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The second-largest utility company in the U.S. by consumers services over 9 million customers with gas and electric power across six states in the Southeastern U.S.

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F500-2020-153-Southern-Company

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The Atlanta-based Southern Co. stays true to its name as the dominant power and utility player in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi with a mix of gas-fired, coal, nuclear, and renewable power generation. Southern also distributes natural gas in Tennessee, Virginia, and elsewhere. But Southern’s power business of wholesale gas and renewables operates in 15 states from California to Maine, showcasing the company’s growth well outside of the legacy Deep South. And its expanding PowerSecure business offers microgrid services nationwide. Likewise, the Southern Linc and Telecom businesses offer telecommunications and fiber-optics services to meet increasing demand.

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Southern (SO): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Southern

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As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Greg MacLeod, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Christine. Good afternoon. Welcome to Southern Company's first quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me today are Chris Womack, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of The Southern Company, and David P. Poroch, Chief Financial Officer. Let me remind you that we will make forward-looking statements today in addition to providing historical information. Various important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements, including those discussed in our Form 10-K, Form 10-Q, and subsequent securities filings. In addition, we will present non-GAAP financial information on this call. Reconciliations to the applicable GAAP measure are included in the financial information we released this morning as well as the slides for this conference call, which are both available on our investor relations website at investor.southerncompany.com. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Chris.

Thank you, Greg. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. As you can see from the materials that we released this morning, we reported adjusted earnings results for the first quarter above our estimate with year-over-year growth reflected across all our major businesses. That performance reflects premium execution and the strength of our strategy to serve the phenomenal growth we're seeing across the Southeast with reliable and affordable energy while delivering durable long-term value for shareholders. We continue to see extraordinary growth and economic development opportunities as our service territories attract investment, people, and jobs at a pace few regions can match. As we previously highlighted, a substantial portion of this growth is driven by projected demand from large load customers. The demand for power across our electric service territories has culminated in 23 GW of contracted or latent stage load.

In just the last two months, we assigned contracts for another 1.9 GW  of customer load with high credit quality hyperscalers, bringing our fully contracted large load agreements to more than 11 GW across our electric subsidiaries. These bilateral negotiated agreements are structured so that customers driving incremental demand cover the full share of the cost to serve them, helping to assure this growth benefits all customers. We continue to execute on our plans to serve growth, and our straightforward approach protects existing customers. We invest in line with demand to serve growth that enables us to deliver regular, predictable, and sustainable results while providing meaningful benefits to the customers and communities we are privileged to serve. Southern Company continues to be uniquely positioned to do this because of our scale, our experience, and our expertise, all supported by constructive, long-standing regulatory frameworks.

At The Southern Company, we are capitalizing on transformative growth opportunities while delivering energy reliability and rate stability as energy demands growth with base rates held stable in Alabama and Georgia until at least 2029, along with the recent filing to lower rates in Georgia associated with the recovery of fuel and storm costs, we're demonstrating the value of this approach. Rate stability for our customers is a purposeful objective supported by our constructive, orderly planning and procurement processes, cost management, and thoughtful financing. This same built-for-purpose approach also creates the potential for additional capital investment to serve incremental growth opportunities under established regulatory processes. We have routinely demonstrated, as growth opportunities present themselves, that The Southern Company has the ability to convert these opportunities into value through enhanced operations and grid-improving infrastructure investments for the benefit of customers and investors alike.

The construction of many of these investments is well underway. In the last two months, Georgia Power achieved commercial operations for two battery energy storage systems, providing nearly 200 MW of capacity, representing an important step forward in advancing reliable, sustainable energy solutions across the state. These projects are the first of several resources included within our 10 GW portfolio of approved new generation resources that are in development to power the extraordinary projected growth in our region, including multiple battery systems and natural gas combustion turbines that are projected to be online later in 2026 and 2027. Before I turn the call over to David for our financial update, I'd like to highlight the recently announced historic $26.5 billion in loan agreements with the Department of Energy that will benefit customers across Alabama and Georgia for decades.

As we expect these loans to translate into meaningful long-term customer savings while reducing pressure on our capital market needs. Over the approximately 30-year term of the DOE loans, this lower cost financing is projected to generate cumulative savings of $7 billion for customers. David, I'll now turn the call over to you for a financial update.

Thanks, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. For the first quarter of 2026, our adjusted EPS was $1.32 per share, $0.09 higher than the first quarter of 2025, and $0.12 above our estimate. The primary drivers of our performance for the quarter compared to last year were meaningful customer growth and increased usage, including from data centers at our state-regulated electric utilities. Additionally, increased revenues in our gas utilities and higher energy-related revenues in our unregulated businesses, including Southern Power, were positive drivers in the first quarter. This was partially offset by higher financing costs and milder weather year-over-year compared to the first quarter of 2025. A complete reconciliation of year over-year earnings is included in the materials we released this morning. Our adjusted EPS estimate for the second quarter is $1.00 per share.

Turning now to retail electricity sales, first quarter weather normal retail electricity sales to all classes were 2.3% higher than the first quarter of 2025. This represents the highest total retail sales growth that we've seen in the first quarter in recent history. In fact, sales to all three customer classes were up year-over-year, including residential, where we saw 46,000 new customers added to our system as positive trends and net migration continue. The commercial class grew 4.5% in the first quarter when adjusted for weather, bolstered by ongoing growth in data centers. Data center usage saw material expansion in the quarter, up 42% year-over-year, primarily due to accelerating usage ramps at large load facilities.

Our industrial sales grew 1.5%, with particular strength in several segments, including robust activity at multiple steel manufacturers in Alabama. More broadly, the Southeast continues to stand out as one of the most attractive economic regions in the country, driven by a diverse mix of advanced manufacturing, technology, and other energy-intensive industries. In the first quarter alone, there were economic development announcements for over $7 billion of capital investment and the creation of nearly 4,000 permanent jobs in our region, including a global biopharmaceutical manufacturing project north of Atlanta, bringing $2 billion of investment and over 300 jobs to Georgia. The sustained high-quality growth reinforces why demand in this region of the country remains strong and visible, underscoring the region's tremendous opportunity for future growth.

Outside the Southeast, we continue to see momentum in our gas utilities, including a recently announced Hyundai investment in Illinois that's expected to bring 2,500 jobs and $500 million of investment to the Nicor Gas service territory. As we look ahead, the interest from large load customers in our electric service territories, which includes data centers and large manufacturers, remains strong, with a prospective pipeline of well over 75 GW, and we continue to make incredible progress advancing projects through stages in our large load process to finality with executed contracts. As Chris mentioned, over the past two months, Georgia Power signed two projects representing 1.9 GW, pushing the cumulative amount of contracted large loads to over 11 GW across Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi.

These bilaterally negotiated contracts with pricing and terms designed to both protect and benefit existing customers also support our long-term financial outlook. We continue to see incredible momentum and tangible interest for power from large load customers and are in active late-stage discussions for another 12 GW of contracted load through the mid-2030s, an increase of 2 GW from what we shared last quarter. Importantly, roughly 6 GW or half of these late-stage gigawatts are expected to be finalized with executed contracts in the near term. In a little over two months, we've seen projects representing 12 GW advance to the next stage in our large load process.

The demonstrated progress we are making in attracting and signing new agreements with large load customers is exciting and continues to drive projected growth in our risk-adjusted load forecasts, which ultimately helps inform future generation needs and generation requests for proposals or RFPs across our service territory. For example, Georgia Power recently initiated the regulatory process for an all source RFP to procure 2-6 GW of new dispatchable generation resources, including from thermal generation, battery energy storage, and renewables that are projected to be in service in 2032 and 2033. Generation procurement through RFPs deliver substantial value to customers and is a testament to the transparent and orderly processes in our vertically integrated state-regulated markets with long-range integrated resource planning.

To the extent that company-owned resources are selected through Alabama Power and Georgia Power's active RFP processes and ultimately authorized by their respective PSC, these generation investments would represent substantial incremental investment above our current base capital plan. Turning to Southern Power, we are moving forward to add 400 MW of additional capacity upgrades through natural gas turbine upgrades in multiple existing facilities in Alabama and Georgia, with commercial operation projected between 2029 and 2031. This incremental investment is projected to add approximately $700 million to our capital plan over the next several years. We continue to evaluate other growth investment opportunities at Southern Power, including an additional 300 MW of natural gas uprates, as well as other new generation opportunities in both the Southeast and other markets to meet future demand.

Before I turn the call back over to Chris, I'd like to provide an update on our financing activities through the first quarter. We continue to proactively address equity needs that support our strong credit quality and path towards 17% FFO to debt by 2029. Over the last quarter, we sourced an incremental $500 million of equity through our at-the-market or ATM program with forward contracts that settle at our discretion by 2028. Combined with the significant amount of equity previously sourced and including the incremental $700 million of Southern Power projected capital expenditures I mentioned earlier, we project a remaining need for equity or equity equivalents of approximately $1.8 billion through 2030 in support of our capital plan and long-term credit objectives.

We are well-positioned to continue financing our remaining equity needs in a credit-supportive and shareholder-focused fashion. I'll now turn the call back over to Chris.

Thank you, David. Last week, The Southern Company Board of Directors approved an increase of $0.08 per share in our annual common dividend, raising the annualized rate to $3.04 per share. This action marks our 25th consecutive annual increase, this will now be 79 consecutive years dating back to 1948. The Southern Company has paid a dividend that is equal to or greater than the previous year. Increasing dividend 25 years in a row represents a historic milestone for the company and underscores our focus on premium risk-adjusted total shareholder return and our goal of delivering regular, predictable, and sustainable value for our shareholders. We are incredibly proud of our strong dividend track record, which continues to be an integral part of The Southern Company's long-term value proposition. As we conclude our discussion today, our first quarter results reinforce a simple point.

Our company is delivering. We're off to a strong start in 2026. That momentum gives us confidence as we continue executing on our long-term goals. We're capturing growth, protecting customers, and creating long-term value. We're doing it in a disciplined, predictable way. With that foundation, we have a bright future ahead. Thank you for joining us this afternoon and for your continued interest in Southern Company. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Shar Pourreza with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

Chris, just on new nuclear, there seems to be sort of a consortium that's formed with utilities and hyperscalers, maybe with some backstop by U.S. government around sort of new AP1000s. It seems like there could be some views that hyperscalers would be willing to take on some of the cost inflation risk above budgeted amounts. One of your peers kind of highlighted that they wouldn't be surprised if the first deal was announced this year. Can you maybe comment on your views? Is Southern interested? Are you in the consortium? Just, I guess, some thoughts on new nuclear in light of the learning curves of unit 3 versus unit 4. Thanks.

Yeah, sure. I mean, a very, very good question. Let me at the outset say, I am very excited to see all the actions that the Trump administration has taken to support the build and construction of new nuclear. I mean, I've said it, you heard me say it many times with the growth that we see in this country. I think it's gonna be important that we have make available new nuclear in this country to help and support and meet this demand. I mean, the Trump administration, I think, has taken some wonderful steps on the regulatory front. All the conversations that DOE is leading and having today about long lead times for supply chains, all of these issues are matters that we clearly have to address and get our arms around.

All of these things can help mitigate risk associated with new construction. As you know, I mean, I said before, Southern Company is not at a place to make a commitment about building a new unit. We're gonna kinda continue to share the experiences that we gain from Vogtle Units 3 and 4, sharing that here in this country and other places, with other industries and other companies that are interested in moving forward. I'm very thrilled and very excited about the conversations and the commitments and the actions that are being taken, particularly around doing more around AP1000s. With a group of companies, I'm glad to see this action and work being taken. Once again, be clear, we're not at a place for Southern Company in terms of making that kind of decision.

It's real exciting and real positive to see the work that's being led by this administration, to support the development of new nuclear construction.

Got it. Perfect. Thank you for that. Then just on Southern Power, obviously there are a lot of opportunities there with existing tolling agreements that are gonna start to roll off. I guess, have those renegotiation conversations started? More importantly, are there any sort of conversations being had with potential hyperscalers with those assets? There seems to be more and more interest on the gas side. I'm just kinda curious there how you're thinking about that process?

Sure. I guess I'd say the answer is yes and yes. I mean, we're in the midst of some recontracting opportunities, and we've talked about kinda where we are and what we see into the 2030s. Yeah, that work is underway. At the same time, with all the activity in the marketplace all across this country, we see there could be opportunities for Southern Power. Yes, they are having those conversations to see what's possible and what's doable. They bring, I think, good construction support, and good work that they have experienced all across this company with credit-worthy counterparties. So, yeah, I mean, there are conversations that they're having all across the sector to see what opportunities kind of fit our profile. But yeah, I mean, let me, let me end where I started.

To your question, the answer are yes and yes. We're doing both.

Perfect. I would assume this is all upside to your 7%-8%. You're not embedding any assumption around this.

Yeah, I mean, once again, I mean, as we think about upside, Shar, we think about strength and durability. I mean, how do we kinda add length to our growth trajectory that we've laid out? Things like Southern Power and additional large load projects that we're working on, all those activities could support some additional capital investments, but it brings greater durability to our plan. That's kinda how we see all these upside opportunities.

Very helpful. Thank you, Chris. See you soon.

Good to talk to you, man. Hope to see you soon.

Our next question comes from the line of Nick Campanella with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good afternoon. How are you? Good, good to hear from you.

I guess you kinda answered it, like, what you've announced here, the incremental, you know, you see strengthening, lengthening the durability of the 7%-8% CAGR. I guess just my question is just more on the load side and how you think that's affecting the reg strategy. You know, I guess when I take a step back, you committed to these stay-outs, you know, late last year, and since then, you've kind of been making notable progress both on load visibility and usage ramps. Just how is that kinda creating or changing your philosophy around your regulatory strategy when you would actually go in and file again after these next stay-outs? Are you kind of, you know, I guess, ahead of plan on the load, and can that crystallize a further stay-out for customers? Thanks.

Yeah, Nick, let me start, and I'll see what David wants to add. I think the focus for us is more about rate stability. As we have structured these contracts with large loads to make sure they pay their full share, and also making sure from collateral to making sure that from cancellation fees to minimum bills, the terms that we look in the contract, all of that gives us protection, but also it supports our ability to make sure that we're protecting existing customers. That gives us the opportunity for this kinda rate stability and freezes in Georgia through 2028 and Alabama through 2029.

As we do that work, all of that kind of supports, yeah, the regulatory strategy, but more importantly, it supports our commitment to rate stability, to our customers and making sure that all of our customers benefit from this growth that we're experiencing. David, anything you wanna add to that?

Chris, Nick, thanks. Great question. You know, when we took this opportunity, we saw the road shaping up where these contracts were coming to fruition. The conversations we were having with these large load opportunities were really, the momentum was building, and we saw the opportunity to provide long-term stability for our customers, and it has really paid off quite well. These ramps are going exactly as we had thought. The opportunities that we came into with the DOE are further enhancing affordability and stability. Everything's just working out perfectly well with this opportunity and enhancing the benefits for customers.

Yeah. No, I, I appreciate it. Would you say just when you set the, you know, when you made that commitment, are you in line with the plan on your load visibility or ahead of the plan? How would you characterize that, I guess?

Yeah. You know, we're focused getting to the top of the range and delivering what we say we're gonna deliver. I mean, that's one thing you can count on us to do. Yeah, we're delivering. As we said in the opening remarks, we're delivering on what we said we were gonna do. As we look at this great start to the start of the year, we're excited about where we are here in 2026. As we look long term, we feel very confident about the plan that we've laid out.

Okay. Then just my only follow-up was just as we think about wrapping in additional capital, I know you've given that sensitivity for incremental equity, but just thoughts on portfolio rotation at this time.

Yeah. You know, Nick, it's something that we've talked about regularly. We're always looking around. We are blessed to have the cards that we've been dealt, and we love the portfolio. If there's, you know, an opportunity out there where there's a better buyer, I mean, a better owner of something, we're open to that. If there's an opportunity for us to get in and buy something, we're open to that as well. It's gotta be in the right circumstances and we're always looking.

Our next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, hey. Chris, team, guys, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Let me pick it up where my pal Nick just left it off here. You've got a $850 million of cumulative bill credits you guys have been talking about here. Is there a chance that that number actually gets revised higher here as you just see this contracted large load number head higher, right? I mean, again, I that was a snapshot as of a point in time. I imagine you could actually eventually be in a better position here on that point. I think it's partially what Nick was getting after.

Yeah, Julien, you know we don't get to have our regulators, first of all. Clearly, as we can continue to deliver these contracts in terms of how they're structured and how they provide additional benefits to existing customers and our focus on putting downward pressure on rates and bills for existing customers, we're always looking for those kind of opportunities. This deep focus that we have on rate stability and how we're using growth to support rate stability, clearly, as you laid out, that is a focus of ours. As we talk about and we've signaled that, Georgia Power is in the middle of storm recovery proceedings along with fuel recovery processes and how those two proceedings can provide benefits and lower bills for customers.

That's kind of a major focus of ours as we think about rate stability, as we do the work of signing these large load contracts, as we focus on growth, as we manage this company, doing all we can to maintain rate stability, but find opportunities to put downward pressure on rates for our customers. That is a keen principle focus of ours.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Let me follow this up real quickly here 'cause obviously you're showing continued quarter-over-quarter success at the Southern corporate level on finalizing of contracts, right? As you show in that funnel chart, right? In your slide deck. If I look at the 4Q 2025 Georgia Power large load economic development report, it shows some degree of softening in contracted commitments here. Look, I just one needle. Is there something about Georgia versus your other states, a la maybe Alabama, where there's other states accelerating to offset Georgia? Again, there's a timing element here. Again, there's a lot of different numbers floating around, but I just wanna make sure I'm understanding the core message here.

I think it's more about timing, but also I think it's the other message that we've been communicating, that we're seeing this activity migrate to the West as we continue to see increasing activity in Alabama. Yeah, I mean, there's some turn in Georgia, but I would say the fire is still very hot in Georgia, but we're also witnessing greater activity in Alabama and Mississippi as well. I think you can also look at that kind of pipeline number, still 75 GW, that I think reflects kind of all the activity that we see. The turn is more speculative, but I think you also continue to see kind of more hyperscale activity across the territory.

Yeah, Julien, one thing to think about as well is recall the rules under which we're negotiating these contracts in Georgia and the need for these potential customers to demonstrate their commitment by posting collateral. That's really shaking a lot of the potentials out of there that are more speculative in nature and leaving Georgia Power to really work with a high quality portfolio of potential customers in which we're choosing to contract. I think what you're seeing really is a refinement of that and not a degradation at all. Actually, I'd maybe characterize it as a strengthening of that portfolio, if anything.

Got it. Awesome. All right. I'll leave it there, guys. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Our next question comes from the line of Carly Davenport with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Hey. Hey, good afternoon. Thanks so much for taking my questions. Maybe just one follow-up on the upright opportunities at Southern Power on the gas fleet. I know you announced some of those today, and then it seems like there's another 300 MW on the table. Any sense you could give us on kind of timing in evaluating that opportunity? And is that sort of the extent of the upright opportunity you see on the gas fleet at Southern Power?

From an upright perspective, that really covers the whole fleet, if we work through the rest of those opportunities. In terms of timing, you know, we're working through that. You know, that could be over probably the course of the next year or so. Yeah, we set out a plan to explore opportunities to really operate each one of the existing generation facilities within Southern Power.

Yeah, Carly, that construction is scheduled to begin this year in 2026. This is kind of very immediate work that will be done.

Got it. Okay, great. Thank you for that. Maybe just to touch base on Georgia, obviously two seats up on the PSC for election this year. Just curious if you could kind of provide your latest thoughts just on the setup in terms of the focus areas of the candidates you've heard thus far and just any views on kind of latest temperature in Georgia around affordability and development.

As you know, I mean, there are primary elections on May 19th. If there are runoffs, they will be June 16th. There's a lot of conversation. Everybody's on the campaign trail, a lot of conversation about data centers and large load customers and things like rate stability. I mean, all those issues are being debated on the campaign trail, and we'll see how that plays out in terms of the results of the election. I mean, one of the things that I'd just love to add in that regard, I mean, Southern Company's been around for over 100 years, and we've seen a lot of twists and turns politically.

With the experience that we've had and the ability to navigate whichever way the politics go from one side or the other, we've, I think, have a tremendous history of being able to work with both parties or whoever's in office. We feel comfortable and confident that because of the work we do across our communities and our employees live and work there, the commitments we have to the state, we're very confident about our abilities to continue to have a constructive regulatory environment no matter how these elections turn out.

Very clear. Thank you so much for the time.

Our next question comes from the line of Stephen D'Ambrisi with RBC. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, Chris. Thanks very much for taking my question. Just had a quick one. You know, there's It seems like there's a pretty significant acceleration in, like, the pace of how you're moving these large loads into late stage and finalizing. You know, just There's a lot of numbers of gigawatts that are thrown around. You added twp, you expanded finalizing in late stage to 12. Just how does that interplay with the 2-6 GW or, like, the sizing of the RFP that you're currently working on?

Just, like, to the extent we see, I just wanna make sure I level set to understand, like, what adding 2 GW to the contracted pipeline means or how much of the new RFP that eats up and then what, you know, any incremental signings mean for subsequent RFPs or if that makes sense.

Yeah. Well, yeah, no, it does. It speaks to kind of updates in the load forecast in terms of a result of the work that we're seeing and the demands that we're seeing from large loads. But also, I don't want to take for granted the other large manufacturing opportunities that we see across the state. I mean, as we talked about, I mean, there's a lot of investment. There are a lot of people. There are a lot of jobs. There's a lot of capital and a lot of interest in our states. What you see in that RFP is a reflection of that increase in load forecast.

The other thing I'd say to you, we don't take it for granted, we try to communicate this very carefully, you know, also just very proud of the fact, as you look at our structure, this vertically integrated structure that we have in terms of the orderly processes and the certainty that we can have with these bilateral negotiations in terms of understanding what these customers need and our ability to respond and to align with their needs is really, paying off, delivering. That's what you see through this RFP, that's what you also see in this pipeline and this funnel that we speak to in terms of we highlight the work that we're doing, the activity that we're doing. We're seeing, I guess a new phrase we're using called repeat buyers.

They find success and say, "Okay, you can deliver. Let's come back and get a little bit more." It gives us the reason to be very bullish about the robust activity and demand that we see in our territory.

Okay. That's, that's really helpful. Just, you know, a couple of the other questions were about, you know, accelerating the loads and what it means for affordability. Can you just talk a little bit about the fact that, you know, it seems like you guys are pricing these so that minimum bills cover the incremental cost to serve? To the extent you have, you know, ramp rates exceeding or you know, exceeding minimum bills and coming close to what is actually projected by the hyperscalers, what that means for customer rates and what the timeline would be to discuss that with regulators.

Yeah. Let me start, then David, I'll kick it to you. I know there's been language out there about incremental. I mean, I think for us, you gotta think more about full in terms of making sure they cover their full share. As a result of doing that provides existing benefits to existing customers. That allows us to even have consideration about things like maintaining rate stability and freezes and those kind of things, and putting downward pressure on existing customers' rates. By negotiating with these customers to make sure they're covering their full cost, growth provides an opportunity provide benefits to existing customers. I mean, growth is a wonderful value and benefit and contributor to what we're being able to do and what we're being able to deliver to all of our customers, in particular to our existing customers.

Yeah. Steve, you may also wanna think about, I think a differentiating factor in our contracts is the minimum bill that is established within the contract. It is designed to recover all of the cost introduced into the system, like Chris said. We're not, if you will, held captive to a variable pricing methodology in order to recover those costs. It's all embedded within the minimum bill. You could think about it as basically writing a call option to the network. We recover our costs through that minimum bill, not through the variable pricing and making sure that the customer achieves their ramp rates.

It's really a very thoughtful design, I think a differentiating factor around the country, and it's really helping to protect our customers and provide the stability and downward pressure on rates going forward.

Okay. That's great. Thanks very much for the time. Appreciate it.

Our next question comes from the line of Nicholas Amicucci with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, great. Thank thanks everybody. Yeah, perfect timing there. Actually, Dave, I wanted to kind of hone in on that a little bit. Just the I guess the attractiveness slash the ability of you guys to kind of leverage, you know, the notion of virtual power plants and just kind of leveraging all of your asset base, just being that you guys are fully integrated and the attractiveness of that to kind of just expediting this the time to power type of mechanism.

Southern (SO) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Company Participants