Good morning and welcome to the Talen Energy Business Update conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you would need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sergio Castro, Vice President and Treasurer. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Talen's conference call on short notice. Participating on today's call are Chief Executive Officer, Mac McFarland, Chief Financial Officer, Terry Nutt, and Executive Vice President Strategic Ventures, Cole Muller. We issued a press release this morning along with a presentation, all of which can be found in the Investor Relations section of Talen's website, talenenergy.com, which provides additional information and which we will refer to on this call. Today, we are making some forward-looking statements based on current expectations and assumptions. Actual results could differ due to risk factors and other considerations described in our financial disclosures and other SEC filings. As a reminder, we have allotted time for a question-and-answer session at the end of our prepared remarks.
We ask participants to please limit their questions to one primary and one follow-up. With that, I will now turn the call over to Mac.
Great. Thank you, Sergio, and thanks, everyone, for joining the call this morning. As I previously said, 2025 is shaping up to be one of the most exciting times in my career in the IPP space, and 2025 is the year in which the thesis of data center and power intersection is validated. We believe this revamped and expanded deal with Amazon that we've announced today does just that, demonstrates the intersection and validates our strategy of powering the future by contracting to serve data center load, and more importantly, to Talen, create a differentiated IPP model. Cole will take you through the new contract, and Terry will show you at a high level the implications of the transaction on our financials.
In summary, the deal simplifies our relationship with Amazon, doubles its size, and provides for visible and meaningful free cash flow per share growth beyond what we showed you last March when we presented our original transaction. The photo you see on the cover of today's presentation gives you a current view of the plant and the ongoing construction directly adjacent to the Susquehanna Nuclear Power Plant. As most of you are aware, Amazon made a significant announcement along with the governor and other representatives in Berwick on Monday. Turning to slide three, the new contract with Amazon accomplishes several objectives.
First, the agreement simplifies and expands the relationship into a front-of-the-meter contract where we become the retail provider for Amazon using nuclear power to deliver electricity at Amazon's Susquehanna data center site and to other sites in Pennsylvania. This eliminates the need for FERC approval. As we said after the ISA amendment rejection last fall, we've been working on both the regulatory/legal solutions as well as commercial solutions. This is the commercial solution, and we will continue to work on regulatory legal options to preserve behind-the-meter co-location as we believe this needs to be part of the all-of-the-above solution set to solve growing demand. With respect to the new contract, we have taken the feedback of the technical sessions at FERC and feedback from constituents.
We have moved to a grid-connected solution which provides clarity regarding cost allocation, and as PPL has said numerous times, this will reduce transmission costs for residential customers. Everyone benefits. Pennsylvania benefits from economic development. Pennsylvania communities benefit in high-paying jobs. PPL benefits by lowering the costs, as I just mentioned, and the industry benefits as the intersection of data centers and power is validated. As you can see from our press release this morning, this ongoing collaboration between Talen is supported by the governor, a Republican senator, our local congressman, labor leadership, and PPL. We all came together to get this done. Second, a continuation of the mission we have been implementing since the new Talen took shape in 2023. It builds on our strategy to be a leading energy supplier for data centers in PJM.
Choosing a strategy is simple. Choosing the right one is difficult, and sticking to it and executing is harder and takes time. We appreciate our investors that had the conviction in our investment thesis and gave us the time it has taken us to implement. We are leveraging our core IPP skills, risk, and commodity management, and delivering a full-service retail contract for Amazon that they can use across their sites in Pennsylvania as well as Susquehanna. We believe this new agreement provides a new solution in addition to the original behind-the-meter solution, one that is repeatable across our portfolio. Lastly, we believe we are creating a differentiated IPP model.
What does that mean? An IPP anchored by this new $18 billion notional value, 17-year contract with line of sight to large-scale contracted revenue streams that provide for resilient and significant growing free cash flow, which drives an improved balance sheet and enhances our capital allocation and strategic flexibility. It provides a roadmap of how we can generate incremental value in the future. I will touch more on this at the conclusion, but now over to Cole to take you through the revamped contract. Cole?
Thanks, Mac. It's definitely an exciting time to be squarely at the intersection of power and data. As Mac mentioned, we're proceeding with a commercial solution that shifts the campus to be front-of-the-meter, or as we think better said, grid-connected, with Talen as the retail provider. This will take a short period of time to electrically set up, and in the interim, we'll continue powering the campus build-out with the existing power arrangement under the approved ISA that allows up to 300 MW. We expect minor work to be performed during the upcoming refueling outage in the spring of 2026. Importantly, there's no pause nor slowdown required to accommodate this transition. We're moving full steam ahead, empowering the campus as quickly as it's built. By shifting to a grid-connected solution, we also unlock our second nuclear unit, previously held in reserve as redundancy.
This now allows us to expand the PPA to nearly 2 GW on attractive terms. This solution also de-risks Talen's path forward as it no longer requires an ISA amendment subject to regulatory approvals and provides additional reliability that benefits both parties. In this new agreement, Amazon is foregoing its option to limit the campus and PPA at 480 MW, an important commitment to accelerating the campus to its full potential. We will also terminate the Nautilus lease, unlocking more land and infrastructure to quickly power the Amazon campus. Terry will take everyone through the financial impacts in a minute, but there are a few other details I'd like to expand on. First, this transaction provides us with the ability to flex the PPA to power Amazon sites across Pennsylvania.
We believe this feature adds significant value and can help achieve the full value of the PPA to both Talen and Amazon within a few years as we serve multiple sites that are built out in parallel. Second, we will partner with Amazon to explore development opportunities within the state to add necessary long-term carbon-free resources through potential uprate projects at our Susquehanna facility and new nuclear SMR development. I look forward to continued collaboration to achieve these goals. This agreement strengthens the Susquehanna plant and the adjacent Amazon data center campus as the keystone site that creates a roadmap for a broader Pennsylvania-focused effort to power the future.
The best way to attract new data centers is to have well-positioned operating data centers, such as the one we are powering adjacent to Susquehanna, creating a clustering effect that becomes a virtuous cycle. We believe the PPL territory and, more broadly, the state of Pennsylvania, have all the right ingredients in place to accelerate data center growth, as the governor outlined just two days ago. We look forward to leveraging our advantage platform to repeat and accelerate further growth across Pennsylvania and our footprint. On to slide five. This expanded collaboration between Talen and Amazon creates additional construction and operational jobs and will have an economic multiplier effect across the greater Berwick area, which is exciting to see.
It also provides additional investment in the regional infrastructure through additional fiber, water, and community investments across the region and the state. We believe this agreement will benefit our employees and the local communities for decades to come and create lasting impacts to local communities across Pennsylvania as additional data center campuses are developed. I'll pass it over to Terry to take us through the impacts to Talen.
Thanks, Cole, and good morning to everyone. We are excited about the potential that this opportunity has to generate value for the Berwick region and the state of Pennsylvania. I'm proud that Talen has continued to play a broader part in the powering data story. On slide six, we show the high-level financial impacts expected from this agreement. At full ramp, this combined Amazon transaction grows after-tax cash flow per share by more than 50% above our 2026 guidance, adding over $8 per share by 2032. To be clear, we are holding 2026 guidance flat, reflecting only the incremental value of this contract in this illustration, as well as showing a free cash flow per share metric that assumes our current share count of approximately 45.5 million shares. This represents an industry-leading 20% annual growth off the 2024 cash flow per share that we achieved last year.
The ramp schedule shows the base commitments, and as Cole mentioned, we are confident in Amazon's ability to accelerate the impact of the full ramp, even more so now with the flexibility to utilize this PPA across Amazon data center campuses across Pennsylvania. At full ramp, we expect to receive approximately $1.4 billion annually, adding significant long-term contracted cash flows. On slide seven, you can see our overall projection towards contracted cash flows, with 50% of our margin under contract with Amazon when the contract is at full ramp. This contract creates an $18 billion revenue stream over the 17-year term and enhances our value to our shareholders through resilient cash flows. This strengthens our balance sheet and adds significant flexibility across our business while also maintaining exposure to the constructive power fundamentals for the rest of our generation fleet.
Finally, slide eight shows our upcoming investor events over the remainder of 2025. I want to specifically highlight our investor update, a virtual event scheduled for September. We expect to incorporate the full impacts of this deal along with additional inputs such as the result from the 2026-2027 PJM capacity auction that will develop over the course of the summer. We look forward to engaging with investors at the many events over the course of this year. With that, let me turn things back over to Mac.
Great. Thanks, Terry, and thanks, Cole. At Talen, we're focused on powering the future, and that isn't just our tagline. It is our strategy. We remain focused on executing this strategy. We believe this new contract with Amazon is the second time we have demonstrated that we have a value-creating strategy and the ability to deliver customer-focused solutions leading on core IPP risk management skills. In March of 2024, we did the first-of-a-kind data center transaction, and in June of 2025, we have executed a new type of deal. We now have the know-how on both front-of-the-meter and behind-the-meter contracting solutions for our customers. We will build on this know-how. As an IPP, I would contend that we have the most visible free cash flow per share growth based on contracted revenues in the industry that are not significantly dependent on energy gross margin, capacity outcomes, or PTCs.
We have lowered our risk profile and, at the same time, increased our returns profile, creating real, tangible value for our investors and increasing the strategic flexibility for Talen. I believe that this new differentiated IPP model should lend itself to lower costs of capital, both debt and equity, and lend itself to support increase, if we so choose, higher leverage given visibility to contracted cash flows. Ultimately, this should lead to higher multiples in valuation. We are not done. We think this is repeatable, and we will continue to look for opportunities to expand on our strategy. We are excited about this new contract with Amazon, and we remain excited about what is on the horizon for 2025 and 2026, and we are committed to powering the future. With that, I'll turn the call back over to the operator and open the line for questions. Operator?
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Our first question will come from Ian Zaffino with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.
Hi, great. Thank you very much. Can you guys just maybe touch upon the T&D and the expenses there, how you guys are thinking about it, or how we should think about it vis-à-vis the initial deal that got revamped and then this new deal going forward? Thanks.
Yeah, sure. This is Cole. Good question. This announcement and this deal is reflective of us selling energy and capacity, similar to the first deal that you referenced there. All of the impacts shown on all the slides, including slide six, are all in impact, including all the puts and takes as the retail provider. Importantly, on your question on transmission and distribution, in addition to any contract price, there are a number of retail charges that are passed through to the end user.
Okay. Thanks. As a follow-up, I know you guys said that there's more to come here, so I'm going to ask, what have you done for us lately? Now that Susquehanna's buttoned up and done, how are we thinking about additional data centers going forward, or at least discussions there? A Montour is kind of out there, but any kind of additional color you could kind of give us on how to think about any future deals going forward? Thanks.
Hey, good morning, Ian. I thought you'd let us breathe for at least 30 minutes.
No rest for the weary.
Yeah. Look, we're not going to rest on this. Obviously, this is a milestone that we've been working on. You can see, again, as I mentioned in the press release, to garner broad support across all the constituents. We think that this provides a platform, as Cole said, that's repeatable, and we'll look to do that in the future. Again, hopefully, you know us. We don't get out in front of that. We'll just say that we think we've got something here that we can work on and expand on, and we're going to go work on it.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thanks. Thank you.
Thanks.
Our next question comes from Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning.
Morning, Jeremy.
Just wanted to touch, I guess, on the opportunity here to meaningfully accelerate timing to achieve full value here. Wondering if you could expand on what that means exactly and any thoughts on what that upside could be.
Yeah. Thanks, Jeremy. This is Cole again. Look, as we said in the prepared remarks, Amazon has the flexibility with this contract to flex the PPA across all of its sites across Pennsylvania. We think that meaningfully gives opportunity for acceleration, right? We're showing a ramp out through 2032 to the full ramp in the slide. Just if you step back from a physical standpoint, the opportunity to build multiple campuses in parallel and power them through this PPA, we think, is powerful and provides a lot of upside opportunity for us. Obviously, that's an Amazon decision at their election as they build out other sites and announce other sites over time here.
The same is true with what we had with the first contract that went up to 960 [MW Cumulus data center]. This one obviously doubles it. The way that I would think about this is they had the opportunity to take that contracted maximum earlier, and we had the obligation to provide it if they took it earlier. They still maintain that with this 1920 MW upsize. As Cole said, when you can spread that across different places and different locations, that gives Amazon even more flexibility. Therefore, we hope that as other sites are built and along with the acceleration of Susquehanna, they can take the megawatts sooner. It is going to take the physical build-out of data centers. I think the point is, as Cole was mentioning, it is just not only at Susquehanna now.
Got it. That's very helpful there. Thanks. Just wondering if there's anything to be gleaned here as far as the value of the PA fleet in PPL , particularly the gas. Is there anything to think about? What could be the value there based on what happened today?
Look, I do not know that there is a, to put an exact quantum on value, but I think the way that I would look at it is, and Cole touched on this, is that we have a good working relationship with PPL. PPL has the ability to connect things quickly. We have a lot of sites in the PPL territory, and we have the ability now across our portfolio to backstop incremental transactions or even these megawatts. Once you get data centers, and Cole called it perhaps a little bit of a pun, but he called it the Keystone Data Center in the Keystone State, once you start putting that in place and it begets other data centers, we think that that implies that there is a lot of opportunity set for us using our current assets.
Got it. That's very helpful. Last one if I could, just the shift from behind- the- meter to front- of- the- meter here. Anything else you can provide as far as the thought process there? Do you see equivalent value in behind- the- meter and front- of- the- meter for Susquehanna?
Yeah. It's a good question. Look, we worked with all the stakeholders, and obviously, principally Amazon, to come up with what's the right path forward given where we're at with the behind-the-meter solution and the regulatory uncertainty. We think it's the right answer. Obviously, our counterparty believes that as well. We think charting the path forward under a front-of-the-meter arrangement helps accelerate and provide certainty at levels that are pretty attractive to us.
Very helpful. I'll leave it there. Thank you.
Yep. Thanks.
Our next question will come from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies. Your line is open.
Hey. Good morning, team. Thank you guys very much. Nicely done. Kudos on the long process here. Just to clarify a couple of things, and I apologize to ask a couple of detailed questions here, but on the $1.4 billion annual run rate here, is that an average number across the 10 years, 2032 through 2042? Is there an inflation factor that we should be considering on the contract to kind of more specifically calculate by year what this is looking at? Then related to that, the baseline here, just to understand, you're using a 2028 forward curve, and then you need to gross it up by 2% to get to a baseline for the 2032 starting point on energy? Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.
Thanks, Julien. This is Cole again. I'll start. Terry, jump in. Look, on the $1.4 billion, that's when you get to the full ramp according to the slide here. Obviously, we put on the slide that there's price escalators, so there is some escalation beyond that period for the last back half or the back decade on top of that. In terms of what the baseline is, you're right. It's in the footnotes, but we look at the PPL curve or curve out in 2028 and add an escalator. So everything in dark blue is incremental to that on a per annum basis, holding the capacity markets flat at $270 for the term.
Got it. Just to clarify, the $1.4 billion is the starting point of the run rate in 2032, and then there's inflation adders subsequent to that, just to level set on what you just said a second ago, through 2042.
Yeah. Assuming 1920 MW at that period, yes.
Got it. Excellent. If you could elaborate a little bit on the strategy, and I know, what are you doing for me today? The SMR avenue here, just can you clarify a little bit? I mean, obviously, that could be some big dollars and risk profiles around that. Do you want to clarify how you're thinking about it? I mean, obviously, we've seen AWS team announce a partnership on SMR elsewhere already with X-energy. Thoughts about what that looks like, preliminarily? Expectations?
Julien, it's Mac , good morning. We've agreed to explore first up rates, which there are the potential at Susquehanna currently, okay? As I think we've, Terry, Cole, and I and the rest of the team have been on a bit of a nonstop roadshow for a couple of years now, it feels like. We've been saying that we sort of see things as the short-term five years, midterm five years, and then longer term, what happens years 11 through 15. SMR is years 11 through 15, but you have to start at some point. We've agreed with Amazon to explore putting SMRs at our sites across Pennsylvania. It's the start of that.
We're not into making a capital commitment, but obviously, this is why both in terms of that longer-term solution that's years 11 through 15, as well as the gas solution that is going to be needed in the years five through or six through 10, in our view, is going to be filled by gas generation. Both that and SMRs are likely to be done, from our perspective, in sort of a contracted arrangement with an off-taker that provides all the benefits of doing that and getting the returns. That can be front-of-the-meter, but it can also be co-located behind-the-meter with grid backup, etc. I think that that's why it's important for us to continue to advance all of the above solutions, as I mentioned in the script. We're advancing all those ideas. Just to go full circle, the SMR is more year 11 plus type timeframe.
Now, if we can do it earlier, there's been executive orders around nuclear and the advancement of that. We'll look at it, but it's going to be driven by making sure we get the right returns from it and have certainty of our investment.
Got it. Excellent. We'll see you later today. Thank you. All the best. Congrats again.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Our next question will come from Angie Storozynski with Seaport. Your line is open.
Thank you. First, I wanted to thank you for disclosing the deal once you have it and providing some financial quantification of that deal. I feel like we live in a new era where that's not expected, so I really appreciate it that we don't need to go through hoops to actually understand what kind of value this deal provides. That's just a comment.
Right, thank you .
Maybe secondly, I mean, based on the information that you provided, this is roughly like, say, $950 million to $1 billion EBITDA just from this one asset. Again, I'm probably fishing for some corroboration that I'm in the right ballpark. This feels like an infrastructure project at this point, given the longevity of the long-term contract. Do you have a sense how you would think that investors should value this stream of earnings or cash flows?
Yes. Angie? I think that's why we're trying to say this is a differentiated IPP. If you look at it with contracted cash flows and you think about we've always said net leverage of 3.5x or less, but that's been more a guideline. I'm not suggesting we're going to go take that up. When you have contracted revenues, it gives you the ability to think about how do you manage your balance sheet. It's like having a long-term hedge. You have the stable cash flows. When you go to an underwriting case, that is more secure, right, because of the cash flows. This front-of-the-meter allows us, by the way, if it reduces as Cole said, some operational risk because we can provide megawatts off of the rest of our portfolio. That's what we like to do.
It allows our team to risk manage it that way. Going back to the debt underwriting case, should lower the cost of debt, right? Should also lower, in our opinion, lower the cost of equity because it's more guaranteed type returns. Therefore, that lends itself, I think that if you look at it's nuclear cash flows that are contracted for 17 years plus an option to extend for another 10 plus on the back end. Again, I think that when you look at this and the valuation and then you think about the rest of the portfolio, I think you can imagine a world where we continue to try to do this and to increase our contracted cash flows. As you said, look a lot more like infrastructure.
I just had the conversation about gas units being built sort of six-10 years out and those being on the back of contracts. SMRs would be on the back of contracts. It is something that I think is going to change the dynamics to where we're going to go back to a world where there are originated and structured long-term deals as opposed to people just leaning on the spot market, which has been done for the last decade given the spot market's been weak. This is changing our investment and how we think about investments we make at our current plants as well as plants in the future. We're going to be prudent about investments in the future.
Again, right now, we're focused on how did we get to this point by taking the contract and restructuring it that, as Cole said, goes across Pennsylvania, allows Amazon flexibility, allows us flexibility and accelerates. It actually reduces our operational risk. How do we leverage this going forward before we get to new build? You have to start new build thoughts and looks now in order to get them online in the future. That is what we're doing with the SMR part on the far end of the decade here or past the end of the decade. Thinking about how do we leverage our sites with respect to other assets in the years after 2030. We're excited about it.
I think that it should, again, if it's contracted and done right and it provides for, as I said, this transaction lowers our risk but increased our returns and increased the visibility to free cash flow per share. I just think that that's a different valuation than saying marking something to market, if you will.
[crosstalk]
Maybe to.
Yeah. Go ahead.
Add to Mac's comments real quick, right? When you think about the IPP space, like any other industry that has commodity exposure, right, that risk of volatility in the commodity obviously does certain things to both the equity valuation and even the debt valuation. We think that obviously, as Mac alluded to, this significantly de-risked that profile, right? When we think about equity investors or our debt investors, this should be a significant risk reduction in how they view the earnings of the business and the cash flow of the business. To your point, when you take a look at industries that are more contracted and have more contracted margin, there is a multiple expansion related to that. Obviously, we think that that is key for Talen as well.
Just one other question. How do you think this contract impacts your ability to acquire other assets in the PPL zone from a market power issue? Secondly, even more importantly, now that you add load to the zone, how do you think the current negative basis for the PPL zone versus PJM West will trend and how that will impact the economic dispatch of your existing gas plants? Thanks.
Look, I think that the load, which is being forecast and people have been talking about load coming and thinking through how does that impact capacity auctions, right, which it does, but also from an energy perspective, I think that it's going to probably start to lessen that discount or the basis differential. If you go back, I don't know, at least 10, probably closer to 20 years, PPL zone traded and PECO zone also traded at premium to West Hub and now traded at a discount because of the way things were built and the transmission system was built out. This is just another evolution on that. It will, over time, it'll probably reduce that basis.
How about market power and ability to acquire additional assets in that zone?
Yeah. Yeah. Look, given our portfolio and where we are, we believe that there is room across Western PJM and Eastern PJM. We have headroom with respect to asset acquisitions if we so chose.
Good. Thank you. Congrats.
Thanks, Angie.
Thanks, Angie.
Our next question will come from Michael Sullivan with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning.
Morning, Michael.
Hey, Mac. Wanted to just pick up on kind of some of the last round of your comments around contracted margin and just slowing the risk profile. Any sense of how rating agencies might be thinking about this? As it relates to that, how you're thinking about leverage capacity and what you're going to do with that and the incremental cash flow that's going to be coming in?
Yeah. Terry, why don't you take the rating agency? We're probably early in the game on this, but go ahead, Terry.
Yeah, certainly. Michael, as you noted, right, this should definitely give a different credit profile. We obviously will talk to the rating agencies about that. We think it improves the recovery for all the collateral under the business because it does give you more certainty. I mean, you got a long-term agreement with a very strong credit that takes up a substantial amount of the overall margin for the business. That has got to be a de-risking profile for an underwriting case. We work with the rating agencies quite a bit. Sergio and the team obviously have a good relationship with them, and we'll get them up to speed on what this contract means. Obviously, we think that it's a very strong improvement to the credit profile.
Okay. What thoughts on what you're going to do with this excess capacity?
Yeah. Michael, as we always say, the excess capacity gives us a ton of options. That leverage can give us the option to do numerous things, whether it's what we've done in the market before with respect to utilizing it for buybacks, utilizing it for M&A, but obviously, it would be M&A that has to meet the right hurdles. As Mac mentioned earlier, we're disciplined on M&A. We'll continue to be disciplined on M&A. Those are just some of the options that we could utilize.
Okay. Great. This might be a little more nuanced, but just in terms of I think you mentioned you can use the entire portfolio to serve this. What are the implications for carbon-free energy sales and this really being tied to Susquehanna? As it relates to that, just this footnote three on slide six, can you just give a little color on what that actually means in terms of make-whole or falls on the like?
Michael, let me just say what that means is obviously this is a contract where we are supplying nuclear carbon-free energy, and that's the objective of the contract. However, if a unit is in outage or is enforced out, it can be backstopped by the rest of our fleet. That isn't the intent. We can supply the energy, but carbon-free, it has to come from the nuclear plant. That is a smaller component than the overall energy and capacity. That's why we get the portfolio effect. Let's just be clear. We're trying to generate as many megawatts to supply this contract out of the nuke, and there's actually excess that we have versus the 1920 MW. As far as footnote three?
Yeah. I'll take that one. Yeah. So Michael, just like the first deal that we did, there are minimum commitments that ramp over time through 2032 here to the full max or full min commitments. If they're not met, there's a payment to make us whole relative based on the market price at that time versus the contract price. The footnote references that just like the first deal, there is a cap to those. Should that difference be great enough over a period of time based on the minimum commitments for that year? That means if there's little to no power being consumed on campus, there could be a cap on the ultimate make-whole, if you will, there. We looked at it as a very belt and suspenders or unlikely scenario here because you would have to be very low power draw.
Because once you get to anything above 35%-40% power draw, we're pretty well protected there.
Because of the ability, it's not just Susquehanna. It's any data site in Pennsylvania that can be supplied. Therefore, you have to think that if that footnote's going to come into play, that they're not building out campuses and they just announced on Monday a $20 billion investment. I don't think they stopped there. In fact, they made some comments to that effect on Monday during the governor's event. We're looking at this as optimizing and unlocking the second value and giving us the ability to expand. We're thinking about doing this more, not doing it less.
Understood. Thanks so much.
Thanks, Michael.
Thanks, Michael.
The next question comes from Craig Shere with Tuohy Brothers . Your line is open.
Good morning. Congratulations and thanks for taking the questions.
Morning, Craig.
I understand the point that existing spare gas-fired generation needs to be tapped first, primarily through the remainder of this decade with contracted gas-fired new build coming on more heavily at the tail end of that and the early 2030s and then SMRs beyond that. While the new builds and the SMR solutions may take a while to break ground, do you think we could have some prospective delineated non-binding but meaningful data center agreements for interest in those specific sites with specific parameters that we can kind of sink our teeth into perhaps sometime in the second half of this year through the end of next year? I mean, even if something's not online for five years.
Yeah. Craig, I get your question. Look, when I say year six through 10 of gas or SMRs out there, that means that you're going to have, if you back that up on sort of a project management Gantt chart, you're going to have to start making certain decisions and then go FID at some point, right? Because I'm talking about either online or being constructed in those time frames. I do not think that you're going to see that, quite frankly, in the second half of 2025. I think that's more of a 2026, 2027 type time frame. I mean, we've been having a lot of discussions, and there are a lot of turbines that are out there that, quite frankly, are trying to figure out where they're going to go and what are the right sites.
We think we have the right sites, but I don't think that this whole thesis that we have on power and data intersection has matured enough to get to the new build part of it. I think we're still in the part where the existing assets can provide the supply. We're excited about that. We think that that's why our portfolio can help build that. We can run things more to provide incremental energy. I think you're going to see people work on how do we solve the 20 hours-40 hours a year in the near- term and then contract more with assets that can run more in the next five years. All the while in the background, work on these things to get the project management going.
That is what we are working to collaborate on with SMR, but that is at early stages, even going and picking technology, etc. You have to work your way through that and then make that decision. That is spending limited dollars. I want to be clear on that. Those are sort of limited small development, pre-development dollars that are being spent to make a decision. Yes, we are doing that in the background, but I do not think you are going to get clarity on that, whether it be gas units or SMRs, in my opinion. You may get one-offs here or there on SMRs because there are a lot of people pushing to get that done.
You may get that one-off, and hopefully we do as a nation, and that goes to the President's Executive Order on nuclear trying to get it done and Secretary Wright trying to get it done. I think you'll see that one-off. With respect to gas units that are going to get developed here, I think you're going to see people do upgrades. You think you're going to see CTs convert to CCGTs. You're going to have capacity added that way first. People all the while are working on where do we put new turbines down. The whole concept of new turbines being a big value driver, I just don't see it for the next year or two. I don't think we see it. You can jump in, Cole.
That's right.
On Angie's M&A question, is it fair to say that it's a similar analysis that we have to have strong line of sight on contracted offtake? Specific to that, would it make sense that any gas-fired acquisitions would have to fit into a portfolio-wide front-of-the-meter solution that leverages other plants?
I mean, the simple answer is yes. It is a lot more complex than that. I mean, there are a number of factors, which is I think we have been fairly prudent. I know there is a lot of discussion about our ability to acquire given our headroom or market power. That is all true. At the same time, we have a portfolio that we can continue to execute, in our opinion, contracts off of without adding things. That gives us the ability to add. Given that we have a portfolio, given that we have a Chris Morice, our Chief Commercial Officer, on a trade floor, we have people, Sergio, who works and provides credit support. We have all the pieces that allow us to do that. Could we add things? Certainly. We are going to be prudent about that.
I think there is a lot of discussion where eyes got, people got pretty wide-eyed about evaluations. That is true, but you have to go through the legwork to get contracts like this, and they are not that easy. If you have not noticed, that is why it took us a while, and it is taking longer for the industry. We do think that that starts to shake out, but we think it needs to be on the backs of a balance sheet and a portfolio and risk management skills like we have, as opposed to single assets that are project financed and levered.
Fair enough. Thank you.
Our next question will come from Bill Appicelli with UBS. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. Congrats on this deal. It's very attractive. Just on the questions around the free cash flow to be returned to shareholders going forward, you had previously targeted 70%. Is that still an assumption for us?
Hey, good morning. This is Terry. Yeah. That assumption still holds. Our approach will still be 70% of free cash flow targeted to shareholder returns.
Okay. As far as the EBITDA to free cash flow conversion, should that be improving? You had targeted at 55%, but presumably there's not as much incremental offsets for this higher margin that you're going to be realizing. Is that fair?
Yeah, that's fair. You should sort of use slide six as a way to think about how that'll convert over the timeline.
Okay. Great. And then just clarifying the share count assumption in the out years, is that also 45.5 million shares for 2029 and 2032 in that slide six?
Correct. Correct, Bill. We tried to, we really tried to simplify slide six to not put a lot of noise in there for other things. From 2025 forward, we just assume 45.5 million shares, right? Just straight assumption to make it a little bit easier.
All right. Great. Thank you. That's it for me.
I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mac for closing remarks.
Thanks, Michelle. And thanks, everyone, for joining us and for your continued support of Talen. Have a great day.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.