Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Talen Energy Business Update Call. At this time, all participants are in 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 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. We ask that you please limit to one question and one follow-up, and to withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would like now to turn the conference over to Sergio Castro, Vice President and Treasurer. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Talen's conference call. Participating on today's call are Chief Executive Officer Mark McFarland, President Terry Nutt, and Chief Financial Officer 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. With that, I will now turn the call over to Mark.
Great. Thanks, Sergio. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on short notice. 2025 was an exciting time in the IPP space, and Talen was no exception. We expanded our nuclear relationship with Amazon to two gigawatts. FERC approved the RMR settlement for Brandon Shores and H.A. Wagner. We witnessed two consecutive BRA auction results that cleared at the cap, and we announced and closed on Freedom and Guernsey. Today, we are excited to start 2026 with a new deal that adds to our flywheel strategy: a $3.45 billion acquisition of three high-quality assets, including two CCGTs and a quick-start peaker. These are being acquired from ECP and deliver over 15% adjusted free cash flow per share accretion, achieving toward the high end of our guidance on M&A upside from Investor Day.
This acquisition is essentially the same deal as Freedom and Guernsey, but it doesn't have the accelerated tax benefits and isn't an all-debt funded deal. The purchase price implies a 6.6 times 2027 estimated Adjusted EBITDA multiple with a high unlevered free cash flow conversion rate of approximately 85%. The transaction allows us to maintain our balance sheet strength and preserve financial flexibility as we have the ability to meet our targeted net leverage of three and a half times or less by the end of this year, while at the same time continuing our previously announced $2 billion share repurchase program. The 2.6 gigawatts of efficient natural gas assets we are acquiring diversifies Talen's generation portfolio in both capacity, energy gross margin, and free cash flow by essentially adding the equivalent of another Susquehanna nuclear facility.
We are expanding our presence in Western PJM, specifically Ohio and Indiana, where there are significant data center tailwinds and access to reliable, low-cost natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica. Additionally, this transaction further diversifies Talen by adding significant energy gross margin outside of our current PPL footprint. As a reminder, when we underwrite these deals, we do so on a merchant basis using current market forwards and capacity pricing, and then use more normalized views of both in the out years. Thus, executing on any contracts on these assets creates additional upside potential. ECP has agreed to take approximately $900 million or approximately 40% of its equity consideration in Talen shares, making them a significant equity partner going forward, demonstrating belief in our flywheel strategy. As we enter 2026, the macro tailwinds continue to remain constructive.
Power prices have risen and spark spreads have expanded, albeit there has been some pullback due to the lack of winter this year. The 2027-2028 PJM auction would have cleared a 530/MW-day without the cap, reflecting the overall tightness in the market. AI and data center capital budgets overall continue to expand, not contract. We are seeing new announcements and different kinds of strategies to power growing data center demand, which is good because we need an all-of-the-above approach, and we see the momentum gaining in 2026. As we have been discussing, 2025 was a year in which we saw a lot of activity in the industry: hyperscalers, developers, all creating options. We believe 2026 will be the year of rationalization in which these options get struck and create new contracts and projects. We have already seen them in early 2026 with some recent announcements.
Additionally, we expect to have more clarity and optionality in meeting hyperscaler demand here soon after the FERC ordered PJM to develop rules for co-locating data centers. Before anybody asks what's next, know that we are still working on the remaining levers of our Talen flywheel strategy that will allow us to continue to power the future. And yes, this includes a new data center deal. As you know, our uncontracted portfolio includes Freedom, Guernsey, Montour, and Lower Mount Bethel plus 300 megawatts of carbon-free power at Susquehanna before this acquisition, and zoning work at Montour is progressing with a hearing occurring next week. As always, a deal will be announced on our timeline when it is ready to be announced. So stay tuned because 2026 is already shaping up to be more exciting than 2025.
I'd like to take a minute to thank our Talen team and Legal , Finance and CorpDev who worked until the early hours this morning getting this across the goal line. As you can see from the 8K, I really mean the early hours this morning. I will now pass it over to Terry to discuss some of the specifics of the assets. Terry.
Thanks, Mac. And good morning, everyone. Moving to slide four, let's discuss more details about the assets. As Mac mentioned, we are acquiring three high-quality natural gas power generation plants with approximately 2.6 gigawatts of capacity that will complement and continue to grow and diversify our existing fleet. The Lawrenceburg and Waterford plants are both highly efficient CCGTs that add 2.1 gigawatts of baseload generation and scale in Western PJM. These plants operate with efficient heat rates of 7.1 and 7.0, respectively, which allows them to generate over 15 terawatt hours per year running at capacity factors above 80%. Additionally, these assets have high free cash flow conversion rates, which are approximately 85% on an unlevered free cash flow basis. The addition of Darby, a 480-megawatt peaking facility, to our portfolio will provide attractive commercial flexibility and optionality that we expect will be incrementally valuable in a tightening power market.
Last year, we ventured into the Ohio market with our acquisition of the Guernsey CCGT facility. Both Waterford and Darby increase our presence in Ohio, allowing us to benefit from load growth from significant data center investments in the state. Furthermore, all three plants have reliable access to low-cost natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica Shales. Now let's highlight the pro forma impact of Talen's scale on slide five. With the combined addition of these assets, along with Freedom and Guernsey, we are almost doubling our annual generation to approximately 71 terawatt hours per year. The addition of just Lawrenceburg and Waterford and Darby will increase our total capacity by 20% to 15.7 gigawatts. Importantly, our generation and capacity will be underpinned by 7.8 gigawatts of pro forma baseload capacity that is expected to produce over 80% of our total generation.
Given the efficiency of both Lawrenceburg and Waterford, we expect that those assets will be in our top five highest generating plants based on 2024 generation output. This increased baseload generation profile will further strengthen our cash flow stability through greater dispatchability and reliability while enhancing our ability to pursue contracting opportunities with large loads. I'll now turn the discussion over to Cole to cover the key terms and financial impacts of the transaction.
Thanks, Terry. We're looking forward to adding premium gas assets into the Talen portfolio and expanding our PJM footprint in Ohio and now also Indiana. On slide six, we provide more detail on the proposed transaction. We are acquiring the Lawrenceburg, Waterford, and Darby assets for $3.45 billion in total consideration, which translates to an attractive 6.6 times multiple on projected 2027 adjusted EBITDA. We are issuing approximately $900 million in Talen equity to ECP, with the remaining $2.55 billion to be paid in cash that we expect to finance through newly issued unsecured debt. This transaction also generates more than $1 billion in NOLs and tax-based step-up benefits that creates additional value to Talen over the coming years. ECP will receive 2.4 million shares of Talen equity, becoming a significant shareholder, approximately 5% upon transaction close.
These shares are subject to a phased lockup period that extends up to six months. This is a significant commitment by ECP and underscores their belief in Talen's value proposition to our equity holders. As Mac highlighted upfront, this transaction is immediately more than 15% accretive to our projected 2027 adjusted free cash flow per share outlook that we shared at investor day last September, and that accretion carries forward throughout the coming years, providing a strong cash flow per share outlook to all equity holders. As I mentioned, we plan to raise $2.55 billion of debt to finance this transaction, supported by an immediate uplift in EBITDA and cash flow. These cash flows support our ability to delever below our 3.5 times net leverage target by year-end 2026.
Given the quality of assets being acquired and the ability to rapidly deleverage the balance sheet, we expect all three ratings agencies to affirm our current ratings. We anticipate closing this transaction early in the second half of this year upon receiving the required regulatory approvals, including approvals from the Department of Justice, the FERC, and Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. At our investor day in September, we highlighted four upside potentials to our adjusted free cash flow per share outlook, including accretive M&A such as this transaction. On slide seven, you can see the immediate impact from this transaction, which we estimate will create an adjusted free cash flow per share uplift of at least $4 per share to our 2027 outlook. As a reminder, we measure value to our shareholders through free cash flow per share after growth investments and taxes, i.e., the cash available to return to shareholders.
We continue to see each of these four upside levers as uplift potential to further build on our increasing free cash flow per share, noting that the base free cash flow per share continues to move higher. We are committed to our previously announced $2 billion share repurchase program and further data center contracting opportunities, including support for the AWS ramp and potential acceleration opportunities established in our existing PPA. As always, we will continue to selectively explore inorganic opportunities to grow our fleet further with the right assets that support the Talen flywheel. On slide eight, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on our transformation over the past few years. Upon close of this transaction, we will have more than tripled our projected 2027 Adjusted EBITDA through premium data center contracts and baseload asset acquisitions in PJM.
These acquisitions are the equivalent to adding two additional nuclear plants to our portfolio. I'll also point out that our projected adjusted free cash flow per share has increased from just over $5 a share in 2024 to more than $30 a share in just three years, with additional built-in growth still to come as we ramp into our 2-gigawatt PPA. We are diversifying our generation portfolio, nearly tripling our baseload profile spread now across six baseload plants and at the same time expanding into Western PJM markets. Our baseload assets and our nearly 2-gigawatt data center PPA underpin more than 75% of our projected 2027 adjusted EBITDA, which translates to approximately $1.6 billion of adjusted free cash flow. This significant increase in cash flows provides attractive strategic and financial flexibility that will allow us to reload the balance sheet more quickly and continue executing on further growth opportunities.
As we ramp into long-term PPAs, we also look forward to the increasingly contracted nature of our cash flows with AA credit counterparties, providing valuable stability that should be attractive to our shareholders. It's been an exciting journey over the last few years, and we're looking forward to continuing our momentum into what is shaping up to be an exciting 2026. And I'll turn it back to Terry.
Thanks, Cole. Before moving to Q&A, I wanted to reiterate that we are excited about this transaction, but we're not done working. We continue to focus on executing on the Talen flywheel and remain committed to driving free cash flow per share for our shareholder base. The addition of these generation assets will provide a larger portfolio of options to execute on as our strategy evolves. This acquisition is another revolution in our flywheel, and we are excited about continuing the momentum. We will now open the line for questions, and I'll turn the call back to Michelle.
Ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Again, we ask that you please limit to one question and one follow-up. And our first question will come from Shar Pourreza with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Hey, guys. Good morning.
Good morning, Shar.
Big congrats on this deal. Terry Nutt, just on the NOLs and the step-up basis, I guess, how do you expect to recognize the $1 billion tax benefit? And is that kind of included in the transaction financing at all?
Shar, I'll let Terry take this. We didn't include it. We just mentioned it here, but Terry, why don't you provide some further details there?
Yeah, no, Mac, that's spot on. It's not included in the EBITDA multiple. As we had mentioned previously on the Freedom and Guernsey acquisition, we had a lot of tax attributes that we acquired on that deal that really made us the very limited federal taxpayer to the end of the decade. But we do have additional attributes that we'll get from this that will be helpful for us later on down the road.
Got it. Okay. That's helpful. And then just, I know, Terry, you kind of touched on this a little bit, but you just ticked off the accretive M&A bucket on slide 10, but there seems to still be a lot of private assets in PJM. Do you still see more opportunities, or should we just now assume that the focus is around harvesting the existing assets, including runtimes and PPA contracts, etc.? Thanks.
Yeah, good question, Shar. When we think about the flywheel, obviously, inorganic M&A is a potential cog in the wheel at the end of the day. On the private equity side, right, private equity has always been fairly active in the power space. And so you've seen transactions for the last couple of years, some fairly sizable ones across the public IPP space, engaging with private firms. And obviously, saw another one last week from one of our peers, and obviously, this one as well. That flow of transactions, we think, will always be there. We still have a ton of private equity capital that is in this space. And so I think we'll continue to see this. Obviously, you guys are well aware of some of the larger sort of public deals that are out there, but we think that that flow of transactions will continue.
Okay. That's perfect. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. And then big congrats on this deal.
Thanks, Shar.
Thanks, Shar.
Thank you. And our next question will come from Michael Sullivan with Wolfe. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mike.
Hey, everyone. Maybe just as you continue to grow as a PJM pure play here, just getting your views. I know you touched on kind of what you're underwriting, but views on PJM Energy with kind of the latest moves in the curves and then capacity, which is also somewhat a supply-demand function, but also there's a lot of politics and regulatory component as well. Just kind of latest thoughts on the market?
Look, Michael and Zack, I think that there's always the politics and the regulatory, and everybody looks at that. We just continue to sort of have a focus that things will find a way to find a solution. And so therefore, we sort of cut through the noise and continue to execute. As far as the power curves from an energy perspective and spark spreads, yeah, they ran up in December when we had some cold weather. There's been a lack of winter here. And there's a lot of recency bias when you look out on the curve. And so whatever happens in this winter starts to drag down the forward curve, and it's regressed from where it was late last year. It's still higher a bit versus our investor day, but it's still down versus the highs. And that's just the recency bias.
So you got to cut through that.
So when we underwrite, we think about where the capacity clears. We underwrite those, obviously, because those are known. We look at the forward curves, and then in the out years, we take a more fundamental view of what this would look like on a merchant basis, as I said in my opening remarks. And then that's how we underwrite. And when we do that, I think we generally take a more conservative approach because, obviously, we want to do so. We make sure we layer in the right amount of capital and operating expenses, etc. These are good assets. Don't take it any different than that, but we go through and scrub that. And then we push through. And then we think about the upside from there as what are the ability that this gives us to further our contracting strategy. So we like what we're doing.
We cut through the noise and just push on. Terry, anything you want to add, Cole?
No, I think I'm good.
Okay. Very helpful. And then just on the financing side, so getting back down to three and a half times, does that require any debt paydown and then any sense of how much is left on the $2 billion buyback?
Yeah. Michael, I'm out of town, so I'm going to let the guys that have to deal with the balance sheet and back in Houston deal with that. Terry, Cole?
Yes. I actually let Cole respond to this one since that's not his job.
Yep. Yeah, Michael, good question. Yeah, similar to the Freedom and Guernsey transaction, we are stretching a little bit to get above the 3.5 times initially. And that's why we say we'll be back down below 3.5 times or have the ability to get there by year-end here. And that does include a modest amount of debt paydown while also maintaining our share repurchase program, which was approved back in September by the board, upsized to $2 billion. So we still have a lot of runway there, and we'll continue to balance getting below our net leverage target of 3.5 and also returning excess capital shareholders through the SRP there.
Yeah. Maybe just to add one thing to Cole's response there, Michael, it's a good question. And the main thing that I wanted to point out is when we think about the flywheel strategy, right, the ability to toggle the balance sheet and the leverage is a key component of that. And as we've shown in the Freedom and Guernsey transaction as the deleveraging that Cole mentioned too, that'll be part of what we continue to look to do as we move forward and obviously grow into the earnings profile and the cash flow profile that these assets give us. So it's a key part of what we'll do, and you guys should continue to sort of expect us to toggle around that.
Okay. Very helpful. Thank you.
Thanks, Michael.
Thank you. And the next question will come from Angie Storozynski with Seaport. Your line is open.
Good morning, guys. So we didn't see this transaction coming. I mean, we were waiting for a deal clearly, but not in Ohio. So I'm just wondering, are you maxed out in the PPL zone, Pennsylvania in general, or is it just that you buy assets that look best and their location doesn't really matter?
Good morning, Angie. A couple of questions in there.
Good morning.
No, we're not tapped out in PPL zone as far as market power screens would go. Two, we like the counterparty here, obviously, in ECP, very sophisticated. And this is opportunistic for they and us to get together and for them to take stake in Talen at almost the 5% or right around the 5% level of equity. We like this transaction. And so when you can do things bilaterally like this with sophisticated parties, it makes a hell of a lot of sense. And so that's why we executed on this deal.
Yeah. And maybe to add my comment to Angie, I think the other thing to think about is just the specific features of these assets, right? When we looked at Freedom and Guernsey, right, newer vintage, super efficient, sub-7 heat rates for those assets. You take a look at Lawrenceburg and Waterford, really efficient heat rates. The other thing is growing our presence in Ohio is key for us. And both the Waterford and Darby facilities, obviously, are in really good locations. And so we really, I mean, I can't sort of express enough of this specific portfolio of assets and why we like it.
Okay. And then.
Hey, Angie. Angie, let me just add on to Terry for a second. This is two GE's F-frame machines, not the same as the H, but high-quality assets that have had a lot of a breaking-in period. And so they're really good machines, and we understand them very well. They're like Lower Mount Bethel. But the other thing that's in this portfolio and sometimes can get lost in the shuffle sometimes is that having a quick start peaker in that same zone gives us the ability to have a real-time call option to backstop the portfolio. And as we've always said in our contracting strategy, we like having some of those so-called knockout options. And you can't buy real-time backup options like you can with a quick start peaker. And so we like adding that peaker in the region as well.
Very good. And my other question is just managing the balance sheet vis-à-vis the CapEx that seems to be growing. And I'm not just talking about M&A. It feels to me like public thermal IPPs are starting to have some substantial growth, CapEx. I mean, you guys haven't mentioned anything, but we are seemingly seeing some either expansions of existing assets or ownership of backup generators. And I obviously saw that you participated in this Reliability Backstop Alternative proposal, right? So there seems to be some willingness from you guys and other IPPs to build new generation. And I'm just wondering how you manage that potential growth CapEx vis-à-vis those leverage targets. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Angie. Look, first of all, we've stated since the beginning when we show adjusted free cash flow, we don't separate after growth or before growth. It's just the all-in number, as Cole mentioned during his opening remarks. I think when you ask about getting into new build and spending money on development and projects like that, we're not adverse to doing that. It just has to be under the right construct. And I know it's a little bit of a cheap line to say, but with the right contract, with the right financing structure, with the right delayed draws, etc., there's an ability to do that. And we have substantial cash on the balance sheet right now.
We feel as though any of those opportunities that we would proceed with, we'd be able to finance and do so in the right structure, provided we can get the right returns with the right risk profile. Cole, Terry, you want to pick up on that?
Yeah, Mac, I would add. I mean, Angie, I think we've demonstrated a fairly disciplined track record. When we've spent capital on the fleet, we're really doing it in areas where, one, we think it's a lower marginal cost because you're really increasing the benefit of an existing asset, which is always going to be a lower cost in building something new. I mean, take our coal-to-gas conversion as an example of that. I mean, that's not nearly the capital cost that you would see elsewhere. So I do think we've been disciplined about that. To Mac's point, if we were in a situation where we were to build something new, the facts and circumstances are going to have to matter. It's going to be what do those economics look like? What does sort of the commitment or contracting arrangement look like around it?
We'll continue to be disciplined as we think about that moving forward. I think that's always been one of our calling cards.
And I think, Angie, just another thing that we did is when you looked at when Terry took the role as President, Cole moved into CFO. We also moved Brad into the Chief Operating Officer to focus on operations. But Dale, who's got a lot of experience with gas assets and development, we moved into the Chief Asset Development Officer role to focus specifically on that. But again, it's got to be with the right metrics for us to do it.
Good. Congratulations.
Thanks, Angie.
Thanks, Angie.
Thank you. And the next question will come from David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Hey, this is Alex Zimmerman on for Dave. Good morning.
Morning, Alex.
So looking at potential future M&A, should we assume that our preference remains for baseload assets in PJM consistent with the two recent acquisitions, or could you diversify the region or technology in future deals?
I'll go first, and then everybody can chime in. Look, I think we've had a focus in PJM, and we're expanding that. I think people looked and said, "You've fairly concentrated in PPL, and now we're not as concentrated, but we're still in PJM." We like that increased diversification. We like the diversification that you get in the energy gross margin from baseload assets, as well as Cole mentioned. We've added effectively two Susquehannas through the Freedom and Guernsey and now this acquisition. And so that makes a lot of sense. But when it comes to opportunities in the M&A space, Alex, I think we like to think of ourselves as pretty opportunistic, right? If the right opportunity comes along for the right asset, we'll go and execute. But it's all going to come down, as I'll use Terry's phrase, to facts and circumstances at the time.
So we remain open-minded, but we try to stick as much as we can to our knitting and our strategy. Cole, Terry?
I think that covers it.
Got it. That's clear. And then on the energy hedging of these assets, do they have any contracts currently in place, or are they mostly unhedged?
Yeah, Alex.
Capacity.
Yeah, I'll cover that. Good question, Alex. There are some hedges on the assets, and actually, I would tell you, if you look at slide six in the deck that we provided, there's some details. In particular, the Lawrenceburg asset does have a bilateral capacity sale that goes from the middle of 2028 through 2034, and so there is a bilateral capacity hedge. There are some energy hedges on them as well, but not something that's too sizable, so we will inherit some merchant length in this that we'll then put into our normal risk management profile, but yeah, that should give you sort of a general sense of the hedge profile, but they're largely unhedged to answer the question specifically with respect to the energy gross margin.
Got it. No, very clear. That's it from me. Thank you.
Thanks, Alex.
Thank you. And our next question will come from Ivana Ergovic with Jefferies. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning, guys. It's Julian. Can you hear me?
Hey, Julian. Loud and clear, Julian.
Awesome. Hey, good morning. So let's talk real quickly. Firstly, just on the you talk about buy contract, buy contract. Obviously, we've done buy buy. How do you think about that contract piece next? You insinuated that you're literally pending here like a final detail. Is that the expectation you want to establish just to come back to you on that? A, and then B, additionality. We talked about it before. Just curious how you think about it in the context of this asset. Does it have that opportunity, whether it's co-located load or co-located supply additions and uprates and brownfields and all that, just in terms of this specific transaction? But again, in the context of anything you have imminent, how do you think about additionality and setting expectations there?
Yeah. Thanks, Julian. Good morning. Look, markets are lumpy, and you've got to strike while iron's hot. And we still believe in the flywheel, which is buy, contract, etc., return cash to shareholders as we can, and look to have stable cash flows. I think that you've got to the world's not perfect, and this is a good opportunity to add additional base-load assets. And so that's why we're doing this with a good counterparty, as I mentioned earlier. As far as your I think you put a few words in my mouth with respect to a pending deal on contract. I just said 2026 is shaping up to be exciting, so stay tuned. Obviously, we've been fairly clear that we've been working on other things. People are well-versed and knowledgeable about the ongoing activities at Montour and the site there with respect to the rezoning.
Look, we're going to continue to push forward on this strategy. Terry, Cole?
I think that covers it. Yeah, I think it covers it. I think on the last question on additionality with the assets, and look, this acquisition really stands on its own on the existing assets. Obviously, we'll always look across our portfolio to opportunities to add additional megawatts. Obviously, that's very much a topic of how do you expand the capacity base for PJM, and with additional assets, we'll continue to look to do that.
And I think there was a question earlier, Julian, about the RBA. And we're supportive of the RBA as a solution to get incremental megawatts. And under the right construct there, I think that would fill the additionality and solve some of the forecasted reserve margins, albeit there was a change to PJM's forecast yesterday in the near term. But in the longer term, to build assets and to keep the market going, there will need to be additional megawatts added. And we think that the RBA, as well as a number of other people who have signed on to that proposal, think that that's the construct that is best for the solution here.
I guess I'll leave it there. Thank you. See you soon.
Thanks, Julian.
Thanks.
Thank you. And the next question comes from Craig Shere with Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Your line is open.
Good morning and congratulations again. So Mac, I think you alluded to this a bit in response to Angie's question, but could you elaborate on the importance of a mix of assets, CCGT, simple cycle, various heat rates in both hyperscaler PPA execution and PJM and FERC clearance? And do you see long-duration energy storage being the last of a critical mix of assets to move over the finishing line on this?
Wow, there's a lot in that question. So look, I think that if you looked at our portfolio before this acquisition and perhaps even going back before the Freedom and Guernsey acquisition, we always talked about having real assets that have knockout options. So we talked about that at Montour. I'm going to ask maybe if Chris wants to chime in here, but having those options to backstop, to have a portfolio to sell contracted baseload 24 by 7 block product, there's operational issues, and you have to have a portfolio to be able to risk manage around that. So we have that with Montour, for example, in the existing portfolio before the acquisitions. We acquired Guernsey. That was great. We could backstop it. There's basis differential.
But now, by having a peaker in Ohio, as well as two more CCGTs plus Guernsey, we now have a backstop unit there and a quick start peaker. But perhaps the guys in Houston want to pick up on that further.
Yeah. I'll touch on it, Mac. I think, to your point, our generation is distributed across that supply curve. And so knockout option or higher price dispatch, it's a supplement to our base-load gen at just a higher price strike, which helps us to manage that real-time volatility. Yeah. And maybe to add to both Mac and Chris's comments, when Talen came out of restructuring a number of years ago, right, the fleet had a certain profile with Susquehanna and Lower Mount Bethel being the two base-load units in the fleet, and then obviously some intermediate and peaking dispatch assets. Acquiring Freedom and Guernsey, and then also with this transaction, Lawrenceburg and Waterford, balances that out where we put more base-load generation in the fleet, high capacity factor, really efficient machines.
And so moderating out to where we have a good mix of that baseload energy margin or cash flow generating machines from energy margin, but then also the capacity revenues from the rest of the fleet, I think is really just us trying to balance out the overall portfolio and giving a good amount of moderation as we think about the delivery and the service that we can provide to customers.
Any final thoughts about the energy storage?
Yeah. Look, batteries or energy storage, I think that there's still work to be done there, but we do think that there's a place for, as we roll forward and think about what is it that needs to be solving the reserve margin and resource adequacy going forward. We're advocates, as I mentioned in the previous conversation, of the RBA, but we do think that there's been a fair amount of discussion about how things need to move to building CCGTs. And we think that there are more cost-efficient ways to solve the capacity issue over the next five, six years before you get to building CCGTs. And batteries should be part of that solution. And long-duration batteries with higher ELCCs provide that capability. And so we're excited about the prospects, but it's still early, but we think that it's promising. And we continue to explore it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. And our next question will come from Ross Fowler with Bank of America. Your line is open.
Hey, Ross.
Hey, Ross.
On the transaction this morning. So just a couple for me, maybe thinking about that peaker optionality. As you think about the on-peak power moves in the PJM curve and forget the fact that we're having a mild winter, let's look at what's really fundamental here. And it's going up, right, because of the supply and demand. So how do you think about that maybe in the context of Darby's current run rate performance? And do you see a chance to optimize the peaker units and run them harder, or does that just do we get to breakage points, too many maintenance issues as you think about capacity factors there?
Well, look, maybe Ross. Well, first of all, good morning. Look, if you look at Montour three years ago, and I'll come back to Darby in just a second, but if you look at Montour three years ago, it was running at 7%. It's now running in the mid- to high 30%. And so things are getting dispatched as you move up the curve, which is you appropriately just stated. When I think about, and others can chime in here, but when we think about it, when I think about what does Darby provide for us, it provides us the opportunity to capture volatility or to backstop base-load sales off of our assets. The one thing you don't want to do is sell contracted base-load megawatts off of a contracted base-load asset and then have to reserve base-load assets to backstop that.
And that's what Darby provides us to manage that. And if we're not using it to manage that, it gives us the opportunity to capture vol. Chris, Terry, you want to jump in on that?
Yeah. I'll reach back to this summer, kind of to your point, Ross, that the underlying fundamentals are still there and sort of manifested through some of those peak demand days we saw in late June. Montour being a good example, increased run profiles, sort of a later in the day peak with some of the solar winding down. It was, to your point on optimizing the peaker, it was when they were getting dispatched was what was unique. And so the baseload plants running more than expected, but additionally, the peaking units were being turned on later in that peak day. So it was sort of a combination of the two. But again, both sort of indicative or reflective of your comments on just continued tightening fundamentals being manifested through that dispatch curve throughout different times of the day.
And then, if I can kind of squeeze in one more here, if you close these two transactions, then you're kind of at the 16 gigawatt, just under 16 gigawatts of capacity in the portfolio. So you've got to a significant scale. So as you look, and maybe alluding to one of the earlier questions, you're very PJM-focused. Is it all still PJM? Is it closer to home? Is it MISO? Is it ERCOT as you look to, or is it everything and anything, anything that makes sense? Maybe that's the right answer. I don't know. And then would you ever think about divesting any units in your portfolio as you optimize it to fund any future sort of acquisitions?
Ross, it's a great question. I'll answer it with yes. We're always looking to do hopefully smart things. That means acquiring things opportunistically when they make sense. Again, we have a North Star, which is our strategy of the Flywheel, but that doesn't mean that we're not flexible and don't look at things opportunistically and think about how do we add to the portfolio. We also, as you know, and we've stated before continuously, and I think we've demonstrated this over time, we're willing to reshape the portfolio through divestiture. We did it in ERCOT. We did it to some extent, if you want to talk about the Bitcoin mine that we had with TeraWulf in order to reshape that so that we could then further expand the AWS contract. So we're always looking at those opportunities.
And I think that's what you have to do as an IPP is continue to focus on what is the best portfolio going forward. And a lot of this just comes down to opportunity, finding the right opportunity, and then going after it. Cole, Terry?
No, I agree. I think, Ross, to your question about looking at the rest of the portfolio, we're always looking at the rest of the portfolio. And to Mac's point earlier, we've shown with the divestiture, the ERCOT fleet, the ability to do that. And then the first part of that question, we're always going to look at whatever we can do to grow free cash flow per share. And that could be any region, any location, as long as it's the right deal. And we believe in underwriting the fundamentals for the right deal. So those things are always going to guide us in how we think about inorganic M&A as we move forward.
Yeah. Fantastic, guys. Thank you. And congratulations again.
Thanks, Ross.
Thanks, Ross.
This does conclude our allotted time for today. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mac for closing remarks.
Yeah. Thanks, Michelle. Thanks, everyone, again for joining us on short notice. And appreciate your interest in Talen. And look, 2026 is off to a fast start, and we're not even a month in. So look forward to continuing the conversation and what lies ahead. Thanks, and have a great day.