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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, our Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations.
I'm sure you saw the announcement last week that our Board of Directors has taken the next step in our long-term succession planning.
Kevin has decided to devote more time with his grandchildren and to water-skiing barefoot on his favorite lakes.
He'll be retiring in 2022.
We're delighted that Scott will assume the role of President and Chief Executive on February 1.
And finally, I've agreed to continue serving as Executive Chairman until our Annual Stockholders Meeting in 2024.
Kevin and Scott, of course, have been instrumental in shaping our progress over many years.
And I look forward to working hand-in-hand with Scott as he takes on his new role.
Our results were significantly better than expected, driven by warmer than normal weather, continued economic recovery in our region, and our focus on operating efficiency.
Our balance sheet, our cash flows remained strong, and as we've discussed, this allows us to fund a highly executable capital plan without issuing equity.
In just a moment, we'll update you on the details of our new five-year ESG Progress Plan, a plan that will cover our investments in reliability and decarbonization over the period 2022 through 2026.
As we've reported to you, we're well on our way to achieving some of the most aggressive goals in our industry for reducing carbon emissions.
Across our generation fleet, we're targeting a 60% reduction by 2025 and then 80% reduction by 2030, both from a 2005 baseline.
Importantly, we have a roadmap to reach these goals without any major advances in technology.
So today, we're announcing that our use of coal will continue to decline to a level that we expect will be immaterial by the end of 2030.
By the end of 2030, we expect our use of coal will account for less than 5% of the power we supply to customers.
A number of you have also been asking when can we exit coal completely.
Here is the answer.
We believe we'll be in a position to eliminate coal as an energy source by the year 2035.
The next logical question is, what does this mean for the modern coal-fired units at our Oak Creek site?
As you recall, these units were part of our Power the Future plan and were completed only about a decade ago.
Well, our modern units at Oak Creek will remain a key part of our fleet for many, many years to come.
These Power the Future units rank as some of the most efficient in the country, among the top 5% of all coal-fired plants in heat rate performance over the past decade and they're strategically -- as we've discussed, they are strategically located to support reliability on the Midwestern transmission grid.
Fortunately, we can plan for the future of the new units at Oak Creek with fuel flexibility in mind.
We've tested coal firing on natural gas at the site.
So subject to the receipt of an environmental permit, we plan to make operating refinements over the next two years that will allow a fuel blend of up to 30% on natural gas.
And then over time, we will be able to transition completely away from coal by making incremental investments in plant equipment.
This would include, for example, new burners and, of course, we will need additional pipeline capacity reaching into the site.
So we see a very bright and long future for the newer units at Oak Creek.
And now, let's take a look at the capital plan that will continue to shape a decarbonizing economy.
For the period 2022 through 2026, we expect to invest $17.7 billion.
Our focus remains on efficiency, sustainability and growth.
This ESG Progress Plan is the largest capital plan in our history, an increase of $1.6 billion or nearly 10% above our previous five-year plan.
We expect this plan to support compound earnings growth of 6% to 7% a year over the next five years without any need to issue new equity.
We'll be increasing our investment in renewables for our regulated utilities from 1,800 megawatts of capacity in our previous plan to nearly 2,400 megawatts in this brand-new plan.
These carbon-free assets include solar, wind and battery storage.
We're also dedicating more capital to hardening our electric distribution networks, so that we can maintain a superior level of reliability for our customers, and investments in our gas delivery systems and the development of renewable natural gas will support our goals for the gas distribution business as well.
As a reminder, we're targeting net zero methane emissions by 2030.
So add it all up and we have what I really believe is a premium growth plan.
The projects that are driving our growth are low-risk and highly executable, and they are accelerating the transition to a clean energy future.
We continue to see customer growth across our system.
At the end of September, our utilities were serving approximately 8,000 more electric customers and 15,000 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 2.4% from the third quarter of 2020 and on a weather normal basis were up 2.5%.
We continue to see economic rebound in our service territory.
For example, small commercial and industrial electric sales were up 3.5% from last year's third quarter and on a weather normal basis, they were up 4.2%.
Meanwhile, large commercial and industrial sales, excluding the iron ore mine, were up 3.8% from the third quarter of 2020 and on a weather normal basis were up 3.5%.
Natural gas deliveries in Wisconsin were up 1%.
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 Infrastructure segment, our new capital plan calls for the investment of $1.9 billion between 2022 and 2026.
Considering the three projects that are currently under development, we expect to invest an additional $1.1 billion at that timeframe.
As a quick reminder, we have eight wind projects, all with long-term off-takers.
Announced through an operation in our Infrastructure segment, this represents approximately $2.3 billion of investments.
As previously discussed, our Jayhawk Wind Farm is projected to go in service by early next year and our Thunderhead Wind investment is projected to go in service in the first half of 2022.
These timelines have been factored into our updated capital plan.
First, I'll cover some developments here in Wisconsin.
I'm pleased to report that our Badger Hollow I Solar project is just weeks away from completion.
You'll recall that we own 100 megawatts of this project in Southwest Wisconsin.
For the next phase of the project, Badger Hollow II, we now are performing civil work and grading.
Our target for completing that project is the end of 2022.
That date will depend on module supply which is uncertain as we await clarity on matters before the Department of Commerce.
Now, for a few regulatory updates.
We expect a decision from the Wisconsin Commission shortly on our plans to build two liquefied natural gas storage facilities in the Southeastern part of the state.
This proposed investment would greatly enhance customer savings and reliability during Wisconsin's cold winters.
Pending approval, we expect the facilities to enter service in late 2023.
They are projected to save our We Energies customers approximately $200 million over time.
We also have updates on the rate reviews at two of our smaller utilities.
The Illinois Commerce Commission unanimously approved the final order for our rate case at North Shore Gas.
The order authorizes a rate increase of 4.5%, including an ROE of 9.67% and an equity ratio of 51.58%.
New rates went into effect on September 15.
And the Michigan Public Service Commission unanimously approved a settlement in our rate case for Michigan Gas Utilities.
The settlement authorizes a rate increase of 6.35%, including an ROE of 9.85% and an equity ratio of 51.5%.
New rates will be effective January 1.
We have no other rate cases pending at this time.
And as we look forward to the winter heating season ahead, I'm pleased to report that we're ready.
We have our gas contracts in place and our gas inventories are at our targeted levels.
We continue to deliver quality and consistent earnings.
Our 2021 third quarter earnings of $0.92 per share increased $0.08 per share compared to the third quarter of 2020.
Our favorable results were largely driven by higher earnings from our utility operations.
Our regulated utilities benefited from the strong economic recovery in our region, 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 $0.05 compared to the third quarter of 2020.
First, continued economic recovery from the pandemic and stronger weather normalized sales drove a $0.03 increase in earnings.
Also, rate relief and additional capital investment added $0.04 compared to the third quarter of 2020 and lower day-to-day O&M contributed $0.04.
These favorable factors were partially offset by $0.04 of higher depreciation and amortization expense and $0.02 of increased fuel costs related to higher natural gas prices.
It's worth noting that we estimate weather was $0.05 favorable compared to normal in the third quarters of both 2021 and 2020.
Overall, we added $0.05 quarter-over-quarter from utility operations.
Moving on to our investment in American Transmission Company, earnings increased $0.01 compared to the third quarter of 2020 driven by continued capital investment.
Earnings at our Energy Infrastructure segment improved $0.01 in the third quarter of 2021 compared to the third quarter of 2020.
This was driven by production tax credits related to wind farm acquisitions.
Finally, we saw a $0.01 improvement in the Corporate and Other segment.
This increase was primarily driven by lower interest expense.
In summary, we improved on our third quarter 2020 performance by $0.08 a 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 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 6 of the earnings package.
Net cash provided by operating activities increased $57 million.
Our increase in cash earnings in the first nine months of 2021 more than offset the higher working capital requirements.
As expected, with normal collection practices underway in all of our service territories, we made great strides in improving our working capital position in the third quarter.
Total capital expenditures and asset acquisitions were $1.7 billion for the first nine months of 2021, a $129 million increase as compared with the first nine months of 2020.
This reflects our investment focus in our regulated utilities and energy infrastructure business.
Looking forward, as Gale outlined earlier, we're excited about our plans to invest $17.7 billion over the next five years in key infrastructure.
This ESG Progress Plan supports 7% annual growth in our asset base.
Pages 18 and 19 of the earnings packet provide more details of the breakdown of the plan, which I will highlight here.
As we continue to make our energy transition, nearly 70% of our capital plan is dedicated to sustainability, including $5.4 billion in renewable investment and $6.8 billion in grid and fleet reliability.
Additionally, we dedicated $2.8 billion to support our strong customer growth.
We also plan to invest $2.7 billion in technology and modernization of our infrastructure to further generate long-term operating efficiency.
With our strong economic development backdrop and our continued focus on efficiency, sustainability and growth, we see a long runway of investment ahead, even beyond the next five years.
We're raising our earnings guidance again for 2021 to a range of $4.05 to $4.07 per share with an expectation of reaching the top end of the range.
This assumes normal weather for the remainder of the year.
This is the second time we're raising our guidance.
If you recall, our original guidance was $3.99 to $4.03 per share.
We're on track for a solid year.
Again, in light of our strong performance, our guidance range now stands at $4.05 to $4.07 a share.
We're also tightening our projection of long-term earnings growth to a range of 6% to 7% a year.
And finally, a quick reminder about our dividend.
As usual, I expect our Board will assess our dividend plans for next year at our scheduled meeting in early December.
We continue to target a payout ratio of 65% to 70% of earnings.
We're right 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, we're on track to focus on delivering and providing value for our customers and our stockholders.
And operator, we're now ready to open it up for the Q&A portion of the call.

user
q3 earnings per share $0.92.
sees fy earnings per share $4.02 to $4.05.
company is raising its earnings guidance again for 2021, to a range of $4.05 to $4.07 per share.

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