Report: Thursday, July 30, after market close
Conference call: Friday, July 31, at 10:00 a.m. ET (investors.alliantenergy.com)
For Alliant Energy, the quarter’s EPS is unlikely to be the main share-price driver. The more important questions are:
The base case is a relatively uneventful quarter: EPS near last year’s level, reaffirmed annual guidance and constructive project updates. The upside case requires incremental large-load contracts or stronger language around future earnings growth.
Third-party estimate feeds are unusually inconsistent:
| Metric | Published expectations |
|---|---|
| Q2 EPS | Approximately $0.60–$0.69 |
| Q2 revenue | Approximately $920–$961 million |
| Q2 2025 EPS | $0.68 |
| Q2 2025 revenue | $961 million |
TipRanks shows a $0.60 EPS estimate, ChartMill shows $0.63, and Benzinga reports $0.69 and $961 million of revenue. Investors should therefore be careful labeling a small variance as a clean “beat” or “miss.” (tipranks.com)
LNT began the year with Q1 ongoing EPS of $0.82, versus $0.83 a year earlier, and reaffirmed its 2026 ongoing EPS guidance of $3.36–$3.46. Management characterized Q1 as approximately 25% of the full-year midpoint despite mild weather. (alliantenergy.com)
At Q2 EPS of roughly $0.65–$0.69, first-half ongoing EPS would be about $1.47–$1.51. LNT would then need approximately $1.85–$1.99 in the second half to land within guidance—a reasonable burden given that Q3 is normally the seasonally strongest quarter.
Weather may not provide the same benefit as in Q2 2025, when temperatures added approximately $0.02 per share versus normal. June 2026 temperatures in Iowa were only modestly above normal, although localized late-quarter heat could support cooling demand. (iowaagriculture.gov)
At the end of Q1, LNT had five executed data-center agreements totaling approximately 3.4 GW. That contracted demand is expected to increase system demand by roughly 60% by 2031. Management also said the generation needed to serve the contracted load had been secured. (s201.q4cdn.com)
That is the core of the investment thesis. LNT’s existing four-year plan calls for:
Management has additionally described a mature 2–4 GW pipeline beyond contracted demand. The most consequential disclosure tomorrow would be another signed electric-service agreement. A new contract would likely translate into additional gas generation, storage, wind, transmission and distribution investment—and potentially a higher post-2026 growth rate.
However, management has indicated that the full Iowa resource-plan, capital-plan and financing update is planned for Q3 earnings, not Q2. Investors should therefore distinguish between:
On May 7, Wisconsin regulators approved, with modifications, Alliant’s electric-service agreement for Meta’s Beaver Dam data center. The PSC strengthened termination and financial safeguards, added reporting requirements and directed Alliant to file a standardized large-load tariff for future customers. (psc.wi.gov)
This is positive because it advances a contracted project and validates a path for serving large customers. But the commission’s emphasis on transparency and customer protection shows that future Wisconsin agreements may face more scrutiny and less contractual flexibility than Alliant initially sought.
Important questions for management include:
Alliant recently filed a rezoning application for the proposed 720 MW Morgan Valley Energy Center west of Cedar Rapids. The project would consist of three simple-cycle combustion turbines and is currently targeted for operation in 2030, subject to approvals. (alliantenergy.com)
The filing demonstrates tangible execution behind LNT’s load-growth thesis. Investors should listen for:
LNT closed July 29 at approximately $71.94, up about 10.7% year to date, versus roughly 5.2% for the Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund. At that price, the shares trade at approximately:
This is not a distressed utility valuation. The market is already assigning meaningful value to data-center-driven growth.
That creates an asymmetrical setup:
The financing plan is manageable in the near term because the company had already entered forward-equity arrangements covering planned needs through 2027 as of Q1. Nevertheless, investors should monitor whether incremental projects require equity above the existing $2.4 billion plan.
The hurdle for a satisfactory report is modest: EPS near the prior-year $0.68, reaffirmed $3.36–$3.46 guidance and continued project execution. But with LNT trading above 21× guidance after outperforming utilities year to date, merely meeting that hurdle may not be enough to drive substantial upside.
The key potential catalyst is another signed data-center agreement. The key risk is that the generation, regulatory and equity requirements needed to serve rapid load growth begin to dilute the attractive headline growth story.