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Text: We have Kevin Fletcher, our President and CEO; Scott Lauber, our Chief Operating Officer; Xia Liu, our Chief Financial Officer; and Beth Straka, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations.
As always, our focus on operating excellence was a major factor in our performance.
In addition, we saw the positive impact of colder weather and economic recovery in our region.
Xia will provide you with more details on our metrics in just a few minutes.
But first, a comment about the polar vortex events that we experienced in February.
Our people and our infrastructure were put to the test, literally, and performed remarkably during that bitter cold stretch when temperatures dropped to minus 42 degrees Fahrenheit in the northern portion of our service area.
I'm pleased to report that the investments we've made in our energy grid and our diverse fuel mix got the economy moving and our customers safe and warm.
Now, as you know, just over a year has passed since we first saw the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our commitment to safety, efficiency and reliability has only been enhanced by the operational challenges we faced.
Our company today stands stronger than ever and our $16.1 billion capital plan, the largest in company history, is on track.
Over the next five years, we expect our investment plan to drive average annual growth in our asset base of 7%.
At the same time, it will bolster our sustainability as we continue to invest in renewable energy and state-of-the-art infrastructure.
In fact, the potential we see in renewables and battery storage, the progress we made across our system already, and supportive public policy have allowed us to step back and reassess our future environmental goals.
Today, I'm pleased to announce that we're setting even more aggressive targets for the next several years.
Our goal is now a 60% reduction in carbon emissions by 2025 and then an 80% reduction by the end of 2030, both from a 2005 baseline.
We believe we can accomplish these targets with the retirement of older, less efficient units, some operating refinements and the use of existing technology as we continue to execute our capital plan.
And, of course, our long-term goal remains net zero carbon emissions from our generating fleet by 2050.
In emission, on the natural gas distribution side of our business, we're now targeting net zero methane emissions by the end of 2030.
Our ongoing effort to upgrade our gas delivery networks and incorporate renewable natural gas into our system will clearly help us achieve this 2030 milestone.
You'll be able to read more about these goals in our updated Climate Report.
And as I mentioned earlier in the call, we're making really good headway on our capital plan.
We call it our ESG Progress Plan.
Since our last visit with you, we've announced four renewable projects for our regulated business in Wisconsin and another wind project, the Jayhawk Wind Farm at our WEC Infrastructure segment.
Scott and Kevin are on tap to fill you in on the details.
But I will add two important points about the impact of our ESG Progress Plan.
As we continue to reshape our asset mix, we project that less than 10% of our revenues, and less than 10% of our assets will be tied to coal by the end of 2025.
And we would more than triple our investments in renewables across our enterprise.
You put it all together and we expect to deliver among the best risk-adjusted returns the industry has to offer.
We have strong credit quality and no need to issue equity.
At the heart of it all is our ability to deliver the affordable, reliable and clean energy that our customers depend on.
Now, switching gears for a moment, let's take a quick look at the regional economy.
With the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccinations well under way, we're seeing more signs of economic recovery.
Wisconsin's unemployment rate stands today at 3.8%.
That's close to pre-pandemic levels and more than a percentage point better than the national average.
In addition, a recent business survey by the University of Wisconsin confirm that all core indicators from productivity to income are looking up.
Also, you may have seen the announcement last week that Foxconn has reached a new agreement with the State of Wisconsin regarding Foxconn's high-tech campus itself at Milwaukee.
The agreement provides for up to $80 million of performance-based incentives if Foxconn hires 1,454 qualified workers and invest $672 million by 2026.
It also importantly gives Foxconn the flexibility to be responsive to the marketplace.
This time the Foxconn campus is expected to focus on producing computer servers and server parts; that's one of the Foxconn's specialties.
In fact, we understand that Foxconn supply is approximately 40% of the worldwide market for servers.
Foxconn also noted that, over time, it plans to make the Wisconsin site, one of the largest, if not the largest, manufacturer of data infrastructure hardware in the United States.
So as business opportunities continue to arise, Foxconn will work with the state on contract changes that would incorporate additional jobs and more new investment beyond this agreement.
As we look further across our service area, we see numerous green shoots of growth.
For example, Green Bay Packaging just completed a $500 million expansion of its paper mill in Northeastern Wisconsin.
Amazon continues to expand.
The company just announced another fulfillment center.
This one will be located in one of our Western suburbs.
And Uline is growing again, building two new distribution warehouses in the Kenosha area south of Milwaukee with a projected investment of $130 million.
If you're not familiar with the name, Uline is one of the nation's leading distributor of shipping, industrial and packaging materials.
So with all the developments we're seeing in the ground, we remain optimistic about the growth of the regional economy and our long-term sales growth.
Turning now to sales.
We continue to see customer growth across our system.
At the end of March, our utilities were serving approximately 7,000 more electric customers and 25,000 more natural gas customers compared to a year ago.
Retail electric and natural gas sales volumes are shown on a comparative basis beginning on Page 10 of the earnings package.
In Wisconsin, we saw sales growth on a weather normal basis across our entire retail business compared to the first quarter of 2020.
Natural gas deliveries in Wisconsin increased 3.2%.
This excludes gas used for power generation.
And on a weather normal basis, natural gas deliveries in Wisconsin increased by 0.005% [Phonetic].
Retail deliveries of electricity, excluding the iron ore mine, were up 1.1% from the first quarter of 2020 and on a weather normal basis were up 1.4%.
Overall, our growth is tracking ahead of our forecast as the economy begins to open up.
As we announced in March, we are adding another project to our infrastructure segment.
We acquired a 90% ownership interest in the Jayhawk Wind Farm.
This project will be built in Kansas and consists of 70 wind turbines with a combined capacity of more than 190 megawatts.
Jayhawk is expected to go into service by the end of this year.
This project fits our investment criteria well.
There is a long-term off-take agreement with Facebook for all of the energy produced.
We plan to invest $302 million for the 90% ownership interest and substantially all of the tax benefits.
As a reminder, our Thunderhead Wind investment is now projected to go into service by year-end.
We now have seven wind projects announced or in operations in our infrastructure segment.
This represents $1.9 billion of investment.
With a strong pipeline of opportunities ahead, we expect to invest an additional $1.5 billion in this segment through 2025.
While COVID-19 statistics have been improving in our service areas, we remain focused on keeping our employees and customer safe.
We continue to realize efficiencies across our system of companies and we'll apply the lessons learned as we design workforce practices post-pandemic.
Now, let me touch on some recent developments in our ESG Progress Plan.
Since our last call, we announced four large-scale renewable projects for our Wisconsin utilities: the Paris, Darien, and Koshkonong Solar Battery Parks, as well as the Red Barn Wind Park.
In total, our shares of these projects would provide 675 megawatts of solar generation, 316 megawatts of battery storage, and 82 megawatts of wind.
Pending on the Commission's approval, we will invest approximately $1.5 billion to bring them online between 2022 and 2024.
We expect these projects to deliver significant operating cost savings and maintain reliability.
These projects, of course, are all part of our plans to invest significant capital dollars in renewables and battery storage for utilities between 2021 and 2025.
More to come in the next few months.
We are also proposing to build 128 megawatts of generation at our existing Weston Power plant site in North Wisconsin.
The new facility will use seven Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engines or as we call them, RICE units.
If approved, we expect to invest $170 million in this project for a targeted in-service date in 2023.
On the natural gas distribution side, We Energies is making its way through the approval process for two liquefied natural gas facilities, which would provide enhanced savings and reliability during our cold winters.
Pending approvals, which we anticipate by the end of this year, we would expect to bring the facilities in operation late in 2023.
Now for a few regulatory updates.
On March 30, we filed a request with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin to forego a rate case filing this year after we reached an agreement with a major customer and environmental groups.
We look forward to the Commission's decision in 60 to 90 days.
At this time, we're in the midst of rate reviews at two of our smaller utilities: North Shore Gas and Michigan Gas Utilities.
These proceedings are to support important investments in our distribution infrastructure.
As we look to the remainder of the year, assuming normal weather, we expect to reach the top end of our earnings guidance for 2021 that stands at $3.99 a share to $4.03 a share.
We're also reaffirming our projection of long-term earnings growth in a range of 5% to 7% a year.
And as you may recall, in January, our Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.6575 [Phonetic] a share.
That was an increase of 7.1% over the previous quarterly rate.
We continue to target a payout ratio of 65% to 70% of earnings.
We're in the middle of that range now, so I expect our dividend growth will continue to be in line with the growth in our earnings per share.
And now, Xia will provide you with more details on our financials and our second quarter guidance.
Our 2021 first quarter earnings of $1.61 per share increased $0.18 per share compared to the first quarter of 2020.
Our favorable results for the first quarter of 2021 were driven by a number of factors.
These included the continued execution of our capital plan, colder winter weather conditions, stronger weather normalized sales, increased production tax credits, lower interest expense and continued emphasis on operating efficiency.
I'll walk through the significant drivers impacting our earnings per share.
Starting with our utility operations, we grew our earnings by $0.04 compared to the first quarter of 2020.
First, colder winter weather conditions, when compared to the first quarter of last year, drove a $0.05 increase in earnings.
Also rate adjustments and weather normalized sales added $0.05 compared to the first quarter of 2020.
Negative drivers included $0.04 of higher depreciation and amortization expense and a $0.02 increase in day-to-day O&M expense.
The increase in O&M expense was more than offset by the favorable performance of our Rabbi trust performance.
Rabbi trust investments included in the Corporate and Other segment.
Overall, we added $0.04 quarter-over-quarter from utility operations.
Moving on to our investment in American Transmission Company, we picked up a $0.01 related to continued capital investments.
Recall that our investment is now earning a return on equity of 10.52%.
We are aware of the recent proposal to remove incentive ROE adders for RTO membership.
The past [Phonetic], ATC would lose the 50 basis points ROE adder.
On an annualized basis, it will be a $0.02 earnings drag for WEC.
Of course, we are watching these developments closely.
Earnings at our Energy Infrastructure segment improved $0.02 in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the first quarter of 2020, primarily from production tax credits related to wind farm acquisitions.
These include the Blooming Grove Wind Farm, placed in service in December 2020, and the Tatanka Ridge Wind Farm which came online in early January.
Finally, you'll see that earnings at our Corporate and Other segment increased $0.11, driven by improved Rabbi trust investment performance, some favorable tax items result in the quarter and lower interest expense.
In summary, we improved on our first quarter 2020 performance by $0.18 per share.
Now, I'd like to update you on some other financial items.
For the full year, we expect our effective income tax rate to be between 13% and 14%.
Excluding the benefit of unprotected taxes flowing to customers, we project our 2021 effective tax rate would be between 19% and 20%.
As in past years, we expect to be a modest taxpayer in 2021.
our projections show that we will be able to efficiently utilize our tax position with our current capital plan.
Looking now at the cash flow statements on Page 6 of the earnings package.
Net cash provided by operating activities decreased $295 million.
Our increase in cash earnings in the first quarter of 2021 was more than offset by higher working capital requirements.
The spike in natural gas costs seen throughout the central part of the country this February, coupled with customer arrears, contributed to this increase in working capital.
However, with normal collection practices under way in our major markets, we expect working capital to improve throughout the remainder of the year.
Total capital expenditures and asset acquisitions were $590 million in the first quarter of 2021, a $94 million increase from 2020.
On the financing front, with the $600 million holdco issuance in March, along with our refinancing efforts last year, the average interest rate on our holdco senior note is now 1.8% compared to 3.5% a year ago.
This will continue to provide a favorable interest variance throughout the year.
For the quarter, we are expecting a range of $0.75 to $0.77 per share.
This accounts for April weather and assumes normal weather for the rest of the quarter.
As a reminder, we earned $0.76 per share in the second quarter last year.
Excluding $0.03 of better than normal weather and a $0.03 pickup from a FERC ROE decision, we would have earned $0.70 per share in the second quarter 2020.
As Gale mentioned earlier, we're guiding to the top end of our range for the full year, and as a reminder, that range is $3.99 per share to $4.03 per share.
This assumes normal weather for the remainder of the year.
Overall, we're on track and focused on providing value for our customers and our stockholders.
Operator, we're now ready to open it up for the question and answer portion of the call.

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q1 earnings per share $1.61.
expects to reach top end of its earnings guidance for 2021.

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