管理層發言
Hello, and welcome to the Xcel Energy Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Jordan, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note, this conference is being recorded. Reporters can contact Media Relations with inquiries, and investors and others can reach out to Investor Relations. I'll now turn the call over to your host today, Mr. Roopesh Aggarwal, Vice President, Investor Relations, to begin the conference. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Jordan. Good morning, and welcome to Xcel Energy's 2026 Second Quarter Earnings Call. Joining me today are Bob Frenzel, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Brian Van Abel, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In addition, we have other members of the management team in the room to answer your questions if needed. This morning, we will review our 2026 second quarter results and highlights, provide updated 2026 assumptions and share recent business and regulatory updates. Slides that accompany today's call are available on our website. Some comments during today's call may contain forward-looking information. Significant factors that could cause results to differ from those anticipated are described in our earnings release and SEC filings. Today, we will discuss certain metrics that are non-GAAP measures. Information on the comparable GAAP measures and reconciliations are included in our earnings release. I will now turn the call over to Bob.
Thank you, Roopesh, and good morning, everyone. I'm often reminded of the quote that we are living in interesting times. But regardless of the times, we know that access to abundant affordable energy is highly correlated to a nation's competitiveness, its security, its economic growth and its quality of life. We at Xcel Energy are here as we have been for over 100 years, ready to meet the moment and help our customers, our states and our country build the infrastructure we need to fuel economic prosperity and growth for decades to come. While this opportunity is extraordinary, we've not lost sight of what matters most to our customers. We remain acutely focused on customer satisfaction and affordability, system reliability and resiliency, financial discipline and meeting both the pace of needed infrastructure as well as the clean energy goals of our communities. And in 2026, Xcel Energy continues to demonstrate strong execution across all aspects of these priorities. Xcel Energy remains the largest builder of new high-voltage transmission lines in the country as well as one of the largest providers of renewable generation for our utility customers. And during the second quarter, we invested $3 billion and over $6 billion year-to-date in critical generation transmission and distribution infrastructure across all 8 of our states. This includes achieving commercial operations of Group 2 of the Colorado Power Pathway and beginning construction on our 150-mile 345 kV transmission project in the Upper Midwest. We also placed into service Phase 3 of our Sherco solar facility, bringing its total capacity to 710 megawatts, making one of the largest utility-scale solar facilities in the country. Last week, the independent monitor for our SPS RFP filed a report on our selection of 2,600 megawatts of new company-owned generation, representing 70% of the total recommended portfolio and $6 billion of new investment needs in Texas and New Mexico. We now have line of sight to the $70-plus billion of total investments that we described in our 5-year plan from last November, all for the benefit of our customers and our communities. We received approval for our Large Load Tariff in Minnesota and made additional Large Load Tariff filings in Colorado and Wisconsin. And we've advanced these critical initiatives with strong focus on our customers and a commitment to keeping their bills as low as possible. And finally, we delivered for our investors with strong second quarter earnings of $0.93 per share. We remain confident in our ability to deliver on our earnings guidance for the 22nd year in a row, continuing one of the best track records in the industry. Regulatory execution has been a focus all year for the company. I'm proud to say that we advanced settlements and/or reached decisions in 6 active rate cases, all while keeping long-term bill growth at or below the rate of inflation and total energy bills among the lowest in the country. This includes commission decisions in our Minnesota electric rate case and South Dakota electric rate case settlement and proposed settlements in our Colorado Electric and Natural Gas Cases, New Mexico Electric and Minnesota Natural Gas Rate Cases. At the same time, we improved and invested in programs for the most vulnerable in our communities who struggled with affordability even with our low bills. Our settlements in our Colorado rate case provide a path to nearly double the size and participation in our energy assistance programs. While in Minnesota, our recent Electric Rate Case significantly expands both accessibility and funding for customer assistance programs. In addition, we made integrated customer program filings in Colorado and Minnesota, which bundle voluntary customer programs into a single coordinated plans, making it easier for customers to compare options to find rebates and to choose solutions that best fit their needs and their budgets. This extraordinary progress reflects strong preparation, early engagement with stakeholders and disciplined execution. Our regulatory strategy is consistent: invest in reliability and resiliency and cleaner energy while pursuing outcomes that are fair, transparent, balanced and mindful of customer bill impacts. Moving to capital delivery. We believe that Xcel Energy's approach to project execution is a differentiator in the industry and a benefit to our customers, enabling our ability to deliver a growing portfolio of capital investments on budget, on time and on scope. The first part of our formula is strategic partnerships. And as I mentioned earlier, Xcel Energy is one of the largest regulated builders of renewable and dispatchable generation and the largest builder of new transmission line miles in the country. So effective execution of projects on this scale are not new for us. Neither are the partnerships with key supply chain and EPC vendors that are needed to deliver for our customers. What is changing is the structure and the depth of these partnerships. Over the past 3 to 4 years, we have shifted our approach to ensure that we are a partner of choice with our Tier 1 suppliers and EPC partners over our 5-plus year portfolio, which includes nearly 13 gigawatts of new renewable generation and battery storage, over 3 gigawatts of new natural gas generation and nearly 2,000 high-voltage transmission line miles. These partnerships help ensure that we have access to the labor and equipment capacity that we need to deliver with certainty for our customers well into the 2030s. In addition, we've consolidated and standardized major project planning and execution under one organization, ensuring consistency, accountability and visibility across our generation, transmission and distribution investments. By using repeatable designs and strong governance, we're driving greater capital efficiency, reducing execution risk and increasing schedule certainty across our portfolio. And finally, we know that our people and access to critical talent is essential to long-term success. We have an incredibly talented and tenured workforce. We're also investing in workforce development through partnerships with our EPC firms, high schools, trade programs and universities. These efforts are supporting thousands of students, apprentices and trainees, helping us build the skilled workforce needed to deliver projects safely and reliably while creating economic opportunity in the communities that we serve. Accordingly, Xcel Energy continues to demonstrate that our regulated development team is one of the best in the industry, helping build 16 gigawatts of new generation and storage and over 2,000 miles of new transmission for our communities while keeping costs low for our customers. Last week, the Independent Monitor filed its report on our SPS competitive RFP process that was seeking 1,500 to 3,000 megawatts of incremental nameplate capacity. SPS was selected to provide 2,400 megawatts of renewables and 200 megawatts of natural gas-fired generation, representing 70% of the overall portfolio and approximately $6 billion of investment that supports continued economic growth in Texas and New Mexico. This portfolio allocation brings line of sight in our incremental investment plan to $10-plus billion. We're 6 months into our 5-year plan, and we've already executed on the original pipeline we identified with more opportunities to come. From here, we see additional opportunities not in our base plan to invest and serve our growing customer needs, including ongoing and upcoming generation RFPs in Colorado and the Upper Midwest, transmission investments in each of our operating companies and generation to support 3 gigawatts of data center demand that we added to our target plan on our Q4 earnings call. Our base capital plan remains anchored in the core investments needed to retire legacy coal generation assets this decade and make critical investments into our transmission and distribution systems to support reliability, resiliency and industrial growth. Capital investments arising from future data center opportunities are generally ascribed to our upside plan, and we're taking a disciplined approach to ensure that new load growth is supported by appropriate commercial structures and regulatory frameworks. This includes large and load tariffs that were recently approved in Minnesota and filed in Colorado and Wisconsin, each of which protect and lower bills for existing customers while creating long-term benefits for our communities and investors. We remain confident in our ability to deliver on our data center forecast. We have 1 gigawatt of data centers in operation or under construction, an additional gigawatt of data centers under signed ESAs, and we expect to secure an additional 4 gigawatts of data center load by year-end 2027, including at least 1 gigawatt by the end of this year. Our confidence is supported by the strength and depth of our customer pipeline, our proven ability to execute large-scale infrastructure projects and the differentiated position of our service territories, which includes geographic diversity across our high probability pipeline. Finally, I want to highlight Xcel Energy's 21st sustainability report, which we released this quarter. At Xcel Energy, we are balancing reliability and affordability while supporting safety, economic vitality and environmental stewardship. And as our customer needs evolve and expectations of the energy system continue to grow, our responsibility is to lead with transparency, purpose and disciplined execution. The report reflects meaningful progress at scale. Over the past 2 decades, Xcel Energy has reduced carbon emissions nearly 60%, reduced water consumption more than 35% and enabled nearly 14,000 megawatts of wind and solar in our system, all while maintaining a resilient grid and keeping customer bills amongst the lowest in the country. As we look ahead, the energy system will continue to change with growing demand from economic development, electrification and new large loads, but our destination has not changed. We remain committed to leading the energy transition in a way that is reliable, affordable, sustainable and grounded in customer value. And with that, I'll turn it over to Brian.
Thanks, Bob, and good morning, everyone. Starting with our financial results. Xcel Energy had strong earnings of $0.93 per share for the second quarter of 2026 compared to earnings of $0.75 per share in 2025. The most significant earnings drivers for the quarter are as follows: higher electric revenues due to nonfuel riders and sales growth increased earnings by $0.17 per share. Higher AFUDC increased earnings by $0.08 per share. Lower depreciation and amortization increased earnings by $0.08 per share and other items combined to increase earnings by $0.03 per share, primarily driven by positive returns in our venture capital portfolios. For the year, these returns largely offset the negative weather that we saw in the first quarter of 2026. Offsetting these positive drivers, higher interest expense decreased earnings by $0.12 per share and the impacts of common equity financing decreased earnings by $0.06 per share. These financing costs reflect the funding of our infrastructure investments and discipline to maintain a strong balance sheet. Turning to sales. On a weather-adjusted basis, year-to-date electric sales increased by 2.1%, driven by increased activity in the energy sector in SPS and manufacturing sector across all OpCos. For 2026, we remain on track for full year weather-adjusted electric sales to increase 3%. As we look to our financing plan, Xcel Energy is continuing our commitment to maintain a strong balance sheet to fund accretive growth with the balance of equity and debt. Between our equity forward and collared contracts of our ATM program and our junior sub note issuances, we are already in front of approximately $6 billion or 85% of our $7 billion equity need in our base 5-year plan. And moving to guidance. We are reaffirming our 2026 ongoing EPS guidance range of $4.04 to $4.16. We remain confident in our ability to deliver 6% to 8-plus percent long-term earnings growth with line of sight to $10-plus billion of opportunities beyond our base plan, we expect to deliver 9-plus percent EPS growth on average through 2030. Updates to key assumptions are included in our slides and earnings release. With that, I'll wrap up with a quick summary. Xcel Energy posted strong second quarter 2026 earnings of $0.93 per share. We continue to lead a clean energy transition while ensuring safe, affordable and reliable service. We've reached productive settlements or outcomes in 6 of our active cases while keeping long-term customer bill growth at or below the rate of inflation and amongst the lowest in the country. We now have line of sight to $10-plus billion of opportunities in our incremental investment plan with additional opportunities to come. We have a formula for major project execution that combines strategic partnerships with project standardization and workforce development that will enable Xcel Energy to deliver projects on budget, on time and on scope well into the 2030s. We maintain a strong balance sheet and credit metrics and have addressed approximately 85% of our base $7 billion 5-year equity need. We are reaffirming our 2026 ongoing EPS guidance of $4.04 to $4.16 per share. And finally, we remain confident in our ability to deliver 6% to 8-plus percent long-term earnings growth and expect to deliver 9-plus percent EPS growth on average through 2030. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we will now take questions.
分析師問答
And your first question comes from the line of Richard Sunderland from Truist.
A lot to dig into here. I'll start with the SPS update and the broader CapEx tailwinds you highlighted. If I heard that $6 billion figure correctly, it raises line-of-sight CapEx to at least $13 billion when combined with the $7 billion from last quarter. With your rate base framework of 20 to 25 basis points, that implies roughly a 250 basis point uplift, which would move 11% rate base growth well into double digits. How should we think about that relative to the 9% plus target? Is 9% plus still the right way to think about growth in the context of a third-quarter update, or are the tailwinds aggregating into something higher?
There's a lot to unpack in those questions, so let me try to hit everything. You're right: we had $7 billion of line of sight in Q1 and we added $6 billion, so we now say we have over $10 billion of line of sight. Some of that will flow into the early 2030s, so timing matters. If you step back, the vast majority of that $10-plus billion is our generation development. As Bob said, we have one of the best regulated generation development teams in the business. That work accretes value to our customers by bringing forward very low-cost, competitive projects. We're winning these projects through competitive RFPs, including wind, solar, storage and gas CPs, thanks to our development team's execution in delivering low-cost projects for customers. We're excited about what we saw in SPS and the other RFPs and about delivering on that $10-plus billion. As I noted in Q1, we discussed 9% EPS growth through 2030; you heard the language as 9-plus percent EPS growth through 2030. When we roll forward in Q3, we'll roll everything forward off a new base, as we always do, updating our five-year view. We'll align our new capital plan, new financing plan and a 2027 to 2031 view. We're excited about it, and I think we're in a very strong position on execution in the first six months of the year.
Great. So tackling the multiparts there. I'll pick that up, the thought on the generation wins and the commentary on the EPC side as well. It clearly has been a success. How do you think about these recent wins, these recent trends and the work on the EPC side positioning you on that even more upside basis highlighted in the deck? Is this sort of a structural change to what might be the resource opportunity net to Xcel as we think about Colorado, Upper Midwest or other generation needs beyond? And is there anything else you'd highlight on the EPC front in terms of how the EPC side has enabled those wins?
Richard, it's Bob. Thanks for the question. You do great math. I think that as I think about strategically where we sit, we've been in a generational investment opportunity to rethink how we power and energize our communities reliably, affordably and sustainably. And we've been tapping into the very strategic advantage that the company has to serve customers where wind blows and sun shines. And as we've done that, we've been able to drive win-win for customers with a more sustainable, more clean product with bills that are at or below the national average and some of the lowest in the country. And we think that will continue. As I said in my prepared remarks, we've got more investment opportunity that we have line of sight to. We will need more large-scale transmission in the country. We're the largest provider over the last 15 years. We think we'll be a large provider of large-scale transmission going forward, and that will present long-term investment opportunities and the partnerships with our EPCs makes us very credible whether those are direct assigned or those are competitively bid. Similarly, on the generation side, we know we have customers who value a very sustainable product. If you took our Google data center deal, it's largely a carbon-free portfolio of generation assets serving that customer. And as we look at that, we can do carbon-free portfolios for our customers quite cost effectively. And we think that as energy-intensive industries look to find homes for their assets, whether they're data centers, whether they're new manufacturing, we think they'll selectively choose our territories as places to locate industrial businesses because of the type and the quality of the system that we have, the cost effectiveness of the system and the sustainable nature of the energy that we sell. So we think it's a strategic advantage. We continue to lean into it. We want to partner with our states in economic development and bring that to fruition as we look this decade, but really into next.
Yes. And I would just add that if you look at what we talked about — 15-plus gigawatts of new generation that we're building out over the next number of years — that's the pipeline that we think makes us a partner of choice with our EPCs. And if you think about it, you can go from a standard design for projects and move from project to project, keeping the workforce together, keeping that crew learning together, continuing to drive those efficiencies, and giving a line of sight for a long-term partnership and project execution that helps deliver on scope, on time, and on budget. So I think it sets us up well as we look toward future RFPs and how we plan to execute for the benefit of our customers. I am pretty excited about it.
Your next question comes from the line of Nick Campanella from Barclays.
Maybe a follow-up on Rich's rate base growth outlook question. Is there anything you'd like to highlight that's changed across the portfolio with the upcoming plan versus the prior one, whether it's improved, lagged through rate case processes and trackers, or changes in sales growth visibility? Would that change how you're viewing the delta between rate base growth and EPS growth? And how should we be thinking about the 40% financing function for equity?
Nick, as I think we've always talked about long term, you see that 200 to 250 basis point difference between rate base growth and EPS growth. I don't think that has changed with our construction of projects or opportunities. We'll certainly roll everything forward in Q3, including a new sales growth plan, and I don't see anything we've announced that changes that. We remain focused on execution. There's a little more delta between rate base and EPS growth in the nearer part of our plan, and that closes given our equity financing plan and some catch-up from ROE improvements in Colorado as we work through the rate cases we've discussed. Overall, long term, nothing's changed in that construct you asked about.
Great. And then just in the context of the $13 billion, I guess, of visibility now to the upside. Just the timing around the 4-gigawatt NSP RFP is pretty large and in the fourth quarter expected outcome. And since that's generation for 2030, can you kind of talk about how that makes it into the third quarter update or not?
Yes. That should be a fourth-quarter update by the end of the year. We will certainly, depending on the timing, determine whether it makes it into our Q3 plan or not, but we will provide visibility when we make that recommendation filing to the commission. We will work through that and be very explicit about where it sits in our Q3 plan, but it might be a little early for our Q3 call.
Your next question comes from the line of Carly Davenport from Goldman Sachs.
Just to start on the regulatory side. You've executed really well on getting settlements in place across a number of your jurisdictions. Just curious as you think about the path to final approval, how you'd characterize your confidence level there or any risk of intervention that you're watching?
Yes, Carly, if I just think about kind of we've had really good success. Our operating companies and the regulatory teams have worked really hard with the parties as we think about reaching settlements across a number of our states. So we certainly appreciate the engagement of all the parties as you work through a settlement. Obviously, there's a lot of call it, constructive give and take that goes into it. And hopefully, our commissions recognize the give and takes and what we think is we put forth a settlement, we think it's in the public interest. So we're hopeful our commissions see that and that we get the constructive decisions coming out of the commissions here in the next few months.
Great. And then the follow-up was just on the 2026 EPS guidance that you're reiterating here. It seemed like there are a couple of assumptions that were changing in the build to earnings this year. It seems like more puts and takes there, all else equal. Just any read-through to where you'd expect to fall within the guidance range this year based on those changes?
Yes. If you think of just our guidance changes, certainly, we had a significant change in depreciation guidance. That's earnings neutral, given the change in the nuclear depreciation lives of our nuclear plants in the Minnesota rate case. And then we had some gives and takes in terms of lower rider revenue, but that's offset by higher AFUDC. So really not much change from a guidance perspective when I look at it from a bottom-line earnings perspective. Like I said, we have a good start. We feel really good about our first six months of the year. Our regular cadence is that we tighten guidance in Q3, and we're off to a good start for the first part of the year.
Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet from JPMorgan.
This is Diana Niles on the call for Jeremy. So you've outlined expectations to sign another gigawatt of data center load this year and an additional 3 gigawatts in 2027. I guess within this year and then in next, how are you thinking about the mix between gigawatt scale or 100-megawatt scale projects? Any color there would be appreciated.
Sure. It's Bob. Look, I'm really excited about the portfolio we have. I would say our high-probability portfolio exceeds 20 gigawatts. We are focused largely in the Upper Midwest and the Southwest in the near term. We see projects in the backlog and in the portfolio in both camps, honestly. We see everything from urban data centers in the 10- to 20-megawatt range to 1,000-megawatt campuses across our portfolio. So it's hard to say exactly what will happen. I think our customers are largely aligned; we're spending a lot of time with the hyperscalers and the big data center developers. They're largely aligned to larger campuses for scale benefits, and we're equipped and prepared to move in that direction, and we see scale campuses in the regions I mentioned. We also have people looking for more modest projects — it's hard to say, but 200 to 300 megawatts are more modest, and we have those in our portfolio as well. We'll bring them forward as we get to execution. We feel great about our guidance of 1 gigawatt this year and 3 next.
Great. If I may go back to the topic Rich introduced earlier about the future of rate base growth: it sounds like, given timing considerations, doing the full $13 billion math in 2030 isn't quite the right way to look at it. How should we think about the horizon for rate base growth, and how long can this double-digit rate base growth extend?
Maybe I'll answer a bit more at a higher level. When we look at longer-term prospects and our incremental portfolio, renewables will be in service by the end of 2030. We need to capture production tax credits for the benefit of our customers, so the renewables in our incremental pipeline will be online by or before 2030 and are included in our five-year plan. Some larger transmission projects may slip a bit past 2030 given the size and scale of the build and the processes involved, but overall we feel good about the five-year plan. Looking longer term, as Bob mentioned, data centers are significant: a gigawatt by the end of this year and three additional gigawatts by the end of next year, which will drive many incremental opportunities in the early 2030s. They may be energized by the end of the decade, but their demand and ramp-up will be well into the 2030s, so we are thinking about how to extend this growth opportunity. That growth also brings affordability benefits for current customers and community benefits tied to data center development. We're excited about the opportunity both for investor growth and for long-term affordability for our customers.
And I think just one thing to add to Brian's comments is as we think about data center development, particularly in our resource-rich areas, if you have a gigawatt of data centers, you have choices to power with 100% natural gas I would suggest that in our regions, it's going to be largely wind, solar, storage and backup gas, which leads to for every gigawatt of a data center, you're looking at something like $5 billion to $6 billion of investments on the generation side and maybe more. And so as we think about that ramp that Brian talked about, the data center ramp, the generation ramp that follows that will be capital investment late this decade, but probably extending well into next decade as well as the transmission needed to support that. So there's real investment opportunities in the next decade as we see on our radar.
Your next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith from Jefferies.
So just kicking off, I'd love to hear your thoughts about Colorado and wildfire. This year, especially in the state, it's been tragic in some respects, but the state is clearly focused on dealing with issues in the western part of Colorado. How do you think about your objectives when it comes to wildfire in Colorado? I know historically we've talked about a 2027 session and something like a standard of care bill, but how do you think about the scope of what you're looking at, whether that includes expanded mitigation efforts and so on? I'm thinking through a refreshed view on wildfire and how to tackle it at the state level. Or how do you think about 2027 at large going forward?
Appreciate the question and the recognition that wildfire is a statewide issue, a tragedy in many cases for the community that it impacts. With a low snowpack last winter and continuing drought conditions, the conditions in Colorado were challenging. I'm really proud of what we've been able to do operationally in Colorado. We have executed with excellence. From a wildfire mitigation perspective at Xcel Energy, we laid out four focus areas. First is situational awareness: understanding localized weather patterns and communicating those conditions to customers. Over the last year we installed more than 50 AI-enabled cameras to improve situational awareness and to provide real-time information to offices of emergency management at the city and county levels, helping with early detection of risk areas. The second is weather stations. We installed nearly 300 weather stations in Colorado and are performing at a high level in meteorology, which benefits not only our territory but the entire state and region we serve. The third bucket is operational mitigants, which includes EPSS and PSPS activities across the state and region. We have seen more EPSS days and more PSPS events this year than last year. Those actions are valuable, risk-reducing mitigants that help protect communities and customers under this year’s wildfire regime. We are also devoting significant time, money and effort to system hardening. That includes pole inspections and replacements, insulators, non-explosive fuses and other measures to segment and strengthen the system to make it more resilient to the operating environment. The fourth area is communication with customers: identifying those who rely on durable medical equipment, critical community customers such as community centers and emergency management offices, and ensuring we can maintain services for those customers while protecting others during EPSS or PSPS events. We executed across those four buckets with excellence this year and I’m really proud of what we've done to protect our communities. The state has had some wildfires and has had to manage those events, and we have spent a lot of time ensuring our system, communities and customers are protected. Looking toward 2027, two things to highlight: first, state-level legislation is a priority for the company. We have legislation in the Dakotas and Texas and are looking at other states as well; Colorado will be a focus area for us in 2027, and we are working with legislators and stakeholders now. Second, our current wildfire mitigation plan is a three-year plan that ends at the end of 2027. We expect to file another wildfire plan with the commission in early 2027 outlining how we move past this investment cycle and what we do next based on lessons learned from the season. So, a long answer, Julien, but we are working really hard to protect our communities and our infrastructure.
Awesome. Thank you for the details. Certainly merits it. And if I can, just going back to the SPP, you talked about transmission, obviously. I'm focused here on SPP and SPS. How do you think about the ITP plan coming out this year? It seems like it could be another record outcome. Obviously, you all have seen pretty meaningful developments on that front in past years. And then also at SPS, I mean, this was, I think, previously framed as kind of a longer-term data center opportunity. As the data center thesis has crept and expanded in geographic footprint, I'm curious about SPS in particular, given the way that you've framed it as being more longer term previously.
Yes. Thank you for the question. We've been a leading provider of transmission new construction in the country. I think by my math, I said this on the last call, we might be building 20% of the 765 kV lines in the country that we know of. As the ITP comes out in the next tranche, we would expect a meaningful investment opportunity for us given our skill and our background and our capability to deliver with excellence and with cost effectiveness. The region itself is really attractive from a resource perspective. And I think we see a lot of interest from data center developers and hyperscalers around locating data centers there. I mean our SPS business is maybe one of the lowest, if not the lowest, C&I rates in the country. And we see real attraction from data center developers for the infrastructure we have and the cost effectiveness that we have down there. That will take more transmission in SPS. We are at the south and western end of the Southwest Power Pool and making sure that we have a reliable grid to attract development, but not just data centers, we're seeing enormous growth in the Permian and the Delaware Basins from our oil and gas customers, including additional electrification of oil and gas loads. So real growth down in SPS, not just from data centers and a need to harden the grid and bring new generation there. And you see that playing out in RFPs, IRPs, and I think you'll see it play out in the SPP ITP. Is that enough acronyms for everybody?
And Julien, just Bob hit it well is our growth, the RFPs that we just had in SPS, that's really there to serve the oil and gas growth in the Permian Basin. And so we think about Bob said in his opening comments, we really have a diversified growth plan. We are just not anchored on data center growth. Our base plan has very little data center growth baked into it. So that is all potential upside is how we think about longer term. And so we don't have any of that longer-term transmission opportunities in our base plan. We see that certainly helping well into 2030s as we look at the significant investment that will be needed in the backbone transmission in that region.
Tying that back to the earlier commentary, not included in the upside buckets is the ITP spend coming later in the half. That spend is expected later in the decade, or rather later this year, sorry. And then also separately, there is no contemplated RFP for a specific data center build per se. Obviously it is much more diversified, at least for now. So that's another bucket to watch over time.
Yes, you're absolutely correct. And as Bob said, there's been a growing interest in that region from a data center perspective as we look at it and see our pipeline. Obviously, you have a lot of land out there, a lot of territory to build. And so a growing interest there, along with really good renewable resources and access to a lot of gas.
Your next question comes from the line of Sophie Karp from KeyBanc Capital Markets.
A lot of ground has been covered here and obviously, a great update, guys. I was curious where you stand on new nuclear, a lot of your peers are beginning to, I guess, nibble at that a little bit and exploring potential government incentives as well as hyperscaler and other large offtaker appetite for participating in that. So kind of where do you stand on that given that you have some nuclear in your portfolio?
Sophie, it's Bob. Thanks for the question. I think I'm on the record as an unabashed fan of nuclear energy in the country. I think we, as a country, absolutely need to have an energy policy and an industrial policy to manage both new build as well as the supply chain and the fuel cycle around that. When I step back and think about Xcel Energy, and based on the comments you've heard from us before, we have amazing access to wind and solar resources in the regions that we serve. When I look out into the horizon, we have always said that when we committed to being a carbon-free company by mid-century we needed new dispatchable carbon-free technologies, nuclear and advanced nuclear being one of those, geothermal being another, and carbon capture and sequestration being a third. We still haven't seen real commercialization of those technologies, although they're on the way for sure. We don't see a need in our resource plans for new nuclear in the near term. In fact, we're quite confident in our ability to meet the growing needs we have with a big portfolio of wind, solar, storage and gas-fired backups. But that doesn't stop me from being an advocate for what I think the country needs and the policies I think we need to support them. We will not be an early adopter of new nuclear power plants at Xcel Energy.
Got it. This is helpful. And then on the large and load tariffs, clearly not a major driver for your plan, but a source of upside. We've seen some pushback in other regions from hyperscalers on overly restrictive large and load tariffs in terms of credit ratings and the associated collateral requirements. Is there anything in the large and load tariffs in your core territories that could be a source of pushback as well? Or are they more or less accommodating, should I say?
Sophie, I can take that question. Earlier this year we got our Large Load Tariff approved in Minnesota, which we thought was a constructive outcome, and we worked with some hyperscalers to help craft it. Many of our large and load tariffs look and feel similar to that. There are nuances across our territories, but we focus on customer protections and making sure we have the right contract provisions given the potential size of these contracts. We certainly pay attention to the Large Load Tariff proceeding to our east. For our Wisconsin filing, we reviewed the provisions and the overall package we put forth; we think it is well constructed and feel good about it. Some provisions are stricter than those of some peers. We look forward to working with our stakeholders to get these approved. We have talked about the ones we filed and are also working on filings in Texas and New Mexico. Our large and load tariffs take into account the letters and other activity in Texas, and we will incorporate that into our Texas filing, which should be submitted in Q3.
Your next question comes from the line of Steve Fleishman from Wolfe Research. Your next question comes from the line of Steve D’Ambrisi from RBC Capital Markets.
Just quickly, a lot of the questions, whether it's Richard's question or Julien's question, have focused on upside and longer-term upside. And at the risk of asking for more when you've just on this call talked about 9-plus percent EPS CAGRs, several of your peers have started to give longer-term capital guidance, pushing to 10-year capital or earnings outlooks. As you layer in many of these RFPs, where capital is spilling into the next five-year plan, and begin signing data center contracts that will ramp beyond the 2030s, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the value or potential to provide even longer-term capital or earnings forecasts.
Steve, I'm thinking back, we did provide a 10-year capital plan a number of years ago. That is something we've done before and we'll continue to evaluate it. I think you could argue that, and I certainly appreciate people's perspectives on that, but it is something we evaluate. We certainly look at the 10-year, and I think that's a little bit how we think about it: we give our long-term EPS growth guidance. We say 6% to 8-plus percent, and that's much more than a five-year view. So we'll continue to evaluate that. But when we look out beyond the five years past 2030, we're really thinking about 2030 to 2035, and as you alluded to, that's where some of our data center strategy comes in. We'll work through that, but right now we'll continue to provide a five-year outlook while also providing color on a longer term view if that's helpful.
Okay. I think that would be great. And then just can you talk a little bit about in Minnesota, where the alternative use like environmental study is progressing. I think the last time we talked, the message was that the community is aligned and just has to go through a longer process, but I wanted to hear if there's been any updates there.
Well, so we continue to work with the stakeholders on that. You're talking about the Google progress. We filed the proceeding with the commission. There's a lot of stakeholder support for that project, community support, over $1 billion of customer benefits. And we're committed on it moving forward. So if you look, we expect the schedule on the commission proceeding should hopefully get approval early in 2027. So overall, moving forward, excited to bring that project to our community. There's a lot of investment that Google is making, investments in STEM education, investments in a distributed capacity program that's industry-leading here in Minnesota. So looking forward to moving that forward, and we'll continue to work with our parties. Overall, when we think about it, we think the environmental review is consistent with Minnesota, and we'll continue to work with that party to make sure we can move forward with that project.
The next question comes from the line of Steve Fleishman from Wolfe Research.
I think my question has been asked and answered.
Your next question comes from the line of Alex Kania from BTIG.
I'm just wondering if you could just give maybe just a little color on stemming from the previous question on the Minnesota Google project. Just overall, what's your sense in terms of public acceptance of the large and load? Any kind of pushback that you're seeing from any of the jurisdictions that you might be seeing one way or another? And then maybe just any color just on key elections that we should be particularly focused on going into November?
It's Bob. Yes, I'll just reiterate what Brian said: real community support for the Google Data Center here in Minnesota down in Pine Island. We've had great feedback, real customer benefits and think we'll have our opportunity to put that in front of the commission. We expect the commission to take that up in the early part of next year and expect to move forward on that project, and we're excited about it. We're excited about it as a project that we could replicate across the company. It is a highly renewable project, and we have access to wind, solar, storage and gas plants. We can replicate projects like that in our Colorado company and in our SPS company, and we're seeing interest from other hyperscalers and data center developers that want a project like that in various parts of our territory. So we're excited about that as a template and hopefully we'll use that alongside our large and load tariffs as we move forward. The second part of your question was really the election cycle. It's certainly a busy cycle in the country and across Xcel Energy and our eight states. By and large, we've shown that we can manage our business through various political backdrops. As I think about our company, we don't really see a significant change in backdrop through the election cycle. We serve eight states. Half of them probably lean a little more progressive and the other half lean a little more conservative. We think that mix will stick through the election cycle, and we're prepared to continue to have an infrastructure build plan and work with any administration to make sure that we can execute on our capital investment plans for the benefit of our customers and communities.
Your final question comes from the line of Nick Amicucci from Evercore ISI.
Bob, you kind of just touched upon a little bit on my question, but I just wanted to put a little bit of a finer point on it. As we think about kind of within Minnesota and just leveraging the Clean Energy Accelerator charge, is that also kind of applicable across all jurisdictions where you're now able to kind of both showcase the clean attributes of building it and the kind of the community acceptance as well as an expedited interconnection process?
Thanks, Nick. I mean when you step back and think philosophically of what we're trying to accomplish with data center customers, we expect data centers to pay their full and fair share of their cost to serve them as a company. And when the data center shows up and needs new generation, that's how we would expect that to be paid. In Minnesota, we call it a clean energy accelerator charge. It could take a bunch of different names and packages. But basically, new large and load customers will pay for the generation that they need to serve them and they'll pay for the interconnection that they need to serve them. And customers will get the benefit of having more load on a fixed asset like the grid, and that is how you show real customer benefits over time is spreading the cost of fixed assets amongst more units of production. And that's philosophically how we're approaching large and loads. It will take different names and shapes in different states, but I think that's how we think about protecting our customers, driving economic benefit in the states and bringing new assets and new infrastructure to our regions.
Yes. And I'd just add, if you look at our Large Load Tariff filing in Colorado, we really have kind of two pathways to bring large loads forward: one creates speed and flexibility focused on what we didn't call the Clean Energy Accelerator in Colorado but is a very similar opportunity. Colorado is really interesting in terms of the geothermal resources that you have from a clean energy perspective. So when we think about what we did in Minnesota, it's really a good way to frame how we drive and help drive state policy and customer benefits together. And so we're excited about what we can do and expect similar concepts across our states.
That concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to CFO, Brian Van Abel for closing remarks.
Thanks all for participating in our earnings call this morning. Please contact our Investor Relations team with any follow-up questions. Thank you.
This concludes today's meeting. You may now disconnect.