displaced? Right? In need, then the rate increase would be displaced. Something along those lines. Any color would be appreciated.

Appreciate the question, Sophie. In fact, we're doing just that. As I referenced in my prepared remarks, for every new gigawatt of large load signed under the tariff here, that equates to roughly $7.50 of bill benefit for the average residential electric customer. That's real savings with this growth as a result of our large load tariff and how that is structured. So we're being very open with the communities, with customers about that benefit. Part of that process, as that load comes on, as that load is generated, those savings flow back to customers through the rate case process. So we're looking to do that, to show that, to show them the benefit. Right now, it's about making it visible for our customers in terms of just putting a real dollars and cents to it.

Yeah, Sophie, the only thing I would add to Garrick's comments is under that tariff, we're spreading around larger of the fixed costs over a bigger base. Under the large tariff, those customers pay for the incremental resources they need. I'll just point you to the slide that we had in our deck. It's just a proven and durable business model that reiterates itself. Affordability and growth can reinforce each other.

Yeah. Great. Thank you. Appreciate the color.

As a reminder, it is star one if you would like to ask a question. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Weisel with Scotiabank. Your line is open. Hey, thanks.

Good morning, everyone. Sri, great to have you back. I'm sure Reggie's out there somewhere furiously hitting star one, trying to answer some of our questions. Good to see you three back in the seat. First question is, on the regulatory side, I think there's some comments about the IRP being pushed to September, related to the data center opportunity. Can you just maybe explain a little bit more? Would that suggest that you'll be including generation related to that data center customer, and if so, would that look like base load gas or something like that?

Well, I look forward to sharing more and more of our IRP as we approach the September timeframe. We've done a lot of foreshadowing. We know from the Renewable Energy Plan, there's 13 gigawatts of renewables that have been pre-approved that flow into the Integrated Resource Plan. There's battery storage as required by state law, in fact, to be able to ensure reliability, we have to add more battery storage across the system. We've been very clear, too, to foreshadow the importance of during certain hours of the day where there's not solar and the batteries are depleted, you need gas turbines, simple cycles, and 1.5 gigawatts to ensure reliability during those hours. It works to replace our current three and four facility, which is an oil and gas-fired peakers, 1.2 gigawatts. So it's almost a direct replacement for that as well.

That's a big piece of it that's there. Now we're also sharing that load growth is going to be incorporated into our integrated resource plan. Be clear, we're not connecting gas with data centers. That's not something like gas equals data centers. There's a really nice solution that we can put in place, and we'll share more of that as we get into our IRP in the September timeframe.

Okay, sounds good. Also on the regulatory front, the storm deferral, I understand you've got the docket underway, but you also had another storm midsummer. How do you think about the potential another round of that? Would you worry about overusing the mechanism relative to traditional storm cost recovery, or are you waiting to see how the first docket goes before making those decisions?

I'm going to just talk about the big picture here for a moment and what gives us confidence from a storm deferral perspective here. Big picture, our reliability performance, our storm process is improving. We were once a fourth quartile company. Now we're solidly in third quartile, approaching second quartile in terms of performance. In terms of restoration over the first six months of the year, 92% of our customers were restored in 24 hours or less across that. We're seeing all the right indicators. We got a reliability roadmap, which we file with the commission, which is reflective of the Liberty audit. The staff, the commission have been constructive in terms of the investments needed. We're making those investments. Every time we make those investments, we see and we measure the benefit.

We're actually just getting rolling on five years of tree trimming, a five-year cycle, which is new for us. That benefit to the customers is going to continue to show up and improve. Now, we had some storms in July. I'd love for them to be perfect. I'd love for every storm, but a July 4th storm is tough. I was even out in the field the entire day on the 4th and talking with customers, talking with our team. There's some things we did really well, but there's also some areas where we need to improve. We incorporate that into the process through our lessons learned and just continue on this path. Again, pulling back up to that bigger picture, where we're headed, where we're going, that's what gives me confidence in the storm deferral process, and that mechanism that's been created.

Two, it's really reflective of our Q1 storm, which was an ice storm, which performed much better than the previous ice storm as well. It's all those things that give Sri confidence, that give me confidence in this storm deferral.

Yeah. Andrew, I would just say we have confidence, one, because of the precedent from last year around a storm deferral, and we have opportunity to wait through the course of the summer before we decide if there's a need for anything else. We're always managing headwinds and tailwinds over the course of the year, as I noted in my prepared remarks. We have an opportunity, if there's need for incremental, to wait through the course of the summer and into the fall.

Okay, great. That's very helpful. One last small one, if I could squeeze it in, related to North Star. Am my understanding is correctly that the 2027 guidance assumes that some assets will be sold and therefore, you've got $0.25-$0.30 of guidance in 2026. You're not giving that level of detail, but would it be fair to assume that the 2027 contribution from North Star would be less because you're assuming some assets that will be sold, but not yet assuming cash proceeds lowering equity needs? Is that a fair way to think of it?

The way I would think about it, Andrew, is that we are retaining some of the assets, and we have incorporated that into the 2027 guide. You're right, we're not going to break down at this point the different contributions, but we have incorporated the assumption that we would sell down some of the assets at North Star.

Okay. Very helpful. Thank you.

Our final question comes from the line of Anthony Crowdell with Mizuho. Your line is open. Hey, good morning.

Thanks for squeezing me in. Just one quick one. You're very clear on what you sold from NorthStar. You talked about the recontracting opportunities on DIG. Just curious, why not have DIG part of the sale process? Like, you've kept it. You're clear that you're keeping it. Is it that you think there's a rate-based opportunity going forward, or are you just using it as optionality in a portfolio maybe to offset equity needs in the future? Just curious on why keeping DIG and not just selling all of NorthStar.

Thanks for the question, Anthony. One, DIG's an asset for which generates significant cash flow, and it doesn't require significant incremental CapEx to get that cash flow. It really helps offset parent financing. You'd have to get significant value for that, and it's a core asset for us from a capacity and energy perspective, and we're comfortable and we know it well.

Great. That's all I had. Thanks so much. That concludes our question and answer session.

I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Garrick Rochow for closing remarks.

Thanks, Abby. I'd like to thank you for joining us today. Take care and stay safe.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call and we thank you for your participation.