You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: I'd like to interrupt just for a minute.
I'm Peter Feigin, President of the NBA champion, Milwaukee Bucks.
And I can tell you, firsthand, in a big way, that you can't have a truly great NBA team without an incredible energy company to power you up.
So I'm proud to introduce a personal friend, one of the terrific minority owners of the Bucks and the Chairman of one of the best energy companies in America, Gale Klappa.
Go Bucks, and go WEC.
Well, wonders never cease.
And I'm not sure I can top all of that, but no pun intended, let's give it a shot.
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.
Xia will provide you with more details in just a few minutes.
But given our strong performance through the first half of this year, we're raising our annual guidance.
The new range is $4.02 a share to $4.05 a share, and our expectation is that we will reach the top end of that range.
As always, this assumes normal weather for the remainder of the year.
Now as we look across our business lines, I'm pleased to report that every segment is performing at a high level.
Our companies continue to deliver superior reliability and customer satisfaction.
A solid economic recovery in Wisconsin with commercial and industrial expansion gives us confidence in our projected sales growth.
Our balance sheet is strong.
We have no need to issue new equity to fund our ESG progress plan, and our plan is well on track for both our regulated and our infrastructure segments.
As you may know, we expect our ESG progress plan to drive average annual growth in our asset base of 7%.
At the same time, it's bolstering our sustainability as we invest in renewable energy and state-of-the-art technology.
A good example of our progress is the announcement we made just a week ago about a $400 million investment in the Sapphire Sky Wind Energy Center.
Scott will provide you with more detail on this development in just a moment, but I will tell you that the offtake agreement is with one of the largest high-tech companies in the world, and we expect the project to meet or exceed all of our financial metrics.
We've also made great progress on our plan to build 1,800 megawatts of regulated solar, wind and battery storage.
These carbon-free assets will play a significant role in improving our environmental footprint.
Recall that, back in May, we set near-term goals that are among the most ambitious in the industry: reducing carbon emissions by 60% from our electric generation fleet by 2025 and achieving an 80% reduction by the end of 2030, both from a 2005 baseline.
So ahead that we now expect only 8% of our regulated electricity supply to come from coal by the end of 2030.
We believe we can accomplish these targets with the retirement of older, less efficient units; operating refinements; and the use of existing technology as we execute our ESG progress plan.
Of course, our long-term goal remains net-zero carbon emissions from our generating fleet by 2050.
And our ongoing effort to upgrade our gas delivery networks and introduce renewable natural gas into our system will help us achieve another aggressive goal: net-zero methane emissions by 2030.
You can learn more about these goals and much more in our corporate responsibility report, which we published just last week.
And now let's switch gears a bit and take a quick look at our regional economy.
We're still seeing the positive effects of a strong recovery.
Wisconsin's unemployment rate, in fact, stands today at 3.9%.
Folks, that's two full percentage points better than the national average.
As I mentioned, business continues to grow with new projects across the region.
For example, Milwaukee Tool is expanding the operations again here in Milwaukee.
If you're not familiar with Milwaukee Tool, company has been a leader in the development of battery-powered, cordless tools.
It now has become the world's number one producer of tools for professionals in the construction trades, utility sector, as well as for auto mechanics.
And now Milwaukee Tool is redeveloping a vacant downtown office tower to provide space for one,200 new employees over the next five years.
In addition, a number of other economic development projects are in the pipeline, and we'll be covering those with you in future calls.
On that note, I'll turn our call over to Scott for more detail on our sales results for the quarter, as well as an update on our infrastructure segment.
Well, wonders never cease.
And I'm not sure I can top all of that, but no pun intended, let's give it a shot.
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.
Xia will provide you with more details in just a few minutes.
But given our strong performance through the first half of this year, we're raising our annual guidance.
The new range is $4.02 a share to $4.05 a share, and our expectation is that we will reach the top end of that range.
As always, this assumes normal weather for the remainder of the year.
Now as we look across our business lines, I'm pleased to report that every segment is performing at a high level.
Our companies continue to deliver superior reliability and customer satisfaction.
A solid economic recovery in Wisconsin with commercial and industrial expansion gives us confidence in our projected sales growth.
Our balance sheet is strong.
We have no need to issue new equity to fund our ESG progress plan, and our plan is well on track for both our regulated and our infrastructure segments.
As you may know, we expect our ESG progress plan to drive average annual growth in our asset base of 7%.
At the same time, it's bolstering our sustainability as we invest in renewable energy and state-of-the-art technology.
A good example of our progress is the announcement we made just a week ago about a $400 million investment in the Sapphire Sky Wind Energy Center.
Scott will provide you with more detail on this development in just a moment, but I will tell you that the offtake agreement is with one of the largest high-tech companies in the world, and we expect the project to meet or exceed all of our financial metrics.
We've also made great progress on our plan to build 1,800 megawatts of regulated solar, wind and battery storage.
These carbon-free assets will play a significant role in improving our environmental footprint.
Recall that, back in May, we set near-term goals that are among the most ambitious in the industry: reducing carbon emissions by 60% from our electric generation fleet by 2025 and achieving an 80% reduction by the end of 2030, both from a 2005 baseline.
So ahead that we now expect only 8% of our regulated electricity supply to come from coal by the end of 2030.
We believe we can accomplish these targets with the retirement of older, less efficient units; operating refinements; and the use of existing technology as we execute our ESG progress plan.
Of course, our long-term goal remains net-zero carbon emissions from our generating fleet by 2050.
And our ongoing effort to upgrade our gas delivery networks and introduce renewable natural gas into our system will help us achieve another aggressive goal: net-zero methane emissions by 2030.
You can learn more about these goals and much more in our corporate responsibility report, which we published just last week.
And now let's switch gears a bit and take a quick look at our regional economy.
We're still seeing the positive effects of a strong recovery.
Wisconsin's unemployment rate, in fact, stands today at 3.9%.
Folks, that's two full percentage points better than the national average.
As I mentioned, business continues to grow with new projects across the region.
For example, Milwaukee Tool is expanding the operations again here in Milwaukee.
If you're not familiar with Milwaukee Tool, company has been a leader in the development of battery-powered, cordless tools.
It now has become the world's number one producer of tools for professionals in the construction trades, utility sector, as well as for auto mechanics.
And now Milwaukee Tool is redeveloping a vacant downtown office tower to provide space for one,200 new employees over the next five years.
In addition, a number of other economic development projects are in the pipeline, and we'll be covering those with you in future calls.
On that note, I'll turn our call over to Scott for more detail on our sales results for the quarter, as well as an update on our infrastructure segment.
Well, wonders never cease.
And I'm not sure I can top all of that, but no pun intended, let's give it a shot.
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.
Xia will provide you with more details in just a few minutes.
But given our strong performance through the first half of this year, we're raising our annual guidance.
The new range is $4.02 a share to $4.05 a share, and our expectation is that we will reach the top end of that range.
As always, this assumes normal weather for the remainder of the year.
Now as we look across our business lines, I'm pleased to report that every segment is performing at a high level.
Our companies continue to deliver superior reliability and customer satisfaction.
A solid economic recovery in Wisconsin with commercial and industrial expansion gives us confidence in our projected sales growth.
Our balance sheet is strong.
We have no need to issue new equity to fund our ESG progress plan, and our plan is well on track for both our regulated and our infrastructure segments.
As you may know, we expect our ESG progress plan to drive average annual growth in our asset base of 7%.
At the same time, it's bolstering our sustainability as we invest in renewable energy and state-of-the-art technology.
A good example of our progress is the announcement we made just a week ago about a $400 million investment in the Sapphire Sky Wind Energy Center.
Scott will provide you with more detail on this development in just a moment, but I will tell you that the offtake agreement is with one of the largest high-tech companies in the world, and we expect the project to meet or exceed all of our financial metrics.
We've also made great progress on our plan to build 1,800 megawatts of regulated solar, wind and battery storage.
These carbon-free assets will play a significant role in improving our environmental footprint.
Recall that, back in May, we set near-term goals that are among the most ambitious in the industry: reducing carbon emissions by 60% from our electric generation fleet by 2025 and achieving an 80% reduction by the end of 2030, both from a 2005 baseline.
So ahead that we now expect only 8% of our regulated electricity supply to come from coal by the end of 2030.
We believe we can accomplish these targets with the retirement of older, less efficient units; operating refinements; and the use of existing technology as we execute our ESG progress plan.
Of course, our long-term goal remains net-zero carbon emissions from our generating fleet by 2050.
And our ongoing effort to upgrade our gas delivery networks and introduce renewable natural gas into our system will help us achieve another aggressive goal: net-zero methane emissions by 2030.
You can learn more about these goals and much more in our corporate responsibility report, which we published just last week.
And now let's switch gears a bit and take a quick look at our regional economy.
We're still seeing the positive effects of a strong recovery.
Wisconsin's unemployment rate, in fact, stands today at 3.9%.
Folks, that's two full percentage points better than the national average.
As I mentioned, business continues to grow with new projects across the region.
For example, Milwaukee Tool is expanding the operations again here in Milwaukee.
If you're not familiar with Milwaukee Tool, company has been a leader in the development of battery-powered, cordless tools.
It now has become the world's number one producer of tools for professionals in the construction trades, utility sector, as well as for auto mechanics.
And now Milwaukee Tool is redeveloping a vacant downtown office tower to provide space for one,200 new employees over the next five years.
In addition, a number of other economic development projects are in the pipeline, and we'll be covering those with you in future calls.
On that note, I'll turn our call over to Scott for more detail on our sales results for the quarter, as well as an update on our infrastructure segment.
Well, wonders never cease.
And I'm not sure I can top all of that, but no pun intended, let's give it a shot.
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.
Xia will provide you with more details in just a few minutes.
But given our strong performance through the first half of this year, we're raising our annual guidance.
The new range is $4.02 a share to $4.05 a share, and our expectation is that we will reach the top end of that range.
As always, this assumes normal weather for the remainder of the year.
Now as we look across our business lines, I'm pleased to report that every segment is performing at a high level.
Our companies continue to deliver superior reliability and customer satisfaction.
A solid economic recovery in Wisconsin with commercial and industrial expansion gives us confidence in our projected sales growth.
Our balance sheet is strong.
We have no need to issue new equity to fund our ESG progress plan, and our plan is well on track for both our regulated and our infrastructure segments.
As you may know, we expect our ESG progress plan to drive average annual growth in our asset base of 7%.
At the same time, it's bolstering our sustainability as we invest in renewable energy and state-of-the-art technology.
A good example of our progress is the announcement we made just a week ago about a $400 million investment in the Sapphire Sky Wind Energy Center.
Scott will provide you with more detail on this development in just a moment, but I will tell you that the offtake agreement is with one of the largest high-tech companies in the world, and we expect the project to meet or exceed all of our financial metrics.
We've also made great progress on our plan to build 1,800 megawatts of regulated solar, wind and battery storage.
These carbon-free assets will play a significant role in improving our environmental footprint.
Recall that, back in May, we set near-term goals that are among the most ambitious in the industry: reducing carbon emissions by 60% from our electric generation fleet by 2025 and achieving an 80% reduction by the end of 2030, both from a 2005 baseline.
So ahead that we now expect only 8% of our regulated electricity supply to come from coal by the end of 2030.
We believe we can accomplish these targets with the retirement of older, less efficient units; operating refinements; and the use of existing technology as we execute our ESG progress plan.
Of course, our long-term goal remains net-zero carbon emissions from our generating fleet by 2050.
And our ongoing effort to upgrade our gas delivery networks and introduce renewable natural gas into our system will help us achieve another aggressive goal: net-zero methane emissions by 2030.
You can learn more about these goals and much more in our corporate responsibility report, which we published just last week.
And now let's switch gears a bit and take a quick look at our regional economy.
We're still seeing the positive effects of a strong recovery.
Wisconsin's unemployment rate, in fact, stands today at 3.9%.
Folks, that's two full percentage points better than the national average.
As I mentioned, business continues to grow with new projects across the region.
For example, Milwaukee Tool is expanding the operations again here in Milwaukee.
If you're not familiar with Milwaukee Tool, company has been a leader in the development of battery-powered, cordless tools.
It now has become the world's number one producer of tools for professionals in the construction trades, utility sector, as well as for auto mechanics.
And now Milwaukee Tool is redeveloping a vacant downtown office tower to provide space for one,200 new employees over the next five years.
In addition, a number of other economic development projects are in the pipeline, and we'll be covering those with you in future calls.
On that note, I'll turn our call over to Scott for more detail on our sales results for the quarter, as well as an update on our infrastructure segment.
We continue to see customer growth across our system.
At the end of June, our utilities were serving approximately 4,000 more electric customers and 18,000 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 13 of the earnings packet.
Overall retail deliveries of electricity, excluding the iron ore mine, were up 7.1% from the second quarter of 2020 and on a weather-normal basis were up 5.8%.
We are encouraged by the economic rebound we are seeing in our service territory.
For example, small commercial and industrial electric sales were up 10.4% from last year's second quarter and on a weather-normal basis were up 9.2%.
Meanwhile, large commercial and industrial sales, excluding the iron ore mine, were up 14.8% from the second quarter of 2020 and on a weather-normal basis were up 13.9%.
Natural gas deliveries in Wisconsin were down 4.9%.
This excludes gas used for power generation.
And on a weather-normal basis, natural gas deliveries in Wisconsin grew by 2.5%.
Overall, our growth continues to track ahead of our forecast as the economy continues to open up.
Turning now to our WEC infrastructure segment.
As Gale noted, we have agreed to acquire a 90% ownership interest in the Sapphire Sky Wind Energy Center.
The project is being developed in McLean County, Illinois by Invenergy.
The site will consist of 64 wind turbines with a combined capacity of 250 megawatts.
We expect it will go in service late in 2022.
The project fits our investment criteria very well.
We plan to invest $412 million for the 90% ownership interest.
We now have eight wind projects announced or in operation in our infrastructure segment.
This represents approximately $2.3 billion of investment.
We expect to invest an additional $1.1 billion in this segment over the remainder of our five-year plan.
Our Jayhawk Wind Farm is projected to go in service by early next year, and our Thunderhead Wind investment is now projected to go in service in the first half of 2022.
These time lines have been factored into our forecast.
In case you're wondering about the impact of inflation on these projects, to date, we have not encountered any significant inflationary pressure.
Remember that we primarily invest in turnkey projects with developers, so we are seeing no reduction of returns.
Touching on some recent developments in Wisconsin, I'm pleased to report that our Badger Hollow I solar project is nearing completion and is producing test energy.
As you may recall, we own 100 megawatts of this project in Southwest Wisconsin, and Madison Gas and Electric owns the remaining 50 megawatts.
This is our second large-scale solar project and part of our plans for more than triple renewable energy between 2021 and 2025 we expect the next phase of the project, Badger Hollow II, to achieve commercial operations next year.
Now for a few regulatory updates.
Recall that after reaching an agreement with a major customer and environmental groups, we filed a request with the Public Service Commission to forego a rate base for our Wisconsin utilities this year.
We expect a decision in the weeks to come.
And we're pleased that the commission has approved pilot programs for electric vehicle charging in our Wisconsin service areas.
With these programs, we plan to install charging equipment and electric distribution infrastructure.
This is the first step in our effort to promote affordable charging options for electric vehicles.
And we also have updates on the rate reviews at two of our smaller utilities.
In Illinois, earlier this year, North Shore Gas requested a rate increase, primarily due to the significant capital investments we have made since the last rate case in 2015.
Recently, the administrative law judge on the case issued a proposed order.
The order recommends a $4.2 million rate increase on a 9.67% ROE and 51.6% equity component.
We expect the commission's final decision by mid-September.
Finally, in Michigan, I'm pleased to advise you that we have reached a settlement with all parties to conclude our rate review for Michigan Gas Utilities.
This settlement stipulates a 9.85% return on equity and a revenue increase of $9.25 million with an equity layer of 51.5%.
We expect the commission's approval by the end of the third quarter.
We have no other rate cases pending at this time.
Our 2021 second quarter earnings of $0.87 per share increased $0.11 per share compared to the second quarter of 2020.
Our favorable results were largely driven by higher earnings from our utility operations.
Our regulated utilities benefited from warmer-than-normal weather, recovering economy, continued execution of our capital plan and our focus on operating efficiency.
I'll walk through the significant drivers.
Starting with our Utility Operations.
We grew our earnings by $0.09 compared to the second quarter of 2020.
First, continued economic recovery from the pandemic drove a $0.06 increase in earnings.
This reflects stronger weather-normalized sales, as well as the resumption of late payment and other charges.
Also, rate relief and additional capital investment added $0.04 compared to the second quarter of 2020.
Lower day-to-day O&M contributed $0.01, and all other factors resulted in a positive variance of $0.02.
These favorable factors were partially offset by $0.04 of higher depreciation and amortization expense.
I'd like to point out that quarter-over-quarter, the impact of weather was flat.
Overall, we added $0.09 quarter-over-quarter from Utility Operations.
Moving on to our investment in American Transmission Company.
Earnings decreased $0.02 compared to the second quarter of 2020.
While we picked up $0.01 in the current quarter from continued capital investment, this was more than offset by a $0.03 benefit recognized in the second quarter of 2020 related to a FERC order.
Recall that this order allowed ATC to increase its ROE from 10.38% to 10.52% retroactive to November 2013.
Earnings at our Energy Infrastructure segment improved $0.01 in the second quarter of 2021 compared to the second quarter of 2020.
This was mainly driven by production tax credits related to wind farm acquisitions, partially offset by less-than-projected wind resources.
Finally, we saw a $0.03 improvement in the Corporate and Other segment.
Lower interest expense contributed $0.02 quarter-over-quarter.
We recognized a $0.03 gain from our investment in a fund devoted to clean energy infrastructure and technology development.
These positive variances were partially offset by a reduction of $0.01 in rabbi trust performance and $0.01 in taxes and other.
In summary, we improved on our second quarter 2020 performance by $0.11.
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 will 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 statement on page six of the earnings package.
Net cash provided by operating activities decreased $153 million.
Our increase in cash earnings in the first six months of 2021 was more than offset by higher working capital requirements.
Recall that the spike in natural gas costs seen throughout the central part of the country this February, coupled with higher accounts receivable balances, contributed to this increase in working capital.
We were able to improve our working capital position in the second quarter.
With normal collection practices underway in our major markets, we expect working capital to continue to improve throughout the remainder of the year.
Total capital expenditures and asset acquisitions were $1.1 billion for the first six months of 2021, a $93 million increase as compared with the first six months of 2020.
This reflects our investment focus in our regulated utility and Energy Infrastructure business.
On the financing front, we continue to find opportunities to lower our interest costs.
In fact, in June, we refinanced $300 million of debt at Wisconsin Electric, reducing the average coupon of these notes by over 1.2% and extending the maturity to 2028.
We are expecting a range of $0.72 to $0.74 per share for the third quarter.
This accounts for July weather and assumes normal weather for the rest of the quarter.
This also takes into account timing of our fuel recovery and the costs associated with major storms that impacted our system last week.
As a reminder, we earned $0.84 per share in the third quarter last year.
This includes an estimated $0.05 of better-than-normal weather.
And as Gale mentioned earlier, we're raising our 2021 earnings guidance to a range of $4.02 to $4.05 per share with an expectation of reaching the top end of the range.
This assumes normal weather for the remainder of the year.
In addition to raising our annual guidance, we are reaffirming our projection of long-term earnings growth of 5% to 7% a year with a strong bias toward the upper half of that range.
And finally, a quick reminder about our dividend.
As you may recall, in January, our Board of Directors raised the quarterly dividend by 7.1% to $0.6775 a share.
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.
Overall, ladies and gentlemen, we're on track, focused on providing value for our customers and our stockholders.
And operator, we're ready now to open it up for the question-and-answer portion of the call.

user
compname reports q2 earnings per share of $0.87.
q2 earnings per share $0.87.
raising its earnings guidance for 2021 to a range of $4.02 to $4.05 per share.

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