Duke Energy (DUK) Q3 2026 earnings call transcript

Thank you, Lucas, and good morning everyone. Welcome to Duke Energy's third quarter, 2026 earnings review and business update. Leading our call today is Harry Sedaris, President and CEO, along with Brian Savoy, Executive Vice President and CFO. Today's discussion will include the use of non-dab financial measures and forward-looking information. Actual results may differ from forward-looking statements due to factors disclosed in today's materials and in Duke Energy's SEC filings. The appendix of today's presentation includes supplemental information along with the reconciliation of non-gab financial measures.

With that, let me turn the call over to Harry.

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 suggested earnings per chair 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 made 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 chair growth rate of 5% to 7% through 2030, and we remain confident that we will deliver in the top half of the ratings beginning in 2028 when we experience accelerated growth from the economic development projects already secured under electric service agreement.

Our earnings growth is under 10 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 time have accelerated change for our industry. With growing energy needs and 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're providing more details on our updated financial plan during the fourth quarter.

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 need 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 Tradins Mission 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. Also pleased to receive an EI Emergency Recovery Award, the industry's highest honor for storm recovery, for our response efforts to win a storm burn earlier this year.

We safely restored nearly 200,048 hours. We similarly responded to a rare derecho event in midwest this summer, and then again last month, the hurricane East Aes, which impacted our Florida and Carolina's customer 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 deep energy progress rate case. We believe the DEC and DEP settlements supported 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 a settlement achieves a constructive outcome that balances the goals of protecting existing customers while supporting economic growth. We expect a commission to issue an order on the tariff along with the rate cases. Our guiding principle on large load 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, and capital advances.

The progression of large load tariffs across our states ensures large customers, users, cover the cost of serving the facilities and deliver billions of dollars and benefits for our customers and communities over the life of their contracts.

Turning to Indiana, we have provided notice of our intent to follow our first multi-year 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 experienced. In August, we filed the 2026 Carolina's Resource Plan in South Carolina. The plan reflects our all-out 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, initially in order by June of 20th. Our resource plans make clear the important role natural gas will play in the near term to ensure reliability. That's why we're advancing regulatory filing specific to natural gas generation with more than five gigawatts under construction in the Carolinas in Indiana and another five 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 Plan and a construction monitoring request for the first person county unit.

Just last month, we pre-filed CPCNs for two combined cycle plans totaling near 2,800 megawatts at the Davy 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 de-risk every dollar and ensure we deliver on time and on budget.

With that, let me turn the call over to Brian.

Thanks, Harry, and good morning, everyone. As shown on slide seven, we delivered another strong quarter with both reported and adjusted earnings per share of $1.99 compared to $1.81 in the prior year. Electric utilities and infrastructure increase $0.20 as the growth engine of the company continues to produce strong results.

Rate cases and riders, along with higher sales volumes and hot summer weather, fueled the growth in the quarter. These drivers were partially offset by higher depreciation and interest expense associated with our growing asset base and the minority interest at Duke Energy Florida. Gas utilities and infrastructure was up a penny and the other segment was down three cents due to lower market returns on benefit trusts. Our results continue to reflect discipline execution of our strategy. And I'm proud of the way our teams maintain reliable service through extreme summer heat across our jurisdictions. As we close out 2026, we're reinvesting some weather benefits to further strengthen the system as we exercise O&M agility to deliver consistent, sustainable growth year after year.

We also expect lower quarterly results in the gas segment as we enter the first winter heating season following the Piedmont, Tennessee sale. Overall, we are extremely pleased with our year to date performance and are well positioned to deliver full year results near the top end of our narrowed EPS guidance range.

Moving to 2027 growth drivers on slide eight, we will implement new rates across many of our service territories next year, including in North Carolina where we will begin our next multi-year rate plan subject to final commission orders. In Florida, we will move into the final year of the current rate plan, utilizing battery tax credits to keep base rates flat for customers. We also expect continued customer growth and the ramp of economic development projects to support a three to four percent low growth outlook. To meet this accelerating demand and maintain reliable service for customers, we will continue to execute our record generation building grid investment plan, driving higher AFUDC and rider recovery. These positive drivers will be partially offset by return to normal weather, higher depreciation, and higher interest expense as we fund the growth of the business.

The fundamentals underpinning our long-term outlook are as strong as ever. Our communities continue to benefit from population migration and vibrant economies, create an extensive runway of capital investment opportunities well into the next decade. That investment supports sustained earnings base growth. With additional upside as we secure large load projects in our pipeline, and the efficient recovery mechanisms across our jurisdictions support timely recovery, strengthen the balance sheet, and minimize cost for customers.

Positioning the company to deliver five to seven percent long-term earnings growth, with confidence to earn in the top half of the range beginning in 2028. Turning to slide nine, we continue to advance economic development prospects into contracted load and connect customers to the system. Load growth has accelerated through 2026. Third quarter demand increased two percent. Our strongest quarterly growth since 2022. Residential customer growth is steady at nearly two percent, outpacing national average, while manufacturing loads are beginning to come online and ramp. These trends reinforce confidence in our three to four percent load growth projection over remainder of the five-year plan. As contracted data center load begins coming online next year. I also want to reiterate Harry's comments on the work we've done in the regulatory space to bring greater transparency to our large load contracts.

The constructive settlement we reached in North Carolina formalizes customer protections. Further ensuring that as data centers come online, they will deliver billions in benefits for customers and communities.

Moving to slide 10, we remain confident in converting the full 15.4 gigawatt laid-stage pipeline to ESAs by the first half of 2027. We are advancing negotiations with perspective large load customers with multiple projects executing preliminary agreements during the quarter and providing deposits to begin initial transmission system work. We are actively planning the generation and transmission investments to serve them, with the potential for five to billion dollars of capital to be added to the five-year plan upon final contract execution.

Conversion of the remaining pipeline will extend the runway of load growth and capital investment well into the next decade. Finally, the 5.2 gigawatt to data centers currently under construction remain on schedule to begin taking energy in the second half of 2027 and into 2028.

Turning to the balance sheet on slide 11, we remain on track to achieve our 14 and a half percent FFO to debt target for 2026. Our discipline financing strategy continues to support a strong balance sheet and provides the financial flexibility needed to execute our investment plans to reliably serve customers. We are supporting our growth capital plan with 10 billion of equity and have already addressed one third of our expected needs. We priced 825 million of equity through our ATM program year to date with settlement expected in December of 2027. In August, we issued two billion of mandatory convertible equity units and we expect to issue 125 million annually through our dividend reinvestment plan beginning in 2027.

Together, these actions limit near-term dilution and preserve future share price appreciation upside. This proactive approach reduces financing risk on supporting an efficient cost of capital.

We are also actively managing interest rate exposure as we address ongoing financing needs. As we've discussed in prior calls, the Piedmont, Tennessee and Duke Energy Florida Minority Investment Proceeds reduce holding company leverage and increasing benefit as interest rates rise and support our long-term target of 15 percent FFO to debt. Near term, Brookfield plans to accelerate one billion of its investment from 2028 to this December with the remaining two billion to be funded in 2027. The rest of our 2026 plan is nearly complete with our remaining issuances fully hedged. Across the five-year plan, our long-standing programmatic hedging strategy helps moderate interest rate volatility. We will continue to optimize the timing, duration and structure of our financing to minimize costs and create long-term value for customers and shareholders.

Let me close with slide 12. Our strategy is clear. Seize growth opportunities. Execute our all-of-the-above generation plan to reliably serve our customers and work with stakeholders to reach constructive regulatory outcomes that support critical investments while keeping costs as low as possible. We remain on track to deliver results near the top end of our narrowed 2026 EPS guidance range and five to seven percent EPS growth through 2030 with confidence to earn the top half of the range beginning in 2028.

Discipline execution of our capital investment plan will produce value for customers and position us to deliver on our growth targets which combined with our attractive dividend yield provide a compelling risk-adjusted return for shareholders.

With that, we'll open the line for your questions. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality.

If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Sharpe Reza with Wells Fargo. Sharpe, please go ahead. Hey, guys.

Good morning.

Morning, Morning, Harry. Let me just start on Florida. I know you guys continue to kind of highlight the additional capital opportunities to serve large loads. I guess, can you talk about how this week's PSE decision to delay the tariff and any impact to the opportunity set? I guess what's the path forward there? Or can you continue to move forward as planned without the tariff in place? Thanks.

Great question, Sharpe. This week, Florida gave us feedback on our file tariff. We have the same focus as our regulators as well as our stakeholders, customers, and policy makers to make sure that these data centers are paying their fair share, providing benefits to the customers as well as maintaining reliability. We really appreciate the commission's look at that and the feedback they gave us. We're making adjustments to our tariff and plan on re-following that. In the meantime, we're continuing to talk to our customers and continuing to advance the process there on what we're going to need to build for them and the commercial terms that we're going to need to have.

So no slowdown in what we're doing in Florida. We'll have to re-follow the tariffs, but we feel confident that we'll be able to reach agreement with the feedback that we received. Okay, perfect. And then just on Indiana, obviously, there's been a lot of attention on affordability. So with the potential opportunity you see to serve the large load, I guess would you consider maybe a genco-type structure, given the benefits of speed to market, obviously bypassing the CPC and process. And then obviously that structure has much more visible way to flow back the savings to customers publicly, as we've seen with the peer in the state. I guess, have conversations charted around this structure type and just what should be there.

Thanks. Yeah, so again, we share the commission and the governor's focus on affordability. It's something that we've done for over 120 years, making sure that we have reliable service at the lowest cost possible. We're in a strong position in Indiana with the lowest rates in the state. We continue to work with all our stakeholders to make sure that we're providing the reliable service as well as growing the state. We are moving forward with having discussions with customers, advancing the pipeline that we have up there, feel confident that we're going to be able to sign some ESAs before the end of the first half of next year. We always are evaluating when we will need, or if we will need a genco kind of operation.

So we're open to that. We continue to feel like we can continue to provide the service that we need for our customers and under our current model. But if things change and it makes sense to have a genco for the reasons that you mentioned, then we'll absolutely be doing that. That's perfect. Appreciate it, guys, and see you in a couple days.

Yeah, good morning, Julian. Yeah, we're very pleased on the settlements that we reached with public staff and nearly all the intervening parties in the state. I think the settlements reflect the extensive negotiations that we had amongst the stakeholders and address all the key issues that a lot of them raised during the proceedings.

We really focused and I believe we were successful in balancing customer affordability with the investments that we needed to be making to improve reliability, harden the grid, and support the tremendous growth that we're seeing in our state, both from population growth, data centers as well as other economic development projects. We have a very strong track record of constructive regulatory outcomes in North Carolina and we believe that this settlement because it represents a balanced, well-supported outcome that we will be successful in getting approval. We will continue to remain focused on other things that we can do to continue to drive affordability with our nuclear PTC credits, our storm securitization, our one utility that will start off in January.

Those are all things, DOE loans, those are all things that we're doing to help reduce the customer bill and we'll continue to look for other.

Excellent. I appreciate it here. If the plant coster froze, let you delay the next North Carolina rate case. Does your outlook assume kind of a similar earnings sharing, just the overall framework, maybe is the right way to say it, that still applies in 29 just as you think about the outlook here, if you can elaborate a little bit? Yeah, we do, Julian. As part of the settlement, we have the option of staying out in 2029 that is predicated on a deferral for the generation facilities that will be coming online. So we'll be evaluating that as we get close to that date, but all the other conditions will continue to imply, including the earning sharing mechanism.

And, Julian, I'll add to that. It's got to act with the revenue acceleration from the large stage that would create the opportunity for the stay out and that was part of the underpinning the negotiation and we're excited to see that come to fruition. Got it. And your confidence in being able to leverage this kind of mechanism, given some of the pushback in a more discrete fashion in recent months with some of the investments. Again, those are discrete and separate factors, but your confidence that you're on the right track to be able to get these plants approved broadly. Again, separate issues, but again, I know that there's been some specific nuances here on some of the latest assets that you put before the commission.

Yeah, absolutely, Julian. We feel North Carolina is a constructive place. We're seeing the tremendous growth and it's a dynamic environment that we get. We have to continue to work with all our stakeholders and policymakers to make sure that we're doing the right things for our customers and for our state to maintain reliability and affordability and serve this tremendous way that we're seeing. So I think everybody's aligned on that. Okay, all right, fair enough. I'll leave it there. Thank you guys very much. All the best. Good luck here. Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks, Nick. And this is Brian. As you pointed out, I mean, we're in the throes of building our next role of the plan and bottom line capital is increasing, right? We're investing about a billion and a half a month right now, and that's going to step up to about two billion a month with a B beginning as we get into 2027. And there's a ton of projects and execution underpinning that capital deployment. And you know, the five to 10 billion we highlighted for the large load projects, that's in the overlapping period. But you think about it, as we get deeper in the generation build cycle and we add 2031, it's much larger than 2026. So the capital plan is moving up in a sizable way because along with about five gigawatts of batteries and solar in the system, we'll be adding more gigawatts because we got five gigawatts of natural gas under development, and those will be becoming investments in the next role of the plan.

So the plan's going up and these large load projects even kind of boost the increase in the CapEx.

And Nick, I would add that our growth, the opportunities are tremendous. We're seeing population growth over two percent. Charlotte's the fastest growing city in the U. S. So being able to serve that load with transmission and distribution, those investments as well as the generation, we're seeing no end to the data centers and the economic development projects as we continue to work through the funnel on those. So a lot of opportunity for investment in the future.

That's great. Appreciate the color. And then maybe just on the election update over the last 24 hours, I'm just wondering how you'd frame impacting the states that you operate in, understanding there haven't been any major changes in governorship in most states. But just if the attitudes are changing towards large load customers, some of the adjacent states outside your territory, is there any anecdotal pieces that you could offer as it relates to your late stage pipeline? Could we see upside to that as people come to your territory on the back of what we just saw yesterday? Thanks. Yeah. Well, first off, I want to congratulate everybody on the election. It was kind of a historic night.

I was watching it. I didn't get any sleep till after midnight watching the results come in. But, you know, we've always worked with our policymakers and we share their goals, which is reliable service, affordable service, and making investments that help grow the state and bring jobs to the states that we serve. And we've been successful for over 125 years doing that. So we have a track record of that working with both sides of the aisle to be able to accomplish that. We don't see any changes in that focus or any changes in our ability to work with those that were recently elected. I think they share the same thing that they want to grow the states.

They want to bring jobs. And they all agree that we're a vital part of that. So we'll continue to work through our pipelines, our economic development teams, and working closely with the state to bring those jobs and those projects in. I think they're all very supportive. They share our goal too of protecting our customers and making sure these large loads pay for their fair share and provide benefits to the customers, which is what our ESA contracts do already and these tariffs that we're filing do already. So I feel like we'll be very successful moving forward. They're all aligned with that.

All right. Thanks for the thoughts.

Yeah, good morning, Carly. I'll be glad to handle that. Yeah, so our Smith CPCN that we filed was denied by the commission. They had some questions. I think they were really focused on the IRP proceeding and validating the load requirements in there. We still feel very confident that that's a good project. It's a small project but it is a low cost solution to help the generation need that we have in the state to serve our customers reliably and affordably. So we feel confident after the IRP filing that IRP decision that we will be able to reevaluate what we need to do there. We've had the CPCN the out of state CPCN for Anderson County was approved so we still feel like there's support for these projects in the gas bill in the Carolina's and we feel confident that the David Davidson CPCN that we filed early next year will be successful.

Great. Thank you for that color. Super helpful. And then maybe the follow up just on nuclear. I guess there have been continued developments at the federal level to support new large-scale reactors. I guess any developments you'd highlight in your discussions with key stakeholders there and any shifts in how you're thinking about the appetite for new nuclear with some of these moves on the federal funding side. Yeah Carly. There's really been no shift in our position. We still feel nuclear is very important to our current system as well as our future. So we're focused on the same things we were before upgrading our current unit. So we have 300 megawatts that will be adding to our units over the next five years as well as extending the lives of our current plants to serve 80 years.

So we have two already approved and following the third one and we'll continue through all six of those. We continue to work with all the policymakers in Washington, all the stakeholders in the Carolinas on what new nuclear may look like and what is needed. The government has made a lot of steps with the Korean announcement as well as the Japanese announcement and working with those. We're watching Brookfield and the BC Summer restart and what's going to happen there. These are all good things that are happening in the industry.

There's a lot of focus and support for tax credits and monetization of those tax credits to help offset the costs. We're having discussions with hyperscalers as well as the government on risk sharing between EPCs, hyperscalers, Westinghouse and others. We'll continue to do that. But our position is still the same. We're not going to go forward with anything till we have the protections for our customers and investors that we have clarity and the supply chain and the executability of these projects as well as being able to protect our balance sheet.

Great. Thank you so much for the time. Thank you.

Anthony, we're not going to disclose that amount, but you can kind of get there through. We've got $0.22 a weather year to date. We're not going to invest all of that back in the system because some of it is really helping us position for the top end of the range. But you could think, you know, a modest amount of that $0.22 will be investing to de-risk future years. Got it. And then just a quick follow up on maybe the pipeline conversion. You guys talk about this maybe remaining 7.6 gigawatts of the 15.4 pipeline. You've signed 7.8. I guess, what are the gating items to move that 7.6 into, I guess, what you've signed? Is it generation, is it transmission?

Just what is needed to maybe move that into the sign contract bucket?

Yeah, Anthony, I'll pick that one. You know, this is a dynamic environment. These are complex contracts and terms and negotiations. And we're having in progressing and we have lots of weather agreements. But as we've discussed many times before, we're not counting anything until it hits the ESA level. Because we feel like that is a durable contract and lets us count those earnings and that growth more readily. So we're continuing to have those discussions that are going very well. But it is taking longer because of the complexities. And obviously, with a dynamic environment, I think everybody's experienced in this, whether it's elections, whether it's tariff proceedings, all those things come into play. But we're making progress on those.

And we feel very confident that we'll be able to sign the rest of those between now and the first half of next year. That's all I had. See you guys in Phoenix.

See you. Thank you.

Yeah, Nick. Good morning. I think we always contemplated this with the possibility because Brookfield had the optionality to accelerate their investment tranches. And so it's been in our planning assumptions that it could happen. And if it did, it's net a creative to us. I mean, and I mentioned on my prayer remarks, in the rising interest rate environment, those deals look better every day, bringing in $8.5 billion to deliver holdco when interest rates are moving against us is a great, great thing. So we definitely have a higher ownership percentage for Brookfield, for the Florida earlier. But that is, remember, we sold this business, that minority stake at near a 30PE. So it's a creative to the bottom line for having that interest being sold sooner.

And it's a nice help while we don't have to access the market near as much at the holding company in 2027 with these proceeds coming in. Thanks. Perfect. Thanks.

So I'll wrap this up real quickly. You know, our focus is, remains straightforward. We're going to maintain operational excellence. We're supporting the ones in the generation and we're delivering value for our customers. We're very pleased with our performance so far this year and continued progress that we're making on our strategic priorities as we move forward. We are very confident in our 2026 outlook and in our ability to deliver the upper half of our five to seven percent earnings per share growing in 2028. Our plan is very durable and we're well positioned to create the long-term value for our customers, our communities and our shareholders. So thank you again for joining us today. Look forward to seeing a lot of you out in Arizona later this weekend.

Thank you.