Constellation Energy Corp (CEG) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Constellation Energy Corporation Business and Earnings Outlook Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this call may be recorded.

女士們先生們，美好的一天，歡迎參加星座能源公司業務和盈利展望電話會議。 （操作員說明）謹此提醒，此通話可能會被錄音。

I would now like to introduce your host of today's call, Emily Duncan, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Strategic Growth. You may begin.

現在我想介紹一下今天電話會議的主持人，投資者關係和策略成長高級副總裁艾米麗鄧肯 (Emily Duncan)。你可以開始了。

Thank you, Latanya. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining Constellation Energy Corporation's business and earnings outlook call. Leading the call today are Joe Dominguez, Constellation's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Dan Eggers, Constellation's Chief Financial Officer. They are joined by other members of Constellation's senior management team who will be available to answer your questions following our prepared remarks.

謝謝你，拉塔尼亞。大家早安，感謝您參加星座能源公司的業務和盈利展望電話會議。今天的電話會議由 Constellation 總裁兼執行長 Joe Dominguez 主持。以及 Constellation 財務長 Dan Eggers。 Constellation 高階管理團隊的其他成員也將加入他們的行列，他們將在我們準備好的發言後回答您的問題。

We issued an 8-K this morning, which includes our earnings release detailing 2023 results along with a separate press release and business outlook presentation to be covered on today's call, all of which can be found in the Investor Relations section of Constellation's website. The materials in the 8-K and other matters, which we discuss during today's call contain forward-looking statements and estimates regarding Constellation and its subsidiaries that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ from our forward-looking statements based on factors and assumptions discussed in today's material and comments made during this call.

我們今天早上發布了 8-K，其中包括詳細介紹 2023 年業績的收益報告，以及今天電話會議將涵蓋的單獨新聞稿和業務前景演示，所有這些都可以在 Constellation 網站的投資者關係部分找到。我們在今天的電話會議中討論的 8-K 和其他事項中的材料包含有關 Constellation 及其子公司的前瞻性陳述和估計，這些陳述和估計受到各種風險和不確定性的影響。根據今天資料中討論的因素和假設以及本次電話會議期間發表的評論，實際結果可能與我們的前瞻性陳述有所不同。

Please refer to today's 8-K and Constellation's other SEC filings for discussions of risk factors and other circumstances and considerations that may cause results to differ from management's projections, forecasts and expectations. Today's presentation also includes references to adjusted operating earnings and other non-GAAP measures. Please refer to the information contained in the appendix of our presentation and our earnings release for reconciliations between the non-GAAP measures and the nearest equivalent GAAP measures.

請參閱今天的 8-K 和 Constellation 向 SEC 提交的其他文件，以了解可能導致結果與管理層的預測、預測和預期不同的風險因素以及其他情況和考慮因素的討論。今天的演示還包括對調整後營業收益和其他非公認會計原則衡量標準的參考。請參閱我們的簡報和收益發布的附錄中包含的信息，以了解非公認會計準則衡量標準與最接近的同等公認會計準則衡量標準之間的調節。

I'll now turn it over to Joe Dominguez, CEO of Constellation.

現在我將把它交給 Constellation 執行長 Joe Dominguez。

Thanks, Emily. Latanya, thanks for getting us started this morning and Emily for starting our agenda. Thank you all for joining us today. While this call is going to be focused on 2024 guidance and Constellation's future, I want to start out by commenting on the outstanding year we had in 2023, where we materially raised guidance in both the second and third quarter calls and yet still managed to exceed the top of the range in our full year results. It's Constellation's second full year in business and I think it's powerful that in both years, we exceeded the midpoint of our guidance range and last year, just really walloped it. We hope that these results underscore for you the importance that our entire management team places on meeting all of our commitments to you, and we're going to continue to do that. .

謝謝，艾米麗。拉塔尼亞（Latanya），感謝您讓我們今天早上開始，感謝艾米麗（Emily）啟動我們的議程。感謝大家今天加入我們。雖然本次電話會議將重點討論2024 年指導和Constellation 的未來，但我想先評論一下我們在2023 年的出色表現，我們在第二季度和第三季度的電話會議中大幅提高了指導意見，但仍然成功超越在我們的全年業績中名列前茅。這是星座公司第二個完整的業務年，我認為這兩年我們都超過了指導範圍的中點，而去年，我們真的打破了它，這是很強大的。我們希望這些結果向您強調我們整個管理團隊對履行我們對您的所有承諾的重視，我們將繼續這樣做。 。

As always, the secret sauce here at Constellation is a unique mixture of best generation assets in the world and a best-in-class commercial business, all run by an outstanding team of women and men. And I want to take a moment thank them for the wonderful results because they're the ones that deserve the credit.

像往常一樣，Constellation 的秘密武器是世界上最好的一代資產和一流的商業企業的獨特組合，所有這些都由傑出的男女團隊經營。我想花一點時間感謝他們所取得的出色成果，因為他們是值得讚揚的人。

Turning to 2024 and the future. I'm going to kick us off by focusing on our unique business and the advantages we see coming to us in this evolving marketplace. First, I'll talk a little bit about who we are, best operator of carbon-free nuclear plants in the world, backstopped by a nuclear PTC by the federal government and with a wide-reaching commercial business that's focused on the kinds of customers that need us the most. Second, that in the changing power markets, we provide something that I think others struggle to do. And that's carbon-free energy and reliability together. We think that's going to be the bedrock of the future for the country. And third, that we're best positioned to capture value in volatile markets and through the energy transition by selling the clean and reliable attributes of our 180 million-megawatt hour nuclear fleet.

展望2024年和未來。首先，我將重點介紹我們獨特的業務以及我們在這個不斷發展的市場中看到的優勢。首先，我將簡單介紹一下我們是誰，世界上最好的無碳核電站運營商，由聯邦政府的核 PTC 提供支持，並擁有專注於各類客戶的廣泛商業業務最需要我們的。其次，在不斷變化的電力市場中，我們提供了一些我認為其他人很難做到的事情。這就是無碳能源和可靠性。我們認為這將成為該國未來的基石。第三，我們最有能力透過出售我們 1.8 億兆瓦時核電機組的清潔可靠特性，在動盪的市場和能源轉型中獲取價值。

Now Dan is going to follow up and discuss our 2024 EPS guidance range of $7.23 to $8.03 per share, our visible 10%-plus growth on the vast majority of our earnings through the end of the decade, which we call base EPS and our updated 2-year free cash flow outlook. Dan also will cover some of our new disclosures and walk you through that. And I appreciate that we've already heard this morning from a number of investors who find those to be very useful. Hopefully, you all will.

現在，丹將跟進並討論我們的2024 年每股收益指導範圍為7.23 美元至8.03 美元，到本十年末，我們的絕大多數收益都將實現10% 以上的明顯增長，我們稱之為基本每股收益，而我們的更新2 年自由現金流展望。丹還將介紹我們的一些新披露內容，並引導您完成這些內容。我很高興今天早上我們已經收到一些投資者的來信，他們認為這些非常有用。希望你們都會。

So let's get started on Page 5 of the materials. Constellation is a special company that supports our country's and our customers' economic growth and sustainability goals. As we've said from the very beginning when we launched this company, the most important and valuable energy commodity in the world today is carbon-free electricity that operates predictably and reliably. And we produce more of that than anyone. Our fleet has the best track record, stretching back for well over a decade as being both the most cost-effective and reliable in the world. Our scale cannot be replicated because we already own more competitive nuclear generation than all of the other U.S. competitive nuclear generators combined.

讓我們從材料的第 5 頁開始。 Constellation 是一家特殊的公司，支持我們國家和客戶的經濟成長和永續發展目標。正如我們在成立這家公司之初就說過的那樣，當今世界上最重要、最有價值的能源商品是可預測且可靠運作的無碳電力。我們生產的此類產品比任何人都多。我們的機隊擁有最佳記錄，十多年來一直是世界上最具成本效益和最可靠的機隊。我們的規模無法複製，因為我們擁有的核電競爭力已經超過了美國所有其他有競爭力的核電機組的總和。

Likewise, our assets have a special longevity. The longevity of our asset base is unparalleled and we could operate for at least another 30 to 40 years. In a conflicted political world, nuclear energy emerges as a consensus pick for both Republicans and Democrats because of its unique qualities. The reach of our customer business, serving nearly 1/4 of all of the commercial industrial demand in the U.S. and 3/4 of the Fortune 100, puts us in the best position to use our unique assets and capabilities to meet the needs of our customers.

同樣，我們的資產也具有特殊的壽命。我們的資產基礎的壽命是無與倫比的，我們至少可以再營運 30 到 40 年。在充滿衝突的政治世界中，核能因其獨特的品質而成為共和黨和民主黨的共識選擇。我們的客戶業務涵蓋美國近 1/4 的商業工業需求和財富 100 強企業的 3/4，這使我們處於最佳位置，可以利用我們獨特的資產和能力來滿足我們客戶的需求。顧客。

In the same vein, the combination of our assets and commercial business give us the ability to earn enhanced earnings over and above the base earnings of the company, just as we did the first 2 years of our business. We will continue to use our high investment-grade balance sheet and disciplined approach to capital allocation to create value for you including through share buybacks because we firmly believe in the future value of this company. And as our nuclear fleet and customer business help meet the growing demand for clean, reliable energy to power the U.S. economy, there are multiple opportunities for us to generate robust base earnings growth beyond the 10% that we're laying out today. And I'll walk you through that.

同樣，我們的資產和商業業務的結合使我們能夠獲得超出公司基本收益的更高收益，就像我們業務的前兩年一樣。我們將繼續利用我們的高投資等級資產負債表和嚴格的資本配置方法為您創造價值，包括透過股票回購，因為我們堅信該公司的未來價值。隨著我們的核電機組和客戶業務幫助滿足對清潔、可靠的能源不斷增長的需求，為美國經濟提供動力，我們有很多機會實現強勁的基本盈利增長，超過我們今天規劃的 10%。我將引導您完成該過程。

The world clearly is moving in our direction. In the coming years, the demand for reliable and clean energy will only grow. We're the ones that are best positioned to meet that growing demand for clean energy and to tackle the energy transition, to unlock the value through compensation for the unique, clean and reliable attributes of our 180 million-megawatt hours of nuclear. And to help America power the technologies of the future, whether that be EVs, electric heating, industrial electrification or the booming demand for the data economy that America must lead in for both economic and national security reasons.

世界顯然正在朝著我們的方向發展。未來幾年，對可靠和清潔能源的需求只會成長。我們最有能力滿足對清潔能源不斷增長的需求，解決能源轉型問題，透過補償我們 1.8 億兆瓦時核電的獨特、清潔和可靠的屬性來釋放價值。並幫助美國為未來的技術提供動力，無論是電動車、電加熱、工業電氣化還是出於經濟和國家安全原因美國必須引領的數據經濟蓬勃發展的需求。

The production tax credit uniquely gives us the ability to be patient so that we could capture the value in this evolving market through strategic hedging and portfolio optimization. Simply stated, because of the PTC, we can now decide whether and frankly, how to hedge our fleet. We don't have to hedge 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. And that option, that flexibility is enormously valuable and will drive enhanced earnings for us and we could use the cash flow from these earnings to consolidate the industry, bet on ourselves through buybacks and make double-digit unlevered returns on growth investments. In sum, no other company has such a potent combination of predictable growth, upside exposure to power markets, strong cash flows and the downside protection from the federal government.

生產稅收抵免獨特地使我們能夠保持耐心，以便我們能夠透過策略性對沖和投資組合優化來捕捉這個不斷發展的市場中的價值。簡而言之，由於有了 PTC，我們現在可以決定是否以及坦率地說如何對我們的機隊進行對沖。我們不必對沖 1/3、1/3、1/3。這種靈活性非常有價值，將為我們帶來更高的收益，我們可以利用這些收益產生的現金流來整合產業，透過回購來押注自己，並在成長投資中獲得兩位數的無槓桿回報。總而言之，沒有其他公司能夠將可預測的成長、電力市場的上行敞口、強勁的現金流和聯邦政府的下行保護結合在一起。

Let's turn to Slide 6. As I mentioned a moment ago, this team is committed to delivering on the promises we make because we know that delivering on promises is the way to create long-term sustainable value for our owners. So as we celebrate Constellation's second anniversary as an independent company, Slide 6 is a summary of the promises we made to you, promises we have kept. It's a long list but I just want to highlight a few items. As I noted earlier, we've outperformed our financial expectations. Our balance sheet remains a competitive advantage and is now BBB, thanks to upgrades at both S&P and Moody's. We've cumulative growth of our dividend of 150%, exceeding our 10% annual target. We have also completed our first $1 billion buyback, and we started a second $1 billion buyback in January. Now for several calls, I've reiterated that we're happy to buy our shares all day long and we still feel that way. And I'm proud to say that, that commitment to the future of value of this company has already delivered value for you.

讓我們轉向幻燈片 6。正如我剛才提到的，這個團隊致力於兌現我們所做的承諾，因為我們知道兌現承諾是為我們的所有者創造長期可持續價值的方式。因此，在我們慶祝 Constellation 作為獨立公司成立兩週年之際，投影片 6 總結了我們向您所做的承諾以及我們兌現的承諾。這是一個很長的清單，但我只想強調一些項目。正如我之前指出的，我們的財務表現超出了預期。由於標準普爾和穆迪的升級，我們的資產負債表仍然具有競爭優勢，目前為 BBB。我們的股息累計成長了 150%，超過了 10% 的年度目標。我們也完成了首次 10 億美元的回購，並於 1 月開始了第二次 10 億美元的回購。現在，在幾次電話會議中，我重申我們很高興整天購買我們的股票，而且我們仍然有這種感覺。我很自豪地說，對公司未來價值的承諾已經為您帶來了價值。

Buying back our own shares has been one of our best investments. It's already created $400 million in value. We successfully advocated for the inclusion of the nuclear PTC in the IRA, which is a game changer for our business. We've had a disciplined approach to M&A, adding our ownership in STP to our fleet because of our focus on dual unit nuclear power plants and the competitive advantage they have.

回購我們自己的股票是我們最好的投資之一。它已經創造了 4 億美元的價值。我們成功倡導將核 PTC 納入 IRA，這對我們的業務來說是一個遊戲規則改變者。我們在併購方面採取了嚴格的方法，將我們在 STP 的所有權添加到我們的機隊中，因為我們專注於雙機組核電廠及其擁有的競爭優勢。

We made the smart decision to aggressively buy fuel and secure cost for this decade and beyond. We created a narrowly matched carbon-free energy product for our customers and we're selling that product now to sustainability leaders like Microsoft. And I think it's going to position us well in this data economy. We've begun the process to extend the lives of our nuclear fleet, which brings our asset lives to 80 years. And we've maintained our status and this is the most important thing. We've maintained our status as the best operator of nuclear power plants in the world. We're very excited to have accomplished all of that and all the things that are listed on this slide in 2 short years but we're even more excited about what the future brings.

我們做出了明智的決定，積極購買燃料並確保本十年及以後的成本。我們為客戶創造了一款極其匹配的無碳能源產品，現在我們正在將該產品出售給微軟等永續發展領導者。我認為這將使我們在數據經濟中處於有利地位。我們已經開始延長核艦隊壽命，使我們的資產壽命達到 80 年。我們保持了我們的地位，這是最重要的。我們一直保持著世界上最好的核電廠營運商的地位。我們很高興在短短兩年內完成了所有這些以及這張投影片上列出的所有事情，但我們對未來帶來的東西更加興奮。

As I turn to Slide 7, we've talked about this before but I want to spend a few moments talking about how the nuclear PTC and how it's fundamentally changed our business now that the program is in effect. Prior to the PTC, the outlook for our nuclear fleet was dependent on power prices, low or high and our revenues would fluctuate year-over-year, sometimes quite significantly. The PTC has changed that. At its core, the PTC ensures that our fleet will have revenue visibility starting at $43.75 per megawatt hour in 2024. This provides our fleet with significant downside protection, ensuring its operation but we keep the upside above the PTC floor. And the upside is unlimited.

當我翻到幻燈片 7 時，我們之前已經討論過這一點，但我想花一些時間討論核 PTC 以及該計劃生效後它如何從根本上改變我們的業務。在 PTC 之前，我們核電機組的前景取決於電價的高低，而且我們的收入會逐年波動，有時波動相當大。 PTC 改變了這一點。 PTC 的核心是確保我們的機隊到2024 年的收入可視性為每兆瓦時43.75 美元。這為我們的機隊提供了顯著的下行保護，確保其運營，但我們將上行空間保持在PTC 底線之上。而且好處是無限的。

In addition, as you can see on the left-hand side of the chart, the PTC floor revenue grows with inflation and will support our earnings per share growth target. Now we're assuming that the PTC grows at 2% in our financial disclosures, including our 10% growth rate target. However, as you could see on the right, higher inflation than 2% would have a significant positive impact on our revenue growth. So if you believe that 2% is going to be hard to hold for a decade or more, this is a company that you ought to be interested in. For example, in 2028, the difference in revenue between the 2% and 3% inflation cases is more than $750 million and in a 3% inflation case, our EPS growth rate would be in the mid- to high teens rather than the 10% we're talking about on this call. It's really quite significant.

此外，正如您在圖表左側看到的那樣，PTC 底線收入隨著通貨膨脹而增長，並將支持我們的每股收益成長目標。現在，我們在財務揭露中假設 PTC 成長率為 2%，其中包括 10% 的成長率目標。然而，正如您在右側所看到的，高於 2% 的通膨將對我們的收入成長產生重大的正面影響。因此，如果你認為 2% 的通膨率很難維持十年或更長時間，那麼這家公司你應該感興趣。例如，在 2028 年，2% 和 3% 通膨率之間的收入差異在3%在通貨膨脹的情況下，我們的每股盈餘成長率將超過7.5 億美元，我們的每股盈餘成長率將在中高位，而不是我們在本次電話會議上討論的10%。這確實是非常有意義的。

Let me turn to Slide 8. And what we want to talk about here is the public support that's growing as well as the political support between Republicans and Democrats who recognize the importance to our energy system of baseload power, baseload clean power from a transition and a national security standpoint. You have quotes here from both President Biden and former President Trump, both whom are proponents of nuclear energy.

讓我轉向幻燈片 8。我們在這裡要談論的是不斷增長的公眾支持以及共和黨和民主黨之間的政治支持，他們認識到基本負荷電力、基本負荷清潔電力對我們能源系統的重要性國家安全的立場。這裡引用了拜登總統和前總統川普的名言，他們都是核能的支持者。

Prior to the PTC, states stepped up with programs to ensure that these valuable resources do not prematurely retire. Now in Illinois, some of those programs were signed by Republican governors. Other times, they were signed by Democratic governors. At the federal level, it was federal -- it was former President Trump. And you might recall this, he was focused on the need to retain baseload energy. It was the right idea. And remember, he proposed using DOE's authority, its emergency authority under 202(c) to support existing nuclear plants when he was in office. And it was Republicans both in the House and the Senate who were among the first to introduce tax credit bills for nuclear. So in a sharply divided political world where the parties don't seem to agree on much, each party recognizes the unique and critical nature of nuclear energy and how essential it is to our country. So as a consequence, we believe that the policy is durable now and into the future.

在 PTC 推出之前，各州加強了計劃，以確保這些寶貴的資源不會過早退休。現在在伊利諾伊州，其中一些計劃已由共和黨州長簽署。其他時候，它們是由民主黨州長簽署的。在聯邦層面，它是聯邦——它是前總統川普。您可能還記得這一點，他專注於保留基本負載能量的需要。這是正確的想法。請記住，他在任期間曾提議利用能源部的權力，即 202(c) 下的緊急權力來支持現有的核電廠。眾議院和參議院的共和黨人是最早提出核能稅收抵免法案的人之一。因此，在一個分歧嚴重、各方似乎沒有太多共識的政治世界中，各方都認識到核能的獨特性和關鍵性以及它對我國的重要性。因此，我們相信該政策在現在和未來都是持久的。

Let's go to Slide 9. Slide 9 kind of shows you the many reasons why policymakers and the public have come to appreciate nuclear and I think it really does a good job here of summing up the case for nuclear. On the upper left-hand side, you can see that nuclear produces more energy for the same amount of installed capacity than any other energy technology. It operates more than 90% of the time, in our case, operates 95% of the time. And that's nearly 3 to 4x greater than wind and solar. It's also there 24 hours a day, in the heat or the cold, day or night, no matter the weather. The grid reliability and support provided by nuclear is unparalleled by any other energy resource. And I got to tell you, this is not theoretical. We've already seen this in event after event, whether it was the polar vortex in '14, the Elliott event, the Uri event or numerous others, it was nuclear that carried this system on its shoulders and people know that.

讓我們看投影片 9。投影片 9 向您展示了政策制定者和公眾開始重視核能的眾多原因，我認為它確實很好地總結了核能的案例。在左上角，您可以看到在相同裝置容量下，核能比任何其他能源技術產生更多的能量。它的運行時間超過 90%，在我們的例子中，運行時間為 95%。這幾乎是風能和太陽能的 3 到 4 倍。而且無論天氣如何，無論炎熱或寒冷、白天或夜晚，它全天 24 小時都在那裡。核能提供的電網可靠性和支援是其他能源無法比擬的。我必須告訴你，這不是理論上的。我們已經在一個又一個的事件中看到了這一點，無論是14 年的極地渦旋、埃利奧特事件、烏裡事件還是許多其他事件，都是核支撐了這個系統，人們都知道這一點。

Now moving to the bar charts on the upper right side of Slide 9. Note, the existing nuclear plants could run at least for 39 more years. And I say at least because we believe that some of our plants could actually run to 100 years, much longer than existing wind and solar operating today. And it's also longer than all the renewables that are being built right now and we think all the renewables that will be built this decade.

現在轉到投影片 9 右上角的長條圖。請注意，現有核電廠至少可以再運作 39 年。我之所以這麼說，是因為我們相信，我們的一些發電廠實際上可以運行 100 年，比目前現有的風能和太陽能運行時間長得多。它也比現在正在建造的所有可再生能源更長，我們認為這十年將建造的所有可再生能源。

Going to the chart on the lower left shows that nuclear has the lowest life cycle emissions of any technology. This is a big thing from a sustainability standpoint. Now we've included here everything from construction to the mining of fuel in this calculation. And that makes nuclear the best technology from a climate perspective. And then on the lower right-hand side of the slide, you can see that nuclear is essentially tied with solar as the safest technology, highlighting the safe operations of nuclear plants and the abundant power they produce and their ability to do that without emitting harmful pollutants into the atmosphere.

左下角的圖表顯示，核能的生命週期排放量是所有技術中最低的。從永續發展的角度來看，這是一件大事。現在，我們在此計算中包括了從建築到燃料開採的所有內容。從氣候角度來看，這使得核能成為最好的技術。然後在幻燈片的右下角，您可以看到核能本質上與太陽能作為最安全的技術聯繫在一起，強調了核電站的安全運行及其產生的豐富電力以及它們在不排放有害物質的情況下做到這一點的能力污染物進入大氣。

And finally, look, unlike any other technology, nuclear is the only generation resource where we know and control where every gram of fuel is and we have set aside the funds to restore the sites to greenfield condition after eventual plant retirements many decades from now. So in a nutshell, whether you're talking about sustainability, safety, reliability, waste management or long-lived durability, nuclear offers benefits at levels that no other resource can. And that's not all. It uses a lot less land. It could be positioned almost anywhere and it creates more family-sustaining jobs than any other generation type for us, right? We just start -- we started the company with 13,000 employees. In the last 2 years, we hired 2,500 people and these are long-term jobs and the communities love those jobs. And, of course, the politicians love those jobs. Nuclear is the backbone of the energy system now and it will become even more important in the future.

最後，與任何其他技術不同，核能是我們了解和控制每一克燃料的唯一發電資源，並且我們已經撥出資金，在幾十年後核電站最終退役後將這些地點恢復到綠地狀態。簡而言之，無論您談論的是永續性、安全性、可靠性、廢棄物管理還是長期耐用性，核能都能提供其他資源無法比擬的優勢。這還不是全部。它使用的土地少得多。它幾乎可以放置在任何地方，並且比任何其他一代類型為我們創造更多的家庭維持工作，對嗎？我們剛開始——我們創辦了一家擁有 13,000 名員工的公司。在過去 2 年裡，我們僱用了 2,500 名員工，這些都是長期工作，社區喜歡這些工作。當然，政客們也喜歡這些工作。核能現在是能源系統的支柱，未來將變得更加重要。

So as we turn to Slide 10, I want to start talking to you about the kind of changing energy fundamentals we're seeing in the market. We all know that the clean energy transition must happen and it is happening and Constellation's role in it will only grow. But as America transitions, there will be impacts on electric reliability and electric markets. The EIA, the Energy Information Administration forecasts that installed generation has to grow. And what you could see on the chart on the left-hand side is that what we're seeing is intermittent generation replacing dispatchable generation and it's been happening for a while. At the same time in the market, if you look at the chart on the right-hand side, you could see we're beginning to see for the first time load growth.

因此，當我們轉向幻燈片 10 時，我想開始與您討論我們在市場上看到的能源基本面的變化。我們都知道，清潔能源轉型必須發生，而且它正在發生，星座在其中的作用只會越來越大。但隨著美國的轉型，電力可靠性和電力市場將會受到影響。美國能源情報署 (EIA) 預測裝置容量必須成長。您可以在左側圖表中看到，我們看到的是間歇性發電取代了可調度發電，而且這種情況已經發生了一段時間。同時，在市場上，如果您查看右側的圖表，您會發現我們開始首次看到負載成長。

And I say, for the first time, we've seen load growth in places like Texas. But, of course, across PJM, we've kind of seen a flat line on load growth for a decade and more but that is changing. PJM's peak demand forecast for 2028 increased by 2% just in the last year. ERCOT's forecast for 2028 increased a whopping 6.6%. That increase is being driven by economic development across the country. This past year, more than 200 manufacturing facilities have been announced and almost $0.5 trillion investments have been made since 2021. We're seeing onshoring of businesses from Europe and other parts of the world that simply don't enjoy America's affordable energy dominance. And we're seeing onshoring of supply chains here in America due to political tensions that are rising between the U.S., China and other nations.

我說，我們第一次看到德州等地的負載成長。但是，當然，在 PJM 中，我們看到十多年來負荷成長一直保持平穩，但這種情況正在改變。 PJM 對 2028 年的高峰需求預測僅在去年就增加了 2%。 ERCOT 對 2028 年的預測大幅提高了 6.6%。這一增長是由全國經濟發展所推動的。去年，自2021 年以來，已經宣布了200 多個製造設施，並進行了近5 兆美元的投資。我們看到歐洲和世界其他地區的企業紛紛外包，而這些企業根本不享受美國負擔得起的能源主導地位。由於美國、中國和其他國家之間的政治緊張局勢不斷升級，我們看到美國的供應鏈正在外包。

We're seeing electrification of transportation, buildings and manufacturing. We're seeing increases in the frequency of extreme weather events driving peak demand growth. And the demand growth is being talked about quite frequently in the data economy, where AI is driving significant increase in these forecasts. So we think the combination of the energy transition, deteriorating supply reliability as we lose dispatchable generation and rising demand is all going to put a premium on clean energy resources that are reliable. And again, we own more of them than anybody in the world. And in short, we're seeing the signs in this marketplace for the first time in a while where we're seeing prices begin to converge on the cost of new build. And I don't know that we know that cost just yet. When we think about the offshore wind that has been challenged in the Mid-Atlantic and other areas, we're now seeing prices that are well above $100 a megawatt hour and that's without the kinds of storage and other things that would be required to make those things anywhere close to the reliability of a nuclear power plant.

我們看到交通、建築和製造業的電氣化。我們看到極端天氣事件的頻率增加推動了尖峰需求的成長。在數據經濟中，人們經常談論需求成長，人工智慧正在推動這些預測的大幅成長。因此，我們認為，能源轉型、由於失去可調度發電而導致的供應可靠性惡化以及不斷增長的需求，這些因素結合在一起，都會使人們對可靠的清潔能源資源更加重視。再說一次，我們擁有的這些資產比世界上任何人都多。簡而言之，我們一段時間以來第一次在這個市場上看到價格開始向新建成本靠近的跡象。我不知道我們現在是否知道這個成本。當我們想到在大西洋中部和其他地區受到挑戰的離岸風電時，我們現在看到的價格遠高於每兆瓦時 100 美元，而且這還不包括存儲和其他製造所需的東西。這些東西的可靠性與核電廠的可靠性非常接近。

So as I turn to Slide 11, we want to kind of talk a little bit about the data economy. I know that it is something that is a focus for many of our investors. Boston Consulting Group believes that AI and regular data center demand will grow by 7% -- to 7% of total electricity demand by 2030. To put this in context, this is the equivalent of the electricity used for lighting in every home, business and factory across the United States. It's a huge amount of energy. Most traditional data centers that were built 10 years ago were 10 megawatts or less. Today, it's not uncommon to see 100-megawatt data centers. And with our clients, we're talking about data centers that approach 1,000 megawatts. And they require 24/7 power. This is something that doesn't get talked about enough in my opinion.

當我轉向投影片 11 時，我們想談談數據經濟。我知道這是我們許多投資者關注的焦點。波士頓顧問集團認為，到 2030 年，人工智慧和常規資料中心的需求將增加 7%，佔總電力需求的 7%。具體而言，這相當於每個家庭、企業和辦公室的照明用電量。工廠遍布美國各地。這是巨大的能量。大多數 10 年前建成的傳統資料中心的功率均為 10 兆瓦或更少。如今，100 兆瓦的資料中心並不罕見。我們與客戶談論的是接近 1,000 兆瓦的資料中心。而且它們需要 24/7 的電源。在我看來，這是一個沒有足夠討論的事情。

When we do system planning and I've done this over the course of my career, we don't just kind of willy nilly decide what generation we want. We first look at the load profile, what's growing in the economy. So for example, if it's peaking load like air conditioning or electric heating as an example, as we get into the energy transition that kind of load growth will call for a particular kind of generation, peaking gas, mid-merit gas, or in the future batteries. But if the load growth is 24/7 base load growth, then it calls for a very different technology and that's us.

當我們進行系統規劃時（我在職業生涯中一直這樣做），我們不會隨意決定我們想要哪一代。我們先來看看負荷概況，也就是經濟的成長。舉例來說，如果是像空調或電暖氣這樣的尖峰負載，當我們進入能源轉型時，這種負載成長將需要特定類型的發電、尖峰天然氣、中等價值天然氣，或是未來的電池。但如果負載成長是 24/7 基本負載成長，那麼就需要一種非常不同的技術，而這就是我們。

Data centers are 24/7 consumers. We are 24/7 producers. So it's kind of a perfect marriage. And then when we add on top of that, our ability to provide clean energy to meet the sustainability objectives of this company, we think that there is an opportunity for us that is quite sizable. And we think the advantage Constellation could bring quite frankly, is that it could meet this demand across multiple jurisdictions and we could frankly serve the needs of some of even the largest customers in the world. So it is certainly exciting for us and something I'm sure we'll talk about.

資料中心是 24/7 的消費者。我們是 24/7 生產商。所以這是一段完美的婚姻。除此之外，當我們加上我們提供清潔能源來實現該公司永續發展目標的能力時，我們認為我們有一個相當大的機會。坦白說，我們認為星座可以帶來的優勢是，它可以滿足多個司法管轄區的這種需求，並且我們可以坦率地滿足一些甚至是世界上最大的客戶的需求。因此，這對我們來說無疑是令人興奮的，我相信我們會討論這一點。

As we turn to Slide 12, what we're going to talk about here in Slides 12 and 13 is both seasonal and day-to-day variability. And what I want to put in your mind is, the challenge of serving load when we're seeing this sort of variability, a challenge that we don't believe we face at Constellation given the profile of our generation assets. Now look, before we start this, I want to be clear. We think renewables have an important place in our efforts to decarbonize. Constellation's off-site renewable business has grown rapidly and we're on track to grow the business by 3% to 4% of the volumes that we were talking about just in 2021.

當我們轉向投影片 12 時，我們將在投影片 12 和 13 中討論季節性和日常變化。我想告訴你們的是，當我們看到這種變化時，服務負載面臨的挑戰，考慮到我們發電資產的概況，我們認為我們在星座公司不會面臨這項挑戰。現在看，在我們開始之前，我想澄清一下。我們認為再生能源在我們的脫碳努力中佔有重要地位。 Constellation 的場外再生能源業務成長迅速，我們預計將業務量成長到 2021 年我們所說的 3% 至 4%。

So our customers very much like renewable energy but they also are striving to get to 24/7 clean energy. And the intermittency of renewables does create some challenges for grid operators. So what you could see on this slide here is really kind of a macro seasonal disconnect between the performance of renewables and demand growth. You could see here that demand growth, no surprise here, is peaking in July and August. And we also see that a lot of renewable assets are underperforming in that period of time. When I did a lot of work in the Midwest, it was very common, for a 10-year period or more, that we would see capacity factors for wind in the Midwest drop to 5% or lower on the very hottest days there. That's why people talk about [hot still] days, it happens.

因此，我們的客戶非常喜歡再生能源，但他們也正在努力獲得 24/7 清潔能源。再生能源的間歇性確實給電網營運商帶來了一些挑戰。因此，您可以在這張投影片上看到再生能源表現與需求成長之間的宏觀季節性脫節。您可以在這裡看到，需求增長在七月和八月達到頂峰，這並不奇怪。我們也看到許多可再生資產在那段時間表現不佳。當我在中西部做大量工作時，在 10 年或更長的時間內，我們會看到中西部的風電容量係數在最熱的日子裡下降到 5% 或更低，這是很常見的。這就是為什麼人們談論[仍然炎熱]的日子，這種情況確實發生了。

And so again, it's -- if you have a lot of dispatchable energy, you can address this but as dispatchable energy is retiring, this load has to be picked up by nuclear plants. It's one of the challenges we face. So it's not just a seasonal challenge. As we flip to Slide 13, you kind of see this on a day-to-day basis, particularly in the spring and the winter, these moves could be 50% of production or to give you some sense of the dimensionality of this, it's the equivalent of instantaneously turning on and off 5 nuclear reactors without notice. And so if you step back, you could well imagine that managing this much day-to-day and seasonal variability in a system that expects certainty and reliability is going to be a big challenge and we're seeing that.

再說一次，如果你有大量的可調度能源，你可以解決這個問題，但隨著可調度能源的退役，這個負載必須由核電廠承擔。這是我們面臨的挑戰之一。所以這不僅僅是一個季節性的挑戰。當我們翻到投影片 13 時，您會在日常生活中看到這一點，特別是在春季和冬季，這些舉措可能佔生產的 50%，或者讓您對其中的維度有所了解，它是相當於在沒有通知的情況下立即打開和關閉5 個核反應器。因此，如果您退一步，您很可能會想像，在一個期望確定性和可靠性的系統中管理如此多的日常和季節性變化將是一個巨大的挑戰，我們已經看到了這一點。

But it's also an opportunity for us because as other firms are selling into this market and they have to deal with clients that need 24/7 power, right and clean power, like utilities, like the data economy, they have to translate the ability to find this power in the market into higher risk premiums into their bid, right, because there's going to be scarcity in certain hours. But that's not true for Constellation. Because our unique blend of reliability and clean assets gives us the ability to meet customer demand in any single hour. So those higher competitive risk premiums that other folks see turn into higher margins at Constellation and our owners benefit from better results and enhanced earnings, while our customers benefit from reliable energy and sustainability.

但這對我們來說也是一個機會，因為當其他公司進入這個市場時，他們必須與需要 24/7 電力、正確和清潔電力的客戶打交道，例如公用事業，例如數據經濟，他們必須將能力轉化為發現市場上的這種力量可以將更高的風險溢價納入他們的出價中，對吧，因為在某些時間內會出現稀缺。但對於星座來說，情況並非如此。因為我們將可靠性和清潔資產獨特地結合在一起，使我們能夠在任何一個小時內滿足客戶的需求。因此，其他人看到的更高的競爭風險溢價在星座公司轉化為更高的利潤，我們的所有者受益於更好的業績和增加的收入，而我們的客戶受益於可靠的能源和可持續性。

Let's take a look at Slide 14. We put an ERCOT slide in here because in many respects, we think ERCOT is an example of where other markets are going. And so that's just a powerful data point here. In 2023, ERCOT had 222 hours where demand exceeded 80,000 megawatts compared to just one hour in 2022. ERCOT also exceeded the all-time summer peak demand set in 2022 and 2021 by 11.8 gigawatts or an incredible 16%. And the system isn't just constrained at peak, I think historically, we would have said, well, then there are challenges at peak. But what we're really seeing here, and I think this chart does a really nice job of it, is that it's not necessarily peak demand that is driving high prices.

讓我們看一下投影片 14。我們在這裡放了一張 ERCOT 投影片，因為在很多方面，我們認為 ERCOT 是其他市場發展方向的一個例子。所以這只是一個強大的數據點。 2023 年，ERCOT 有 222 小時的需求超過 80,000 兆瓦，而 2022 年僅一小時。ERCOT 也比 2022 年和 2021 年設定的歷史夏季高峰需求高出 11.8 吉瓦，即令人難以置信的 16%。而且系統不僅在高峰時受到限制，我認為從歷史上看，我們會說，好吧，高峰時會遇到挑戰。但我們在這裡真正看到的是，我認為這張圖表做得非常好，那就是推動高價格的不一定是高峰需求。

When wind and solar make up less than 26% of the total demand, the prices in Texas start to move dramatically higher and kind of asymmetrically higher and into the thousands of dollars per megawatt hour. These high prices are signals that the market is giving to investors that there's a premium on reliability. And these prices quickly carry over into the average price of the year. For example, every hour at the maximum price of $5,000 per megawatt hour impacts the full year price around the clock energy price by $0.50 per megawatt hour. So you don't have to see a ton of these hours to move energy prices and we've seen that. And we think that what's happening in ERCOT is eventually going to happen in other markets to different degrees. And frankly, ERCOT has some advantages in that the solar and wind profiles there are among the very best in the entire nation.

當風能和太陽能佔總需求的比例低於 26% 時，德州的價格開始大幅上漲，並且有點不對稱地上漲，達到每兆瓦時數千美元。這些高價格表明市場向投資者發出了可靠性溢價的信號。這些價格很快就會延續到當年的平均價格。例如，每小時最高價格為每兆瓦時 5,000 美元，對全年全天候能源價格的影響為每兆瓦時 0.50 美元。因此，你不必花費大量時間來改變能源價格，我們已經看到了這一點。我們認為，ERCOT 中發生的事情最終會在不同程度上發生在其他市場。坦白說，ERCOT 有一些優勢，太陽能和風能的配置在全國都是最好的。

So the thematic is this. Reliability is equally as important as sustainability and we have to solve for both. And that's why we say the most valuable energy commodity in the world today is a commodity that does both of those things. And that's what Constellation owns. Nuclear sustainability attributes were ridiculously undervalued for so many years. And it's now beginning to be recognized but it's only the beginning and we're still a long way off, as I mentioned before, of fully understanding or valuing what clean and reliable energy together means. We think that spells a very good future for Constellation to exceed what we're talking about this morning.

所以主題是這樣的。可靠性與永續性同樣重要，我們必須同時解決這兩個問題。這就是為什麼我們說當今世界上最有價值的能源商品是具有這兩種功能的商品。這就是星座所擁有的。多年來，核可持續性屬性被嚴重低估。現在人們已經開始認識到這一點，但這只是一個開始，正如我之前提到的，要完全理解或重視清潔可靠的能源意味著什麼，我們還有很長的路要走。我們認為，這預示著 Constellation 有一個非常美好的未來，超越我們今天早上所討論的。

As I turn to Slide 15, our states were the first to recognize how vital nuclear was in supporting the economy and the environment. New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut, they had controversial programs, I would say and the ZEC programs for nuclear initially but they all look pretty prescient now, don't they? And what we're seeing is that customers are following their lead, showing a more willingness to contract for the attributes of our fleet. And we have quite a few ways to monetize, getting paid for these attributes. And we're going to be able to sell those more and more as the state programs roll off. And as we progress through the decade, you could see on the chart on the left-hand side, we're going to have a full 180 million-megawatt hours of clean nuclear power to sell annually that is leveraged at exactly the right time these transitions in energy market and the economy are occurring.

當我翻到投影片 15 時，我們的州最先認識到核能對於支持經濟和環境的重要性。紐約、伊利諾伊州、新澤西州、康涅狄格州，我想說的是，他們有爭議的計劃，還有最初的 ZEC 核計劃，但現在它們看起來都很有先見之明，不是嗎？我們看到的是，客戶正在追隨他們的腳步，表現出更願意就我們機隊的屬性簽訂合約。我們有很多賺錢的方法，透過這些屬性獲得報酬。隨著州計劃的展開，我們將能夠越來越多地銷售這些產品。隨著我們在這十年中的進步，您可以在左側的圖表中看到，我們每年將出售 1.8 億兆瓦時的清潔核電，這些發電量將在正確的時間得到利用。能源市場和經濟正在發生轉變。

And so as I talked about it earlier, we see opportunities in the data center area for 24/7 clean generation because of the sustainable needs, because they need energy 24/7 and our dual unit sites are competing for behind the fence line opportunities with those technologies. Depending on the outcome of the treasury -- final treasury rules and if we don't get the right outcome, depending on the outcome of litigation, hydrogen remains an opportunity for us going forward. We are committed to the view that we are correct in the interpretation of the statute and will win.

正如我之前談到的，由於永續需求，我們在資料中心領域看到了24/7 清潔發電的機會，因為它們需要24/7 能源，而我們的雙單元站點正在與以下公司競爭柵欄線後面的機會那些技術。根據財政部的結果－最終的財政部規則，如果我們沒有得到正確的結果，根據訴訟的結果，氫仍然是我們前進的機會。我們堅信我們對法規的解釋是正確的並且將會獲勝。

The states and the federal government are now entering into the marketplace to look for hourly match carbon-free energy. We've seen that in the case of ComEd. And we continue to see opportunity with our customer -- C&I customers who want to follow the lead that Microsoft and ComEd have set for an hourly match clean energy product. Now, importantly, when we talk about the 10% growth for base earnings through the decade, these opportunities aren't included in either our forecast or our expected growth rate. Now it's a little bit early to share what we think the value of the attributes would be. And I think this is the kind of thing that gets -- needs to get updated as contracts get signed.

各州和聯邦政府現在正在進入市場尋找每小時匹配的無碳能源。我們已經在 ComEd 的案例中看到了這一點。我們繼續看到我們的客戶——工商業客戶的機會，他們希望追隨 Microsoft 和 ComEd 為每小時匹配的清潔能源產品設定的領先地位。現在，重要的是，當我們談論這十年來基本收益成長 10% 時，這些機會並未包含在我們的預測或預期成長率中。現在分享我們認為這些屬性的價值還為時過早。我認為這是一種需要在合約簽署時進行更新的事情。

But if you just look at the chart on the upper right-hand side, you could kind of see the impact. If we sold attributes for half of our fleet at $10 per megawatt hour and I'm not signaling that $10 is the right price, it isn't. But that alone would be $900 million of additional revenue. And since there's no additional cost to us to generate the revenues, the upside would be more than $2 of additional earnings per share. So you can kind of see how both inflation and the sale of attributes meaningfully change the 10% growth rate and make sizable leads to upwards of 20% or more. And remember, while we pursue the opportunities from the market through attribute sales, our revenues are protected by the PTC.

但如果您只看右上角的圖表，您就可以看到其影響。如果我們以每兆瓦時 10 美元的價格出售一半機隊的屬性，而我並不是說 10 美元是合適的價格，那麼事實並非如此。但光是這一點就將帶來 9 億美元的額外收入。由於我們沒有額外成本來產生收入，因此每股額外收益將超過 2 美元。因此，您可以看到通貨膨脹和屬性銷售如何有意義地改變 10% 的成長率，並使成長率達到 20% 或更高。請記住，雖然我們透過屬性銷售從市場中尋求機會，但我們的收入受到 PTC 的保護。

On Slide 16, I want to bring back a couple of the points I've already made. We're the largest generator of nuclear power in the country, all of which sits in competitive markets. And you could see from the chart on the left-hand slide here that if you accumulated all of the other merchant or competitive nuclear in the market, it still doesn't total what Constellation is. But more than that, our fleet is overwhelmingly dual units. If you think about the 25 units we're invested in, all but Clinton and Ginna, are dual unit sites that enjoy those economics. And that's important both from the cost of producing the megawatt hour but also behind the fence line opportunities with data centers and others.

在投影片 16 上，我想回顧我已經提出的幾點。我們是全國最大的核電發電商，所有這些都位於競爭激烈的市場中。您可以從左側投影片的圖表中看到，如果您累積了市場上所有其他商業或競爭核心，它仍然達不到星座的總和。但更重要的是，我們的機隊絕大多數是雙機組。如果您考慮我們投資的 25 個單位，除了克林頓和吉娜之外，所有單位都是享有這些經濟效益的雙單位地點。這一點很重要，無論是從生產兆瓦時的成本來看，還是在資料中心和其他方面的機會背後。

We're the cleanest generator with the most attributes to sell in the market. And because we could operate in competitive markets, we have the opportunity to create value unlike any regulated peer. And we're the best operator of plants and we have led the industry and you could see this on the right-hand side and we produce more energy by something like 4% of capacity factor than the industry average. That doesn't sound like a lot. But operating 4% better than the industry average is the equivalent of having another reactor's worth of power or for you, $335 million in additional revenues with costs only higher for the fuel consumed.

我們是市場上銷售的最乾淨、最具特色的發電機。由於我們可以在競爭激烈的市場中運營，因此我們有機會創造不同於任何受監管同行的價值。我們是最好的工廠營運商，我們在行業中處於領先地位，您可以在右側看到這一點，我們生產的能源比行業平均水平高出 4% 左右。這聽起來並不多。但運行速度比行業平均高 4% 就相當於擁有另一座反應器的電力，或者對您而言，可帶來 3.35 億美元的額外收入，而成本僅因消耗的燃料而更高。

If I turn to Slide 17, I want to talk a little bit about what we're seeing in the competitive C&I market and how these businesses kind of fit together very well from our perspective. The story here isn't just about sheer size. You could see on the upper chart here that we're the second largest retail supplier. It's the composition of the customers that we have. We've been focused from the beginning on the C&I customer base. Again, when you think about our generation profile, providing 24/7 power, we want to have the kinds of customers that have a load profile, demand profile that works best with our machines. And that is commercial and industrial customers.

如果我翻到投影片 17，我想談談我們在競爭激烈的工商業市場中所看到的情況，以及從我們的角度來看這些業務如何很好地結合在一起。這裡的故事不僅僅是關於規模。您可以在上面的圖表中看到我們是第二大零售供應商。這是我們擁有的客戶的組成。我們從一開始就專注於工商業客戶群。同樣，當您考慮我們提供 24/7 電力的發電概況時，我們希望擁有具有最適合我們的機器的負載概況和需求概況的客戶。那就是商業和工業客戶。

Secondly, these are the kinds of customers that have sustainability goals. So as we introduce products like 24/7 and as we continue to roll out CORe, with its sizable growth, which is our offsite renewable program, it's become a real win-win for Constellation and its customers and we could serve that load with lower risk than others, meaning the margin expansion that we foresee will go into our earnings.

其次，這些客戶具有永續發展目標。因此，當我們推出24/7 之類的產品時，隨著我們繼續推出CORe，隨著其可觀的增長，這是我們的場外可再生能源計劃，它對Constellation 及其客戶來說是真正的雙贏，我們可以以更低的成本來服務該負載。風險高於其他公司，這意味著我們預期利潤率的擴張將計入我們的收益。

Now Slide 18 talks about how we're uniquely positioned to help our C&I customers meet their demand. And frankly, like our country, customers are on a journey here to meet environmental and sustainability goals and to do that in a way that is most affordable. And we've positioned the business to be a great partner to these customers. We anticipated the drive for clean energy and so we created the Emission-Free Energy Certificates, the EFECs, that now effectively memorialize nuclear generation. We've worked with PJM and other RTOs to have the data available to the market so that customers could see the hourly match because we know that this is moving towards hourly match and already has.

現在投影片 18 討論了我們如何以獨特的優勢幫助我們的工商業客戶滿足他們的需求。坦白說，就像我們的國家一樣，客戶正在這裡實現環境和永續發展目標，並以最實惠的方式實現這一目標。我們將公司定位為這些客戶的優秀合作夥伴。我們預見到清潔能源的發展，因此我們創建了無排放能源證書（EFEC），它現在有效地紀念了核能發電。我們與 PJM 和其他 RTO 合作，將數據提供給市場，以便客戶可以看到每小時的比賽，因為我們知道這正在朝著每小時比賽的方向發展，而且已經做到了。

Customers wanted energy tied to specific projects. So we created our CORe off-site renewables program and we work with renewable developers to match their projects with our customers. And as I've said several times here, we're leading the way with the first truly hourly match carbon-free program in the market. Customers now get to see a particular asset that produces their clean energy where we need it. And the big thing here, folks, I think the change has been the acceptance of nuclear as a sustainability solution. Been around for a long time and years ago, we couldn't get customers to look at nuclear, regardless of its economics, it's reliability or its environmental benefits. But that's changed. States led the way and customers increasingly accept nuclear and that opens the door for us to have a sales discussion. And once customers see what we could do from affordability and time match perspective, they like it. And our customers are exploring behind-the-meter opportunities and we're looking at different partnerships as that landscape evolve.

客戶希望能源與特定項目掛鉤。因此，我們創建了 CORe 場外再生能源計劃，並與再生能源開發商合作，將他們的項目與我們的客戶相匹配。正如我在這裡多次說過的那樣，我們正在市場上第一個真正的每小時比賽無碳計劃中處於領先地位。客戶現在可以看到在我們需要的地方生產清潔能源的特定資產。夥計們，這裡最重要的是，我認為變化是人們接受核能作為永續發展的解決方案。核能已經存在很長一段時間了，多年前，我們無法讓客戶專注於核能，無論其經濟性、可靠性或環境效益如何。但情況已經改變了。國家帶頭，客戶越來越接受核能，這為我們進行銷售討論打開了大門。一旦客戶從負擔能力和時間匹配的角度看到我們可以做的事情，他們就會喜歡它。我們的客戶正在探索用戶背後的機會，隨著情況的發展，我們正在尋找不同的合作關係。

As we move from just energy to more sustainability products, the other thing we're looking at is, the duration of the contracts tends to expand. And so we see margins significantly above historic margins and the duration, the term that is significantly longer. And that adds to visibility of our earnings for the decade and beyond. Our customer relationships and the focus on C&I will put us on the path to monetize the assets that we have, we uniquely have in the reliable and clean energy.

隨著我們從單純的能源轉向更永續的產品，我們關注的另一件事是，合約的期限往往會延長。因此，我們看到利潤率明顯高於歷史利潤率，而且持續時間也明顯更長。這增加了我們十年及以後收入的可見度。我們的客戶關係以及對工商業的關注將使我們走上將我們擁有的資產貨幣化的道路，我們在可靠和清潔能源方面擁有獨特的資產。

So I'll close this part of the presentation with Slide 19. The success and the outperformance of the past few years would not have happened had we not had this unique world-class generation portfolio with the best commercial team in the business. And we've integrated those 2 things as one part of the platform. Over the past 2 years, our commercial business has demonstrated that it could thrive in volatile and changing markets. And I think that's what we're going to see going forward. I think all of the data indicates volatility and change, both from growing demand and the turnover and the composition of the fleet is going to lead the volatility and our team is well positioned to handle that because of the stability of our assets.

因此，我將用幻燈片 19 來結束這一部分的演示。如果我們沒有這個獨特的世界級發電產品組合以及業內最好的商業團隊，過去幾年的成功和出色表現就不會發生。我們已將這兩件事集成為平台的一部分。在過去的兩年裡，我們的商業業務已經證明它可以在動盪和變化的市場中蓬勃發展。我認為這就是我們未來將會看到的情況。我認為所有數據都顯示波動和變化，無論是需求成長還是營業額和船隊的組成都將導致波動，而由於我們資產的穩定性，我們的團隊有能力應對這個問題。

So we're going to be able to price in higher margins to customers to manage their exposure through these volatile moments. We're going to be able to optimize our individual generation and load positions to create the best position using both understanding that we control fully now when we hedge, we're going to be able to sell customized sustainability solutions. And these businesses will work in tandem to serve our customers, help America transition and provide the carbon-free and reliable energy that we need. And I think it's going to produce results that are better than our current plan.

因此，我們將能夠向客戶定價更高的利潤，以在這些動盪的時刻管理他們的風險敞口。我們將能夠優化我們的單獨發電和負載位置，以創建最佳位置，利用我們現在完全控制的理解，當我們對沖時，我們將能夠銷售客製化的永續發展解決方案。這些企業將齊心協力為我們的客戶提供服務，幫助美國轉型並提供我們所需的無碳且可靠的能源。我認為這將產生比我們目前計劃更好的結果。

So now I'll turn it over to Dan to talk a little bit about the financial outlook and some of the changes that we've made. And again, very much appreciate the positive comments we've already received. Dan?

現在我將把它交給丹來談談財務前景和我們所做的一些改變。再次，非常感謝我們已經收到的正面評論。擔？

Thank you, Joe. Good morning, everyone. We're very proud of what we've accomplished since we launched and we're even more excited about what lies ahead. I'm starting on Slide 21.

謝謝你，喬。大家，早安。我們對自推出以來所取得的成就感到非常自豪，並且對未來更加興奮。我從投影片 21 開始。

As Joe outlined, the nuclear PTC has fundamentally changed our business by providing revenue visibility, supporting earnings growth through its built-in inflation adjustment and protecting against power market downside by providing a floor or base level of earnings while maintaining exposure to higher prices. From a mechanical perspective, the PTC will be treated as an after-tax revenue stream that will fill the gap between spot revenues at each plant, when we consider the after-tax earnings support, our high investment-grade credit ratings and our strong free cash flow generation to support reinvestment or return of capital to our owners. We are transitioning our primary financial metric to operating EPS. Our guidance range for 2024 is $7.23 to $8.03 per share, up considerably from the $6.28 earned in 2023, which I'll remind you as well ahead of our original expectations for last year.

正如喬所概述的那樣，核電PTC 從根本上改變了我們的業務，它提供了收入可見性，透過其內置的通貨膨脹調整支持盈利增長，並通過在保持較高價格風險的同時提供盈利的下限或基本水準來防止電力市場下行。從機械角度來看，當我們考慮稅後獲利支援、高投資級信用評級和強大的自由信用評級時，PTC 將被視為稅後收入流，它將填補每個工廠現貨收入之間的缺口。產生現金流以支持再投資或將資本回饋給我們的所有者。我們正在將主要財務指標轉變為營運每股收益。我們對 2024 年的指導範圍是每股 7.23 美元至 8.03 美元，比 2023 年的 6.28 美元大幅上漲，我會在我們去年的最初預期之前提醒您。

On Page 31 of the appendix, we provide 2023 EPS by quarter to help you calibrate against last year. And since EPS is new, the easy rule of thumb is every $4 million of pretax equals $0.01 of EPS and ties back to some of Joe's slides earlier. More than just helping to prompt the change to EPS, the nuclear PTC is reshaping how we approach the sale of electricity from our nuclear plants. Historically, we hedged on a 3-year ratable basis to provide earnings visibility, support our credit metrics and ensure that we have the cash needed to run the business with the downside revenue protection from the nuclear PTC. And in current interpretation of gross receipts, we no longer need to hedge our generation output in the same way, allowing us to better take advantage of the power price moves. This also means the traditional way of modeling the company is changing. To help, we are also introducing new disclosures, also provide simplicity, a longer time horizon and greater visibility into our business that you've all been asking for.

在附錄第 31 頁，我們按季度提供了 2023 年每股收益，以幫助您根據去年進行校準。由於 EPS 是新的，簡單的經驗法則是每 400 萬美元的稅前等於 0.01 美元的 EPS，並且與 Joe 之前的一些幻燈片有關。核 PTC 不僅有助於推動 EPS 的變革，還正在重塑我們核電廠電力銷售的方式。從歷史上看，我們以 3 年應納稅額為基礎進行對沖，以提供盈利可見性、支持我們的信用指標，並確保我們擁有運營業務所需的現金以及核 PTC 的下行收入保護。根據目前對總收入的解釋，我們不再需要以同樣的方式對沖我們的發電量，使我們能夠更好地利用電價變動。這也意味著公司傳統的建模方式正在改變。為了提供幫助，我們還引入了新的披露信息，並提供了你們一直要求的簡單性、更長的時間範圍和更大的業務可見性。

Turning to Slide 22. Our total earnings can be thought of in 2 parts. First, we have a significant portion of our business, which delivers consistent, visible and easy to calculate earnings that will grow over time. This goes beyond the support the PTC provides our nuclear fleet and includes our commercial business and non-nuclear assets. We call these base earnings and they can be easily modeled using simple PxQ. For example, retail margin x volumes sold and the nuclear PTC price x generation output. Base earnings for 2024 of $5.45 to $5.55 per share, which we are confident will grow at least 10% through the decade.

轉向投影片 22。我們的總收入可以分為兩個部分。首先，我們的業務有很大一部分可以提供持續、可見且易於計算的收益，且收益會隨著時間的推移而成長。這超出了 PTC 為我們的核子艦隊提供的支持，還包括我們的商業業務和非核資產。我們將這些稱為基本收益，可以使用簡單的 PxQ 輕鬆對它們進行建模。例如，零售利潤 x 銷售量，核 PTC 價格 x 發電量。 2024 年的基本收益為每股 5.45 美元至 5.55 美元，我們有信心在這十年中將成長至少 10%。

I'll discuss the tools for calculating base earnings in a moment. To get to our total EPS, we have a second bucket that we call enhanced earnings. Our company consistently makes more money than what is captured than the easy to calculate base earnings but these earnings don't comport to the same PxQ math and can also vary year-to-year depending on market opportunities.

我稍後將討論計算基本收入的工具。為了得到我們的總每股收益，我們有第二個桶，我們稱之為增強收益。我們公司的利潤始終高於易於計算的基本收益，但這些收益與相同的 PxQ 數學不相符，而且還可能根據市場機會逐年變化。

Our extraordinary results last year, a good example of outsized value capture, created by market volatility that provided an opportunity for greater margins. When we look forward, you can think about enhanced earnings as including stronger-than-average retail margins, realized power prices above the PTC floor and capture value from volatility, driven by the factors Joe talked about. We feel comfortable that enhanced EPS will add at least 10% to 20% to total EPS on top of base earnings but we're doing better than that in 2024 and 2025 due to the big backlog gains and forward power prices in those years. This breakdown in the base and enhanced earnings are modeling tools, which will help provide visibility into our disclosures and greater clarity into our business. We plan to refresh the split on base and enhanced once a year when we provide new guidance on the fourth quarter earnings call. During the year and for our quarterly results, we only report total EPS.

我們去年取得了非凡的業績，這是市場波動創造的巨大價值捕獲的一個很好的例子，這提供了獲得更高利潤的機會。當我們展望未來時，您可以將收益的提高視為包括高於平均水平的零售利潤、高於 PTC 底線的實際電價以及從波動中獲取價值，這些都是由 Joe 談到的因素推動的。我們感到放心的是，除了基本收益之外，每股收益的提高將使總每股收益增加至少10% 到20%，但由於這些年的積壓訂單增長和遠期電價，我們的表現比2024 年和2025 年要好。基本收益和增強收益的細分是建模工具，這將有助於提供我們披露的可見性並更清晰地了解我們的業務。當我們在第四季財報電話會議上提供新的指導時，我們計劃每年更新一次分割並增強一次。在這一年和季度業績中，我們僅報告總每股收益。

Turning to Slide 23. Through the end of the decade, our base EPS will grow at a compound rate of at least 10%. And we see opportunity to do better since this outlook assumes a 2% inflation rate for the PTC adjustment, does not include getting paid for our clean and reliable attributes through data centers or additional CFE sales that Joe talked about or margin expansion from our customer business that we have seen in recent years, to name a few potential drivers. All of those items would be additive to our growth rate.

轉向投影片 23。到本十年末，我們的基本每股盈餘將以至少 10% 的複合成長率成長。我們看到了做得更好的機會，因為這一前景假設PTC 調整的通貨膨脹率為2%，不包括透過資料中心或喬談到的額外CFE 銷售或我們客戶業務的利潤擴張來獲得我們清潔可靠的屬性的報酬我們近年來看到的一些潛在驅動因素。所有這些項目都會增加我們的成長率。

I do want to be clear that the growth rate will not be a straight line. It will vary from year-to-year due to a variety of factors, including the lumpiness of the PTC floor adjustments, as well as the number and duration of outages in any year. You can see this most clearly when looking at 2026. At 2% inflation, the PTC does not increase that year. And if it is a heavy outage year where we also expect longer-than-normal outages because we'll start then selling our turbines for the upgrades of Byron and Braidwood. Over the long term, we are confident that we will grow base EPS by at least 10% and we've included all the tools you need to be able to model and validate our outlook.

我確實想澄清的是，成長率不會是直線的。由於多種因素的影響，每年都會有所不同，包括 PTC 底線調整的波動性，以及任何一年的停電次數和持續時間。展望 2026 年，您可以最清楚地看到這一點。在 2% 的通貨膨脹率下，PTC 當年不會增加。如果今年是停電嚴重的一年，我們預計停電時間也會比正常情況更長，因為我們將開始出售渦輪機以用於拜倫和布雷德伍德的升級。從長遠來看，我們有信心基礎每股盈餘將成長至少 10%，我們已經提供了您能夠建模和驗證我們的前景所需的所有工具。

Moving on to Slide 25. You can see the types of simple tools that can be used to calculate base earnings. The model inputs, including costs can be found on Pages 32 to 34 in the appendix and will help you model out to 2028. For our generation fleet, we provide expected generation x price. For nuclear, this is broken down by the CMC units in Illinois, New York units inclusive of the ZEC revenues and the remaining PTC units.

前往投影片 25。您可以看到可用於計算基本收入的簡單工具類型。模型輸入（包括成本）可在附錄第 32 至 34 頁找到，將協助您建模至 2028 年。對於我們的發電機隊，我們提供預期的第 x 代價格。對於核電，這按伊利諾伊州的 CMC 單位、紐約單位（包括 ZEC 收入和剩餘的 PTC 單位）進行細分。

On the nonnuclear side, we provide capacity prices and volumes, historical renewable PPA prices and minimum expected spark spreads. On the commercial side, we provide 13-year average historical and forecasted margins for both our power and gas businesses, which captures the vast majority of the base earnings for our commercial business. We have other businesses like Constellation Home, energy efficiency and portfolio management that year in and year out consistently contribute to our earnings. These tools will help to easily model Constellation well into the future, giving you much longer visibility in the base earnings.

在非核能方面，我們提供容量價格和容量、歷史再生能源購電協議價格和最低預期火花差價。在商業方面，我們提供了電力和天然氣業務 13 年的平均歷史和預測利潤率，這佔據了我們商業業務的絕大多數基本收益。我們還有其他業務，例如 Constellation Home、能源效率和投資組合管理，年復一年地持續為我們的收益做出貢獻。這些工具將有助於輕鬆地對 Constellation 的未來進行建模，讓您更長期地了解基本效益。

Moving to the next slide. We know that we'll earn more each year than our base earnings and you can see that with our outperformance in the last 2 years. As I mentioned earlier, these earnings are not as easy to model from a PxQ approach, it can vary year-to-year as we take advantage of market opportunities. That said, we are confident that we'll continue to drive additional value from our competitively advantaged businesses.

轉到下一張投影片。我們知道，我們每年的收入將超過我們的基本收入，您可以從我們過去兩年的優異表現中看到這一點。正如我之前提到的，這些收益並不那麼容易透過 PxQ 方法進行建模，隨著我們利用市場機會，它可能會逐年變化。也就是說，我們有信心繼續從我們具有競爭優勢的業務中推動附加價值。

For 2024 and 2025, commercial margins will be above the 13-year average used in base EPS, which we've already put into backlog through forward sales made in '22 and '23. For example, in 2024, we are seeing electric margins $1.75 per megawatt hour more than the 13-year average as we've monetized recent commodity price volatility and as customers have wanted the certainty that a fixed price product offers them. Enhanced earnings are also benefiting from plants where forward power prices are above the PTC floor as well as optimizing positions between our retail and generation businesses. When we look into the future and the assumptions underpinning base EPS, we expect enhanced earnings to add at least 10% to 20% to total EPS in typical years but see that contribution higher for the next couple of years, given the extraordinary commercial margins we've locked in. On Page 35 in the appendix, we provide some inputs around enhanced gross margin, this should help add dimension to this earnings stream.

2024 年和 2025 年，商業利潤率將高於基本每股收益中使用的 13 年平均水平，我們已經透過 22 年和 23 年的遠期銷售將其積壓。例如，到 2024 年，我們預計電力利潤率將比 13 年平均值高出每兆瓦時 1.75 美元，因為我們已經將最近的商品價格波動貨幣化，並且客戶希望固定價格產品為他們提供確定性。獲利的增加也受惠於遠期電價高於 PTC 下限的工廠以及優化我們的零售和發電業務之間的地位。當我們展望未來以及支撐基本每股收益的假設時，我們預計，在典型年份中，盈利的增加將至少使總每股收益增加10% 至20%，但考慮到我們非凡的商業利潤，未來幾年的貢獻會更高。已經鎖定。在附錄第 35 頁，我們提供了一些有關提高毛利率的信息，這應該有助於增加該收入流的規模。

I'll now turn to our capital allocation plan on Page 26, which should look familiar to all of you. Our goal is to deliver value for our owners through the capital allocation plan and our philosophy on how to do so is unchanged. Our high investment-grade credit ratings are our foundation. Our strength has been recognized by both S&P through our recent upgrade to BBB+ and by being placed on positive outlook at Moody's. Our high investment-grade credit ratings and strong credit metrics reflect the high-quality nature of our business. We remain committed to the dividend. We'll grow our dividend per share by 25% this year, starting with the March 2024 dividend, bringing our total dividend increase since we started in 2022 to 150%. We'll continue to target 10% annual growth in future years. We will continue to invest in our assets, which will supply the grid with clean energy from our nuclear fleet for decades to come and help decarbonize the American economy.

我現在將討論第 26 頁的資本分配計劃，大家應該都很熟悉這個計劃。我們的目標是透過資本配置計劃為我們的所有者創造價值，我們的理念沒有改變。高投資等級信用評級是我們的基礎。我們的實力得到了標準普爾的認可，我們最近升級至 BBB+，並且穆迪給予我們積極的展望。我們的高投資等級信用評級和強大的信用指標反映了我們業務的高品質。我們仍然致力於派發股息。從 2024 年 3 月的股息開始，今年我們的每股股息將增加 25%，從而使自 2022 年開始以來的總股息增幅達到 150%。未來幾年我們將繼續設定年增率10%的目標。我們將繼續投資我們的資產，這些資產將在未來幾十年內透過我們的核子艦隊為電網提供清潔能源，並幫助美國經濟脫碳。

Our 2024 and 2025 capital plans can be found on Page 36 of the appendix. On growth, we will continue to be disciplined on both organic and inorganic opportunities, making investments where we exceed our double-digit unlevered return threshold. Last year, we were thrilled by a large part of the South Texas Project nuclear plant. We'll continue to look for acquisitions to meet our business priorities and return thresholds. Over the next 2 years, we'll also invest in organic projects that will grow and continue the operations of our invaluable carbon-free assets. We're making investments at some of our plants to get them ready for future behind-the-meter demand and hydrogen remains an opportunity for us but is admittedly dependent on the outcome of the final rules of treasury.

我們的 2024 年和 2025 年資本計畫可在附錄第 36 頁找到。在成長方面，我們將繼續嚴格控制有機和無機機會，在超過兩位數無槓桿回報門檻的情況下進行投資。去年，我們對南德州計畫核電廠的大部分內容感到興奮。我們將繼續尋找收購來滿足我們的業務優先事項和回報門檻。在接下來的兩年裡，我們還將投資有機項目，這些項目將發展並繼續我們寶貴的無碳資產的運作。我們正在對一些工廠進行投資，以便為未來的用戶需求做好準備，氫氣對我們來說仍然是一個機會，但不可否認，這取決於財政部最終規則的結果。

In addition, we happily invested alongside our owners last year, completing our first $1 billion share repurchase program. Our Board authorized the next $1 billion program in December, we've already been buying this quarter. We're excited about the opportunities to invest in our business at the right returns but we're also more than happy to keep buying our own stock.

此外，我們去年愉快地與我們的所有者一起投資，完成了我們的第一個 10 億美元的股票回購計劃。我們的董事會在 12 月批准了下一個 10 億美元的計劃，我們本季已經開始購買。我們很高興有機會以適當的回報投資我們的業務，但我們也非常樂意繼續購買我們自己的股票。

Turning to Slide 27. Let's talk about our free cash flow for the next 2 years covering 2024 and 2025. Starting on the left, we forecast approximately $6 billion in free cash flow before growth, after accounting for base CapEx and nuclear fuel, which is still a lot of money to deploy. As I mentioned on the last slide, we have nearly $900 million in organic investments over the next 2 years with returns that exceed our double-digit threshold. $900 million will be returned to our owners in common dividends, reflecting this year's 25% increase and then the projected 10% future growth.

轉向幻燈片27。讓我們談談我們未來2 年（涵蓋2024 年和2025 年）的自由現金流。從左邊開始，我們預測在考慮基本資本支出和核燃料後，增長前的自由現金流約為60億美元還有很多錢需要部署。正如我在上一張投影片中提到的，未來兩年我們將進行近 9 億美元的有機投資，回報率將超過兩位數的門檻。 9 億美元將以普通股息的形式返還給我們的所有者，反映了今年 25% 的增長以及預計未來 10% 的增長。

We then plan to return another $1 billion to owners through the share repurchase authorized in December and have already completed $150 million of that authorization. That leaves us with approximately $3.1 billion to $3.5 billion of unallocated capital over the next 2 years. This unallocated capital provides us the flexibility to pursue our strategic priorities including M&A and additional organic growth as long as those projects meet our return thresholds. And as you've seen us do, if those opportunities do not materialize, we will return the capital to our owners.

然後，我們計劃透過 12 月授權的股票回購向所有者再返還 10 億美元，並且已經完成了其中 1.5 億美元的授權。這使得我們在未來 2 年內還有約 31 億至 35 億美元的未分配資本。這些未分配的資本使我們能夠靈活地追求我們的策略重點，包括併購和額外的有機成長，只要這些項目符合我們的回報門檻。正如您所看到的，如果這些機會沒有實現，我們會將資本回饋給我們的所有者。

Thank you all for your time today. We're incredibly excited about the opportunities ahead of Constellation and our great growth story. We look forward to another strong year in 2024 and delivering on our financial commitments.

感謝大家今天抽出時間。我們對 Constellation 未來的機會和我們偉大的成長故事感到非常興奮。我們期待 2024 年又是強勁的一年，並兌現我們的財務承諾。

I'll now turn the call back to Joe.

我現在將電話轉回給喬。

Thanks, Dan. Look, I'm going to close here basically where I started. We've had a fantastic run for the first couple of years of this business. But as we look at the fundamentals of power markets, as we look at growing demand, need for sustainability solutions, we think there is a ton of room to run yet. And we think we have very durable policy in the PTC because of the kind of the unique position we're in where both political parties have strongly supported nuclear energy for all of the reasons that we covered earlier in the presentation.

謝謝，丹。聽著，我基本上將從我開始的地方結束。我們在這項業務的最初幾年表現出色。但當我們審視電力市場的基本面、不斷增長的需求以及對永續解決方案的需求時，我們認為還有很大的運作空間。我們認為，我們在 PTC 中擁有非常持久的政策，因為我們所處的獨特地位，兩個政黨都出於我們之前在演示中介紹的所有原因而強烈支持核能。

At our core, we have visible base earnings growth of 10% through the decade, backstopped by the PTC and again, our assets are the best in the world, run by the best people that operate those sorts of plants in the world. And this company can't be replaced. There's simply not enough nuclear out there to replace it. And we all know from having seen Vogtle, what the cost of new nuclear is. And notably, having 25 of these assets and having to just replace 2 of them at Vogtle was $35 billion, should give you some sort of insight in the replacement value of clean energy that is also 100% dependable throughout any sort of weather event.

我們的核心是，在 PTC 的支持下，這十年來我們的基本利潤增長了 10%，而且我們的資產是世界上最好的，由世界上運營此類工廠的最優秀人員管理。而且這家公司是無法取代的。根本沒有足夠的核能來取代它。透過看到沃格特，我們都知道新核能的成本是多少。值得注意的是，擁有25 項這樣的資產，而只需在Vogtle 更換其中2 項，成本就高達350 億美元，這應該能讓您對清潔能源的重置價值有一定的了解，而清潔能源在任何類型的天氣事件中也都是100% 可靠的。

Our businesses -- our commercial and our generation business are a great marriage. That 24% share of the C&I business gives us the ability to connect our unique capabilities with some of the most sustainable companies in the country and that just seems to be growing. As we look at the dynamics of energy markets, it's impossible not to conclude that if we're going to continue on the energy transition, that reliability is going to become just as important as sustainability and we're able to do both of those things.

我們的業務－我們的商業業務和我們的發電業務是一次偉大的聯姻。 24% 的 C&I 業務份額使我們能夠將我們獨特的能力與國內一些最具永續發展能力的公司聯繫起來，而且這一趨勢似乎還在不斷增長。當我們審視能源市場的動態時，我們不可能不得出這樣的結論：如果我們要繼續進行能源轉型，可靠性將變得與永續性同樣重要，而且我們能夠做到這兩件事。

We just think that we're a huge part of the solution for America and our clean, reliable nuclear plants, coupled with our ability to reach customers and help them achieve their sustainability goals, supports our vision as being the leading company in this space. On top of the opportunities that we've talked about, we're going to have 180 million-megawatt hours of carbon-free electricity that we could receive additional compensation for through 24/7 sales, behind-the-meter opportunities, hydrogen, subject to the final rules or the outcome of litigation, government procurements of clean energy and just simply capturing prices above the PTC price floor as volatility continues and accelerates in the markets.

我們只是認為我們是美國解決方案的重要組成部分，我們清潔、可靠的核電站，再加上我們接觸客戶並幫助他們實現永續發展目標的能力，支持了我們成為該領域領先公司的願景。除了我們談到的機會之外，我們還將擁有 1.8 億兆瓦時的無碳電力，我們可以透過 24/7 銷售、用戶側機會、氫氣、受最終規則或訴訟結果的影響，政府採購清潔能源，並且隨著市場波動的持續和加速，簡單地獲取高於PTC 價格下限的價格。

All of these opportunities are all on top of what is a wonderful profile for the company of growing a very base and predictable part of our business that comprises a huge chunk of our earnings by 10% per year. And Dan and I have already discussed how that number could be considerably better. So that's the reason, as we talk about capital allocation, that we're happy to buy the shares of this company all day long. Because the road we've traveled for the first 2 years is nothing compared to the future that we're going to have as a company here at Constellation.

所有這些機會都建立在公司良好的形象之上，我們的業務中非常基礎且可預測的部分不斷發展，占我們收入的很大一部分，每年增長 10%。丹和我已經討論過如何才能讓這個數字變得更好。這就是當我們談論資本配置時，我們整天樂於購買這家公司的股票的原因。因為與 Constellation 公司的未來相比，我們前兩年所走過的路根本算不了什麼。

And with that, I look forward to answering your questions with the rest of the management team here.

至此，我期待與這裡的管理團隊其他成員一起回答您的問題。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question will come from Steve Fleishman of Wolfe.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題將來自 Wolfe 的 Steve Fleishman。

Yes. Can you hear me okay?

是的。你聽得到我說話嗎？

Steve, we can hear you great.

史蒂夫，我們能聽到你的聲音，非常棒。

So I guess, first for Joe, just as you're thinking about the attribute values of the fleet and the different options, whether it's the 24/7 or the on-site hydrogen, on-site data center, et cetera, just how are those kind of weighing against each other right now in terms of most likely? And then just also kind of the timing of when you're likely to kind of be in a position to start making more of those decisions. And just to clarify, those are all kind of upside to base and enhanced, the way to think about it?

所以我想，首先對喬來說，就像你正在考慮車隊的屬性值和不同的選項一樣，無論是 24/7 還是現場氫氣、現場資料中心等等，只是如何就最有可能而言，這些現在是否相互權衡？然後，你可能會在什麼時候開始做出更多這樣的決定。澄清一下，這些都是基礎和增強的好處，如何思考？

I think so, Steve. I think it will represent itself both as an improvement in base and enhance because when you think about how the PTC pricing elbow works, right, wherever -- assuming your overall price is below that elbow, there's extrinsic value above the elbow. It's effectively the possibility that prices will be higher than the elbow come the time of the delivery year. So whenever you're getting -- whenever you have a contract value that's in that range, if you're adding to it, for example, PJM capacity payments, if those end up being higher, even if the plant right now is residing in the PTC level, the closer it gets to that elbow, the higher the value of the extrinsic floor and that gives you enhanced earnings. It also gives you what Dan has talked about, the potential for higher margins and better portfolio opportunities as you handle the contracts. But effectively, what we're thinking is, the contracts will be well above the PTC levels, right, to reflect the value of the attributes.

我想是的，史蒂夫。我認為它本身既是基礎的改進，又是增強，因為當你考慮PTC 定價肘部如何工作時，無論在哪裡——假設你的總體價格低於該肘部，那麼在肘部之上就有外在價值。實際上，到了交割年的時候，價格可能會高於手肘。因此，每當您獲得的合約價值在該範圍內時，例如，如果您要增加 PJM 產能付款，如果最終金額更高，即使工廠現在位於PTC 水平越接近肘部，外部底線的價值就越高，這會為您帶來更高的收入。它還為您提供了丹所談到的內容，即在您處理合約時獲得更高利潤和更好投資組合機會的潛力。但實際上，我們的想法是，合約將遠高於 PTC 水平，對吧，以反映屬性的價值。

In terms of how we're seeing the opportunities, let me just go from kind of maybe worse the best. I think hydrogen right now, we've stayed in the game on the hydrogen hub in Illinois because DOE has asked us to and they're covering the cost, pending the outcome of the final rules. If we don't get the right final rule, we'll head into litigation but we'll suspend further capital deployment or opportunities in hydrogen until we get an outcome from the courts.

就我們如何看待機會而言，讓我從最壞的情況到最好的情況談一談。我認為現在氫，我們一直留在伊利諾伊州氫中心的遊戲中，因為能源部要求我們這樣做，並且他們正在承擔成本，等待最終規則的結果。如果我們沒有得到正確的最終規則，我們將進入訴訟，但我們將暫停進一步的資本部署或氫氣領域的機會，直到法院得到結果。

In terms of 24/7, we're continuing to see uptake from our customers on those opportunities. They are some of the same customers that appear to us in the data economy world, right? So Microsoft shows up as the first pioneer in 24/7 customer, it's also a potential customer in powering the data economy and growth in that economy. And so I think of those 2 things as kind of similar. There will be customers that obviously are pursuing sustainability solutions that aren't in the data center economy like ComEd and others.

就 24/7 而言，我們繼續看到客戶對這些機會的利用。他們與我們在數據經濟世界中出現的客戶是一樣的，對吧？因此，微軟成為 24/7 客戶的第一個先驅，它也是推動數據經濟和經濟成長的潛在客戶。所以我認為這兩件事有點相似。顯然，有些客戶正在尋求不屬於資料中心經濟的可持續解決方案，例如 ComEd 等。

But I think probably, materially the biggest piece of this, at least as we see it right now, is going to be in the data economy and selling 24/7 solutions to those companies that are in the data center business or intending to grow in the data center business and trying to do that across multiple jurisdictions so that we could get a template agreement in one place where we agree on pricing and then quickly move to other opportunities with that same customer in other parts. I think when you think about who we are, the spread of our assets, we're probably the only company that could do this at scale, that has the megawatts available and do it with geographic diversity that these clients seem to like.

但我認為，至少從我們現在所看到的來看，其中最大的部分可能是在數據經濟中，並向那些從事數據中心業務或打算在數據中心業務中發展的公司出售 24/7 解決方案。資料中心業務，並試圖跨多個司法管轄區做到這一點，以便我們可以在一個地方達成一份模板協議，在價格上達成一致，然後快速轉移到與其他地區的同一客戶的其他機會。我認為，當你想到我們是誰，我們的資產分佈時，我們可能是唯一一家能夠大規模做到這一點的公司，擁有兆瓦可用的可用電量，並以這些客戶似乎喜歡的地理多樣性來做到這一點。

In terms of timing, Steve, we're working all of these issues. There's a huge team at Constellation that is involved in these discussions and sorting them out. They are big deals and they take a long time to materialize. And what I don't want to get into, in these calls, is predicting when the outcome of those deal discussions will occur. But they want speed to the market and we want speed in terms of getting this started. So I think the incentives are aligned.

就時間安排而言，史蒂夫，我們正在解決所有這些問題。 Constellation 有一個龐大的團隊參與這些討論並進行整理。它們都是大交易，需要很長時間才能實現。在這些電話會議中，我不想討論的是預測這些交易討論的結果何時會出現。但他們希望加快上市速度，而我們希望加快啟動速度。所以我認為激勵措施是一致的。

Steve, just to tie that into the earnings expectations, right, as we sign long-term contracts for the attribute sales and the data center, what have you, those long-term revenue contributions would flow into the base earnings given the long-term visibility to go with.

史蒂夫，只是為了將其與盈利預期聯繫起來，對吧，當我們簽署屬性銷售和數據中心的長期合約時，你有什麼，考慮到長期的情況，這些長期收入貢獻將流入基本收益可見度來配合。

One other question, just on the -- when you kind of came out with this base growth rate, how are you -- what are you assuming for kind of use of free cash in that plan?

另一個問題是——當你得出這個基本成長率時，你怎麼樣——你對該計劃中的自由現金的使用有何假設？

Yes. Steven, we used a range of expectations, right? We have the $1 billion buyback on right now. We've got the $3.1 billion to $3.5 billion of unallocated. We assume that we'll use some of that for growth opportunities and some of that for buyback. But I would say that, that outcome covers a range of outcomes. So it's not as if it was an all buyback assumption, which would probably be the highest additive contribution to EPS, right, because you get a immediate contribution, whereas the growth investments probably have a higher return but take a little more time to get into play. So we -- our growth rate is -- encompasses a wide range of capital deployments to make sure we'll meet our commitments.

是的。史蒂文，我們使用了一系列期望，對吧？我們現在正在進行 10 億美元的回購。我們還有 31 億至 35 億美元的未分配資金。我們假設我們將其中一些用於成長機會，另一些用於回購。但我想說的是，這個結果涵蓋了一系列結果。因此，這並不是一個全部回購的假設，這可能是對每股收益的最高附加貢獻，對吧，因為你會立即得到貢獻，而成長投資可能有更高的回報，但需要更多的時間才能進入玩。因此，我們——我們的成長率——涵蓋了廣泛的資本部署，以確保我們能夠履行我們的承諾。

Our next question will be coming from David Arcaro of Morgan Stanley.

我們的下一個問題將來自摩根士丹利的大衛·阿卡羅。

Let's see, I was wondering on the free cash flow outlook, really solid outlook here for 2024, 2025. As earnings grows, will free cash flow before growth be growing at a similar level over time? Or just wondering if there are other important puts and takes over the guidance period for cash flow?

讓我們看看，我想知道自由現金流的前景，2024 年、2025 年的前景確實很堅實。隨著盈利的增長，增長前的自由現金流會隨著時間的推移以類似的水平增長嗎？或者只是想知道是否還有其他重要的看跌期權和接管現金流的指導期？

I think that's a fair expectation. If you think about setting aside the nuclear PTC and the tax attributes of it, we will work through our tax credits we've accumulated previously. So depending on capital investment and bonus depreciation, things like that, our functional cash tax rate is probably going to be a bit higher in the future than it has been in the past. That could be a little bit of an impediment. Year-to-year, you can see a different timing on nuclear fuel spend or base CapEx spend, particularly if we think about the work we're doing to extend the useful lives of the assets. But I think it's fair to assume that we should have some good follow-through on free cash flow.

我認為這是一個公平的期望。如果您考慮擱置核 PTC 及其稅收屬性，我們將利用先前累積的稅收抵免。因此，根據資本投資和紅利折舊等因素，我們的功能性現金稅率未來可能會比過去高出。這可能是一個小小的障礙。每年，您都會看到核燃料支出或基本資本支出的時間有所不同，特別是如果我們考慮到我們正在為延長資產的使用壽命所做的工作。但我認為可以公平地假設我們應該對自由現金流採取一些良好的後續行動。

David, I'd just -- to supplement Dan's point, I think that the opportunities we're talking about don't come necessarily with more O&M, some of the behind-the-meter opportunities might but that will be factored into the contract pricing. But simply selling attributes doesn't add a bit of O&M to our company. So its cash conversion is quite large.

大衛，我只是 - 為了補充丹的觀點，我認為我們正在談論的機會並不一定需要更多的運營和維護，一些幕後機會可能會出現，但這將納入合約中價錢。但單純賣屬性並不能為我們公司增加一點維運。所以它的現金轉換是相當大的。

And then let's see, you give a range, that range of $10 to $20 per megawatt hour for the attribute payments. Is that the right range that you think about for each of those different clean attribute potential, whether it's hydrogen, whether it's data centers. And I guess what's your confidence in achieving that uplift in terms of the pricing level for those end customer sources.

然後讓我們看看，您給出一個範圍，即每兆瓦時 10 至 20 美元的屬性付款。這是您為每種不同的清潔屬性潛力考慮的正確範圍，無論是氫，還是資料中心。我想您對實現這些最終客戶來源的定價水準的提升有什麼信心。

Yes. David, I think we put those in as kind of just benchmarks for you to kind of quickly do the math. We're not selling an attribute for $10 here. That's just not what we would be interested in over the long term. What we are -- what doesn't make sense to do on this call is kind of reveal our pricing curve for attributes because that's obviously competitively sensitive information. But we put the $10 in as just an illustration. It could have just as easily been $20 rate. So.

是的。大衛，我認為我們將這些只是作為基準，以便您可以快速進行數學計算。我們在這裡不會以 10 美元的價格出售某個物業。從長遠來看，這不是我們感興趣的。我們在這次電話會議上所做的沒有意義的事情是揭示我們的屬性定價曲線，因為這顯然是競爭敏感資訊。但我們放入 10 美元只是為了說明。價格也可以輕鬆達到 20 美元。所以。

Our next question will be coming from Durgesh Chopra of Evercore ISI.

我們的下一個問題將來自 Evercore ISI 的 Durgesh Chopra。

Just wanted to follow up, a quick clarification. Dan, the unallocated capital, the $3 billion, is that factored into the base EPS growth rate? Or is that in the other bucket on top?

只是想跟進，快速澄清。 Dan，未分配資本，即 30 億美元，是否已計入基本每股盈餘成長率？還是在上面的另一個桶子裡？

I think you should think about it as some deployment of capital for buybacks and then whether it was used for paying down debt, although we'll manage our balance sheet differently or reinvestment in projects, which would have contractual visibility, which is really how we think about our growth investments, by and large. I think you should assume a decent amount of that would show up in base, right, because your denominator is changing on a share buyback calculation. It would also help enhance a little bit but to be totally honest, if your share count is falling but we used a range of different allocations to get comfortable with both the growth rate and the ranges we provided. We didn't want to lock ourselves into 1 version of future capital deployment.

我認為你應該將其視為回購資本的某種部署，然後是否用於償還債務，儘管我們將以不同的方式管理我們的資產負債表或對項目進行再投資，這將具有合約可見性，這實際上是我們的方式總的來說，想想我們的成長投資。我認為你應該假設其中相當一部分會出現在基數中，對吧，因為你的分母在股票回購計算中正在變化。這也將有助於提高一點，但說實話，如果您的股票數量正在下降，但我們使用了一系列不同的分配來適應我們提供的成長率和範圍。我們不想將自己鎖定在未來資本部署的一個版本。

That's helpful. And then maybe any color that you can share on your M&A strategy going forward? Obviously, there's a healthy bit of free cash flow here for you to execute on but just then you layered out the return parameters. But what kind of assets, is it predominantly nuclear? Or could you be looking at other renewable assets, if you could just provide more color there.

這很有幫助。那麼您可以分享一下您未來的併購策略嗎？顯然，這裡有大量的自由現金流可供您執行，但就在那時您對回報參數進行了分層。但什麼樣的資產，主要是核資產？或者您是否可以考慮其他可再生資產，如果您可以在那裡提供更多顏色。

Yes. Look, I think we talked about the 2 parts of our business, the commercial business and the nuclear asset business. I think it's fair to say that M&A activity would be focused on both of those things. And in the case of nuclear, we've kind of long said that young dual unit sites are our types around here. So those are -- that sort of -- anything that's in that fits that description would be something we'd be interested in.

是的。聽著，我想我們討論了我們業務的兩個部分，商業業務和核資產業務。我認為可以公平地說，併購活動將集中在這兩件事上。就核能而言，我們早就說過年輕的雙機組站點是我們這裡的類型。因此，任何符合該描述的內容都會是我們感興趣的內容。

And Durgesh, I'd just add, if you think about -- sorry, I'd say, if you think about, last year, we were successful on STP which certainly fit that template and other assets where we were not successful because it didn't fit our return profile or our asset mix.

Durgesh，我想補充一點，如果你想一想，抱歉，我想說，如果你想一下，去年我們在 STP 上取得了成功，這肯定適合該模板和其他我們未能成功的資產，因為它不適合我們的報酬概況或我們的資產組合。

But look, it's all at the right price, right? What you're seeing here in terms of the management presentation is that we like the future of this company. We like the future contracting opportunity. We like the future realization of the reliability benefit that we think we can. So stated quite simply, we think there's a lot of value that is still unrealized here. So as we look at different M&A opportunities, it's going to be judged against buyback in the sense of where is going to be the greatest impact or return for our investor. And I'm not sure where that's going to be, right? We have a type of plant that we would be interested in buying. We have commercial businesses that we'd be interested in buying but those things have to come at the right price. And if we've, I think, demonstrated anything very well over the first couple of years is, we're going to be really disciplined in how we look at that.

但你看，這一切的價格都合適，對吧？您在這裡看到的管理層演示是我們看好這家公司的未來。我們喜歡未來的承包機會。我們希望未來能實現我們認為可以實現的可靠性優勢。簡而言之，我們認為這裡還有很多價值尚未實現。因此，當我們審視不同的併購機會時，我們將根據回購來判斷對我們投資者的影響或回報最大。我不確定那會在哪裡，對吧？我們有一種我們有興趣購買的植物。我們有興趣購買商業企業，但這些東西必須以合適的價格出售。我認為，如果我們在最初的幾年裡很好地證明了一些事情，那麼我們將在看待這個問題上非常自律。

Our next question will be coming from Angie Storozynski of Seaport.

我們的下一個問題將來自 Seaport 的 Angie Storozynski。

So just maybe 2 things. One is, can you tell us how you did against the free cash flow projections from the Analyst Day from '22? Again, whenever you think about power, it should be a cash business, right? So I'm just wondering how you track against that guidance range and also what was the main reason why you decided to change from EPS to EBITDA, well from EBITDA to EPS. I understand the nuclear PTCs. But just like conceptually, what was the reason?

所以也許只有兩件事。一是，您能告訴我們您對 22 年分析師日的自由現金流預測的表現如何嗎？再說一次，每當你想到權力時，它都應該是現金業務，對嗎？因此，我只是想知道您如何追蹤該指導範圍，以及您決定從 EPS 更改為 EBITDA，以及從 EBITDA 更改為 EPS 的主要原因是什麼。我了解核 PTC。但就像概念上一樣，原因是什麼？

Angie, this is Dan. On the free cash flow performance, we exceeded our commitments in both years, I think is how we described. We can get you the actual numbers, when we follow up but we did exceed the numbers on that plan for both years. As far as going from EBITDA to EPS, I think a major factor was the nuclear PTC because you're calculating against gross receipts, the PTC value can move within the calendar year. It is an after-tax number. So how you affect your net income would be consistent as those 2 balance themselves out. From an EBITDA perspective, it added a lot of volatility and there's not an ability to gross up the PTC to a pretax EBITDA equivalent value on the consult of -- or I'd say, counsel and auditors and all those folks.

安吉，這是丹。在自由現金流表現方面，我們兩年都超越了我們的承諾，我想這就是我們所描述的。當我們跟進時，我們可以為您提供實際數字，但我們確實超出了這兩年計劃中的數字。就從 EBITDA 到 EPS 而言，我認為一個主要因素是核心 PTC，因為根據總收入進行計算，PTC 值可以在日曆年內發生變化。這是一個稅後號碼。因此，當這兩者相互平衡時，你對淨收入的影響將是一致的。從 EBITDA 的角度來看，它增加了很大的波動性，而且在諮詢顧問和審計師以及所有這些人的情況下，無法將 PTC 總計達到稅前 EBITDA 的同等價值。

I think the other part more significantly, right, is that when we look at our story, right, we're a strong investment-grade company with a modestly levered business. We've got a really compelling growth story as we see it with the PTC growth and the opportunity to redeploy capital. The free cash flow as we return it to our owners, who will reinvest in the business, drives a unitized growth story, which we all felt is a lot closer to an EPS-driven business and a more mature business than probably what we would have experienced with the volatility and variability of results that a lot of the IPPs who had over time or they didn't have the certainty provided by the PTC in our core commercial business.

我認為更重要的另一部分是，當我們審視我們的故事時，我們是一家實力雄厚的投資級公司，業務槓桿適度。我們看到了一個非常引人注目的成長故事，即 PTC 的成長和重新部署資本的機會。當我們將自由現金流返還給我們的所有者時，他們將對業務進行再投資，推動了一個統一的成長故事，我們都認為這更接近EPS 驅動的業務，並且比我們可能擁有的業務更成熟隨著時間的推移，許多 IPP 都經歷了結果的波動性和可變性，或者他們沒有 PTC 在我們的核心商業業務中提供的確定性。

So we thought it was a really natural time to make the transition and probably suits us to compare to companies who we think we look a lot more like as we go forward as a company.

因此，我們認為這是一個非常自然的過渡時機，並且可能適合我們與那些我們認為在我們作為一家公司前進時看起來更像的公司進行比較。

Okay. And just one other thing. So when I look at your -- the progression, for example, of O&M expenses and CapEx, right, those numbers seem to be going actually even faster up versus EBITDA projections. So I mean, that would imply like -- well, at least the CapEx one would imply lower free cash flow generation of the EBITDA that you're adding? And admittedly and again, there's no question about it, you guys have been on the forefront of addressing the nuclear fuel cost risk. I obviously appreciate all of the additional purchases, nuclear fuel expense, nuclear fuel CapEx, et cetera. But just again, is there a shift in how cash heavy the cash -- the earnings are? Or is it just -- again, I don't know if you can comment at all.

好的。還有一件事。因此，當我看到您的進展時，例如，營運和維護費用和資本支出的進展，對吧，這些數字似乎比 EBITDA 預測實際上增長得更快。所以我的意思是，這意味著——好吧，至少資本支出意味著你所添加的 EBITDA 的自由現金流生成會降低？誠然，毫無疑問，你們一直站在解決核燃料成本風險的最前線。我顯然很欣賞所有額外的採購、核燃料費用、核燃料資本支出等等。但話又說回來，現金的比重（即收益）是否改變了？或者只是——再說一遍，我不知道你是否可以發表評論。

Yes, I mean, Angie, I think on the O&M front, right, I mean you got to remember that we did buy STP last year, right? So there's a fairly meaningful step-up in our projected O&M for '24 from last year's update because STP, that's the biggest piece of the increase. In '24, we also, just like we saw in '23, we do have IR O&M for performance-based compensation for employees, given the extraordinary results we've had in commercial.

是的，我的意思是，Angie，我認為在維運方面，對，我的意思是你必須記住我們去年確實購買了 STP，對嗎？因此，與去年的更新相比，我們預計 24 年的營運和維護有相當有意義的提升，因為 STP，這是成長的最大部分。在 24 年，就像我們在 23 年看到的那樣，考慮到我們在商業方面取得的非凡成果，我們確實有 IR O&M，為員工提供基於績效的薪酬。

As you're aware, we wanted -- there's a lot of backlog in '22 and '23, that's going to show up in '24, hence the strong enhanced earnings numbers. We pay at delivery, not at inception, right? So our O&M is going to be up with extraordinarily higher profits for that piece. I think we're really comfortable with the O&M profile relative to earnings expectations. And if you look at how much the numbers have moved for '24 from where we were a year ago, I think that's pretty clearly validated.

如您所知，我們希望 - 22 年和 23 年有大量積壓，這將在 24 年出現，因此盈利數據強勁增長。我們在交貨時付款，而不是在開始時付款，對吧？因此，我們的營運和維護將在這方面獲得非常高的利潤。我認為我們對相對於獲利預期的營運和維護狀況感到非常滿意。如果你看看 24 年的數字與一年前相比變化了多少，我認為這是非常明顯的。

On that CapEx front, I think timing will vary from year-to-year depending on what our workload is for maintenance capital at the plants. When we've done things like the upgrades, we've moved some capital forward in order to get that on and get those high-return projects in place. So I think if you look at our long-term CapEx program that's incredibly consistent with where we expected things to be, maybe a few more dollars here and there for long-term support of the assets go into the SLRs but we feel good on that front.

在資本支出方面，我認為每年的時間安排都會有所不同，這取決於我們工廠維護資本的工作量。當我們完成升級之類的事情時，我們已經轉移了一些資金，以便完成這些工作並讓這些高回報項目到位。因此，我認為，如果你看看我們的長期資本支出計劃，該計劃與我們的預期非常一致，也許會在這裡或那裡多花幾美元來為 SLR 提供資產的長期支持，但我們對此感覺良好正面。

On nuclear fuel, we were, you're correct, well ahead of where the world was heading on the need to procure fuel. We had bought out through '28. That has continued beyond '28. We have contracts extending well out into the '30s at this point in time across the fuel chain. So I think that we've managed our fuel exposure very well. We talked about last year, '28 nuclear fuel expense to be around $6 a megawatt hour. It might be a smidge over that but not a whole lot more. So I think we've done a good job controlling where our fuel costs are certainly in an inflationary environment. And I guess the last point on fuels because people ask about it a lot because you can see the spot price move around. I'll just remind you that we don't buy in the spot market, right? We buy in the term market for all of our products. We are a long-term buyer with a very sophisticated fuels group. So where we're procuring is certainly different than what you're seeing on very illiquidity.

在核燃料方面，你是對的，我們遠遠領先世界採購燃料的需求。我們已經買斷 28 年了。這種情況一直持續到 28 年後。我們的合約在整個燃料鏈上一直延續到 20 世紀 30 年代的這個時間點。所以我認為我們已經很好地管理了我們的燃料暴露。我們去年談到，'28 核燃料費用約為每兆瓦時 6 美元。可能會比這個多一點點，但也不會多很多。因此，我認為在通貨膨脹環境下，我們在控制燃料成本方面做得很好。我猜最後一點是關於燃料的，因為人們經常問這個問題，因為你可以看到現貨價格的波動。我只是提醒您，我們不在現貨市場購買，對吧？我們在定期市場上購買我們所有的產品。我們是長期買家，擁有非常成熟的燃料集團。因此，我們的採購方式肯定與您所看到的流動性非常不足的情況不同。

And none of your fuel contracts have any indexation to the current price?

你們的燃料合約都沒有與當前價格掛鉤嗎？

We -- some of them will have (inaudible) around them and I will tell you that all the numbers we're showing you basically have those contracts at max (inaudible) value.

我們——其中一些人周圍會有（聽不清楚），我會告訴你，我們向你展示的所有數字基本上都具有最大（聽不清楚）價值的合約。

Our next question will be coming from Neil Kalton of Wells Fargo.

我們的下一個問題將來自富國銀行的尼爾卡爾頓。

Just a question on the retail power margins. You're showing in 2024 about $1.75 above the 13-year average, it's trending down to $0.50 in 2025. Just curious, is that -- does that reflect the market coming in '25? Is that just where the hedges sit? Just any kind of comment on how we should be thinking about '25 and beyond there?

只是關於零售電力利潤率的問題。您顯示 2024 年的價格比 13 年平均值高出約 1.75 美元，到 2025 年將下降至 0.50 美元。只是好奇，這是否反映了 25 年的市場情況？這就是樹籬所在的地方嗎？關於我們應該如何思考 25 年及以後的問題，有什麼評論嗎？

I think when you look at our commercial business, right, we tend to sell forward in contract terms, let's call it, 24 months plus or minus, right? We would have sold a lot more of our '24 volumes in '22 and '23 than we would have sold '25 volumes in '22 and '23. So what we have in our numbers reflects really the positive backlog gains, right? We had very good margins on what we've been signing to the point that margins sustained at higher than these long-term average margins, you would expect that enhanced value to improve as we sell more contracts, right? So anything that isn't sold at this point in time, we assume reverts back to this long-term average. We've seen volatility continue. We've seen good margins hold up into this year.

我想當你看看我們的商業業務時，我們傾向於以合約條款遠期銷售，我們稱之為 24 個月上下，對吧？我們在 22 年和 23 年售出的 24 卷本會比在 22 年和 23 年售出的 25 卷多得多。那麼我們的數據確實反映了積壓的正面成長，對嗎？我們已經簽署了非常好的利潤率，以至於利潤率持續高於這些長期平均利潤率，您會期望隨著我們出售更多合同，價值會提高，對吧？因此，目前未售出的任何東西，我們假設都會恢復到這個長期平均值。我們看到波動仍在繼續。我們已經看到今年以來一直保持著良好的利潤率。

So I'd say there's probably, in my mind, a bit of opportunity if we can sustain at these market conditions. And the commercial business has just done a tremendous job taking advantage of the market but also helping our customers, the volatility is disruptive to them. So our ability to sign and provide them long-term certainty to their energy costs is really valuable for them and it's been a good relationship for sure.

所以我想說，在我看來，如果我們能夠維持在這樣的市場條件下，可能會有一些機會。商業業務剛剛利用市場做了巨大的工作，同時也幫助了我們的客戶，波動對他們來說是破壞性的。因此，我們能夠簽署並為他們提供能源成本的長期確定性對他們來說非常有價值，而且這肯定是一種良好的關係。

Neil, I think it could be pointed out that we're probably a little conservative here in returning back to historical margins as opposed to resetting margins. But there's probably a flavor of conservatism throughout the materials, as Dan has covered and that's just, we anticipated you would or you or someone else would raise this question, we just used the historicals for a plug for right now until we see how the market continues to evolve.

尼爾，我認為可以指出的是，我們在回到歷史利潤率而不是重置利潤率方面可能有點保守。但整個材料中可能有一種保守主義的味道，正如丹所涵蓋的那樣，我們預計您會或您或其他人會提出這個問題，我們現在只是使用歷史作為插頭，直到我們看到市場如何繼續發展。

Yes. That's what I thought. I just wanted to make sure that was the case. And then in terms of the growth there, how should we think about it? I think it's like 200 terawatt hours is sort of your base. I mean how do you think internally about the growth longer term there? Meaningful? Or should we think about it as kind of being in that range for the foreseeable future?

是的。我也這麼想。我只是想確定情況確實如此。那麼對於那裡的成長，我們該如何看待呢？我認為 200 太瓦時是你的基礎。我的意思是，您內部如何看待那裡的長期成長？有意義嗎？或者我們應該將其視為在可預見的未來處於該範圍內？

Well, I think that gets into the question of upgrades. We've already announced some. We have others that we're looking at. We're looking at some other fairly material opportunities to increase the number of megawatts that we produce and then anything that would happen from an M&A perspective. We're not going to build more nuclear, so that's -- it's really how we optimize the existing fleet, which is already running at a pretty high capacity factor. We'll look at upgrades, M&A opportunities and possibly some unique opportunities that we have to bring megawatts on. So that's -- I think this is the neighborhood we're going to be in for a while.

好吧，我認為這涉及升級問題。我們已經宣布了一些。我們還有其他的正在研究中。我們正在尋找其他一些相當重要的機會來增加我們生產的兆瓦數，然後從併購的角度來看可能發生的任何事情。我們不會建造更多的核電站，所以這實際上是我們優化現有機隊的方式，該機隊已經以相當高的容量係數運作。我們將關注升級、併購機會，以及可能需要帶來兆瓦電力的一些獨特機會。所以我認為這就是我們將要居住一段時間的社區。

Neil, on the retail side of the house, I think that we have been opportunistic in our ability to grow. We've been a consolidator in retail for a long period of time, so I think when things that fits our portfolio, could be added to our volumes. I think the team always challenge themselves on the profitability of the customers and the margin gains that we're looking at, right? So we're going to balance all those pieces as we go forward, making sure that it's not just volume driven but it's profit, be organization-driven.

尼爾，在零售方面，我認為我們在成長能力方面一直是機會主義的。很長一段時間以來，我們一直是零售業的整合者，所以我認為，當適合我們產品組合的東西可以添加到我們的銷售中。我認為團隊總是在客戶的盈利能力和我們正在考慮的利潤收益方面挑戰自己，對吧？因此，我們將在前進的過程中平衡所有這些部分，確保它不僅是數量驅動的，而且是利潤驅動的，是組織驅動的。

That ends our Q&A session today. I would now like to turn the call to Joe.

今天的問答環節到此結束。我現在想把電話轉給喬。

Well, again, it's been a longer-than-usual call. We had a lot to go through in terms of the evolving marketplace, Constellation's strategy and the change in guidance that we're providing. Appreciate, again, all the positive feedback. We look forward to continuing to deliver on the promises that we made to you. So looking forward to the first quarter call. And with that, I'll end it and thank you again for your time and attention.

好吧，這次的通話時間比平常要長。在不斷變化的市場、Constellation 的策略以及我們提供的指導的變化方面，我們有很多事情要做。再次感謝所有正面的回饋。我們期待繼續兌現我們向您所做的承諾。所以期待第一季的電話。至此，我就結束了，並再次感謝您的時間和關注。

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes today's program. You may all disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

女士們、先生們，感謝你們參加今天的會議。今天的節目到此結束。你們都可以斷開連線。大家，祝你有美好的一天。