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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

____________________________________

FORM 10-K

For the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2021

-OR-

Commission file number 1-12291

THE AES CORPORATION

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ☐ No ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management's assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ☐ No ☒

The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates on June 30, 2021, the last business day of the Registrant's most recently completed second fiscal quarter (based on the closing sale price of $26.07 of the Registrant's Common Stock, as reported by the New York Stock Exchange on such date) was approximately $17.37 billion.

The number of shares outstanding of Registrant's Common Stock, par value $0.01 per share, on February 24, 2022 was 667,395,142.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of Registrant's Proxy Statement for its 2022 annual meeting of stockholders are incorporated by reference in Parts II and III

The AES Corporation Fiscal Year 2021 Form 10-K

Table of Contents

Glossary of Terms

The following is a list of frequently used terms and abbreviations that appear in the text of this report and have the definitions indicated below:

PART I

In this Annual Report the terms “AES,” “the Company,” “us,” or “we” refer to The AES Corporation and all of its subsidiaries and affiliates, collectively. The terms “The AES Corporation” and “Parent Company” refer only to the parent, publicly held holding company, The AES Corporation, excluding its subsidiaries and affiliates.

Forward-Looking Information and Risk Factor Summary

In this filing we make statements concerning our expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, goals, strategies, and future events or performance. Such statements are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although we believe that these forward-looking statements and the underlying assumptions are reasonable, we cannot assure you that they will prove to be correct.

Forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and there are factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements. Some of those factors (in addition to others described elsewhere in this report and in subsequent securities filings) include:

• the economic climate, particularly the state of the economy in the areas in which we operate and the state of the economy in China, which impacts demand for electricity in many of our key markets, including the fact that the global economy faces considerable uncertainty for the foreseeable future, which further increases many of the risks discussed in this Form 10-K;

• changes in inflation, demand for power, interest rates and foreign currency exchange rates, including our ability to hedge our interest rate and foreign currency risk;

• changes in the price of electricity at which our generation businesses sell into the wholesale market and our utility businesses purchase to distribute to their customers, and the success of our risk management practices, such as our ability to hedge our exposure to such market price risk;

• changes in the prices and availability of coal, gas and other fuels (including our ability to have fuel transported to our facilities) and the success of our risk management practices, such as our ability to hedge our exposure to such market price risk, and our ability to meet credit support requirements for fuel and power supply contracts;

• changes in and access to the financial markets, particularly changes affecting the availability and cost of capital in order to refinance existing debt and finance capital expenditures, acquisitions, investments and other corporate purposes;

• our ability to fulfill our obligations, manage liquidity and comply with covenants under our recourse and non-recourse debt, including our ability to manage our significant liquidity needs and to comply with covenants under our revolving credit facility and other existing financing obligations;

• our ability to receive funds from our subsidiaries by way of dividends, fees, interest, loans or otherwise;

• changes in our or any of our subsidiaries' corporate credit ratings or the ratings of our or any of our subsidiaries' debt securities or preferred stock, and changes in the rating agencies' ratings criteria;

• our ability to purchase and sell assets at attractive prices and on other attractive terms;

• our ability to compete in markets where we do business;

• our ability to operate power generation, distribution and transmission facilities, including managing availability, outages and equipment failures;

• our ability to manage our operational and maintenance costs and the performance and reliability of our generating plants, including our ability to reduce unscheduled down times;

• our ability to enter into long-term contracts, which limit volatility in our results of operations and cash flow, such as PPAs, fuel supply, and other agreements and to manage counterparty credit risks in these agreements;

• variations in weather, especially mild winters and cooler summers in the areas in which we operate, the occurrence of difficult hydrological conditions for our hydropower plants, as well as hurricanes and other storms and disasters, wildfires and low levels of wind or sunlight for our wind and solar facilities;

• pandemics, or the future outbreak of any other highly infectious or contagious disease, including the COVID-19 pandemic;

• the performance of our contracts by our contract counterparties, including suppliers or customers;

• severe weather and natural disasters;

• our ability to manage global supply chain disruptions;

• our ability to raise sufficient capital to fund development projects or to successfully execute our development projects;

• the success of our initiatives in renewable energy projects and energy storage projects;

• the availability of government incentives or policies that support the development of renewable energy generation projects;

• our ability to keep up with advances in technology;

• changes in number of customers or in customer usage;

• the operations of our joint ventures and equity method investments that we do not control;

• our ability to achieve reasonable rate treatment in our utility businesses;

• changes in laws, rules and regulations affecting our international businesses, particularly in developing countries;

• changes in laws, rules and regulations affecting our utilities businesses, including, but not limited to, regulations which may affect competition, the ability to recover net utility assets and other potential stranded costs by our utilities;

• changes in law resulting from new local, state, federal or international energy legislation and changes in political or regulatory oversight or incentives affecting our wind business and solar projects, our other renewables projects and our initiatives in GHG reductions and energy storage, including government policies or tax incentives;

• changes in environmental laws, including requirements for reduced emissions, GHG legislation, regulation, and/or treaties and CCR regulation and remediation;

• changes in tax laws, including U.S. tax reform, and challenges to our tax positions;

• the effects of litigation and government and regulatory investigations;

• the performance of our acquisitions;

• our ability to maintain adequate insurance;

• decreases in the value of pension plan assets, increases in pension plan expenses, and our ability to fund defined benefit pension and other postretirement plans at our subsidiaries;

• losses on the sale or write-down of assets due to impairment events or changes in management intent with regard to either holding or selling certain assets;

• changes in accounting standards, corporate governance and securities law requirements;

• our ability to maintain effective internal controls over financial reporting;

• our ability to attract and retain talented directors, management and other personnel;

• cyber-attacks and information security breaches; and

• data privacy.

These factors, in addition to others described elsewhere in this Form 10-K, including those described under Item 1A.—Risk Factors and in subsequent securities filings, should not be construed as a comprehensive listing of factors that could cause results to vary from our forward-looking information.

We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. If one or more forward-looking statements are updated, no inference should be drawn that additional updates will be made with respect to those or other forward-looking statements.