Welcome to the Talen Energy Corporation Q3 2023 Earnings Call. Our host for today is Ellen Liu, Senior Director of Investor Relations. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Ellen Liu. You may begin.

Thanks, Danielle. Welcome, everyone, to Talen Energy's Third Quarter 2023 Conference Call. Participating on today's call are Chief Executive Officer, Mac McFarland; and Chief Financial Officer, Terry Nutt. I'd like to highlight that we have posted materials on the Investor Relations section of our website, www.talenenergy.com that provide additional information about our operations and third quarter results. We have also provided information reconciling our non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings materials. Today, we are making some forward-looking statements based on current expectations, including updating 2023 and establishing 2024 guidance. Actual results could differ due to risk factors described in our financial disclosures and other periodic public filings. As a reminder, we have allotted additional time for a question-and-answer session at the end of our prepared remarks. [Operator Instructions] With that, I will now turn the call over to Mac.

Great. And thank you, Ellen. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. At Talen, we remain focused on operating our assets in a safe and reliable manner, ensuring we deploy robust commercial hedging strategies and emphasizing disciplined cost management and returning capital to our shareholders. You can see these highlights on Slide 3 of our earnings presentation. Today, we are reporting solid operational and financial performance for the third quarter. During the quarter, our fleet generated $224 million of adjusted EBITDA and $146 million of adjusted free cash flow. The PJM plants ran well in a mild summer with strong cash flows supported by hedge gains. Our commercial hedging strategy provided the appropriate risk mitigation for a weak market, and allowed Talen to lock in prices for our PJM fleet, which continues to support our cash flow generation for the year. In ERCOT, record temperatures and elevated spark spreads enabled our plants to generate significant physical energy margin, which we define as unhedged margin from generation and ancillary services. However, these results were negatively impacted by unplanned outages, including at our Nueces Bay plant, as well as abnormally high congestion costs in ERCOT at our plants. Terry will talk more about this in greater detail later, and I'll try to unpack it as well. As a result of these outages and congestion costs, we are narrowing our 2023 guidance by reducing the upper end of our adjusted EBITDA range provided in August to $1.175 billion. This reflects the loss of upside opportunities from these events. The impact on 2023 adjusted cash flow is minimal despite this loss in potential upside due to certain cash flow improvement activities that we have taken to offset the EBITDA. Turning to 2024, we are also establishing '24 adjusted EBITDA and adjusted…

Thank you, Mac, and good morning to everyone on the call. Turning to our financial results. For the third quarter 2023, Talen reported adjusted EBITDA of $224 million and adjusted free cash flow of $146 million. Building on our strong financial performance in the first half of the year resulted in $998 million of adjusted EBITDA year-to-date and $609 million of adjusted free cash flow. Our financial performance for the year has been anchored by our operational performance across the generation fleet, complemented by our commercial hedging strategies. Our year-to-date results for 2023 have been one of Talen's best financial performances in the company's history, and we expect full year results to meet that milestone as well. As Mac touched on earlier, our plants ran well across the fleet, though the balance of profitability from physical generation versus hedge results differed between PJM and ERCOT. The PJM fleet performed reliably, earning adjusted EBITDA of $166 million during the quarter. Similar to the second quarter, below-average temperatures in the PJM market resulted in lower demand for cooling needs, contributing to lower on-peak power prices, lower power load and physical energy margin. For example, cooling degree days in Philadelphia, a relevant demand location for our plants, were approximately 18% lower than the same period last year. However, our commercial hedging strategy allowed us to realize prices that were higher than the prevailing market price during the period. Turning to ERCOT. This quarter, driven by the persistent heat in Texas, ERCOT saw its highest third quarter electricity demand in the last 5 years, leading to wide spark spreads and increased generation. This summer, ERCOT set 10 new all-time peak demand records, including the new record of 85,464 megawatts on August 10. This heat drove significant physical margin that was offset by the Nueces…

Great. Thanks, Terry. To reiterate Talen's value proposition, we're focused on generating power safely, reliably, profitably and unlocking value from our assets, like a data campus. We believe the combination of Susquehanna and our Cumulus campus provides compounding cash flow growth for Susquehanna as well as a very compelling enterprise value growth for Talen. Thank you for your interest in Talen and joining us on today's call. I'll now open the line for questions and turn it back to Danielle, the operator. Danielle?

[Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Seeing that there are no questions in the queue, I would like to turn the conference back to Mac McFarland for closing remarks.

Great. We do realize that our earnings call is on the third and final day of EEI. And -- but do appreciate everybody taking time out from their busy schedule to join us today and look forward to hearing from you in the next several weeks. Take care, everyone.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.