Ameren Corporation (AEE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Annual Meeting for Ameren Corporation. Our host for today's call is Warner Baxter, Chairman, President and CEO. [Operator Instructions] I'll now turn the call over to your host, Warner Baxter, you may begin.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Warner Baxter, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ameren Corporation. Welcome to the annual Meeting of the shareholders of Ameren Corporation, Ameren Illinois Company, which we operate as Ameren Illinois; and Union Electric Company, which we operate as Ameren Missouri. We greatly appreciate you joining our webcast this morning. As you logged into the meeting this morning, we have noticed in an agenda and rules of conduct for the meeting were posted in the meeting materials section of your screen. In fairness to all shareholders, we intend to conduct the meetings in accordance with this agenda and rules of conduct. In addition, out of respect for everyone's time, I intend to complete all topics on this agenda by 11:00 a.m. Central Time. Before we continue with today's meeting, I'd like to inform you that all members of Ameren's executive leadership team are joining us remotely today. I am fortunate to be surrounded by such a strong leadership team. For relentless focus on safety and execution of our strategy is delivering strong value to our customers and shareholders. It will be available as needed to answer your questions during the question-and-answer portion of the meeting. Also on the line with us today and available to respond to questions is John Caplan, a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, the company's independent registered public accounting firm. We will begin by conducting a joint business meeting for our subsidiary companies, Ameren Illinois and Ameren Missouri. And following that, we'll commence the Ameren Corporation meeting. I will be presiding over the 3 meetings. Following the adjournment of the meetings, I'll also give a business review and answer questions from shareholders, including those that were submitted prior to the meeting. Shareholders who logged into this meeting using their 16-digit control number can also submit questions at any time during the meeting in the space provided on the virtual meeting platform. Please conclude your name in the text box when you ask a question. In the interest of fairness to all shareholders, we have to submit only 1 question. At this time, I call the joint Annual Meeting of Ameren Illinois and Ameren Missouri to order and turn the call over to Chonda Nwamu, our Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary. Chonda?

Thank you, Warner. I submit to the meeting forms of notice of the meetings for Ameren Illinois and Ameren Missouri, together with the affidavit of mailing of the notices to the shareholders of record at the close of business on March 9, 2021, the date set for the purpose of determining the shareholders entitled to vote at this meeting. I also submit to the meeting certified list of the holders of all the issued and outstanding shares of the capital stock of Ameren Illinois and Ameren Missouri at the close of Business on the record date. All of these documents will be filed with the minutes of this meeting. Based upon the percentage of the total shares of each of Ameren Illinois and Ameren Missouri held by holders of record now present, we have a quorum for this meeting. The matters requiring a vote by the shareholders of Ameren Illinois and Ameren Missouri are limited to the election of directors of Ameren Illinois and Ameren Missouri. The names of the nominees are set forth in the company's respective information statements. Each company has an advanced notice provision in its bylaws and no nominations were received. Accordingly, all nominations are closed. I will pause here to allow any preferred shareholders of Ameren Illinois or Ameren Missouri, who wish to do so to vote using the vote here button on your screen. [Voting]

I declare the polls now closed for voting for the directors of Ameren Illinois and Ameren Missouri. As many of you know, all of the shares of common stock of Ameren Illinois and Ameren Missouri are held by Ameren Corporation, and these shares have already been voted in favor of the election of each of the nominees. As such, each of the nominees for the Boards of directors of Ameren Illinois and Ameren Missouri has been duly elected. The final totals will be included in the report of the inspectors of election and will be filed with the minutes of the meeting.

Thank you, Chonda. For being no other business that has been properly brought before the joint meeting of Ameren Illinois and Ameren Missouri, I declare this joint meeting to be officially completed and adjourned. We will now commence the Annual Meeting of Ameren Corporation for the purpose of electing directors and voting on the other matters, including in the proxy statement. Before we proceed with the agenda, it is my pleasure to welcome Leo Mackay, who joined the Board of Directors last December and is attending his first Ameren Corporation Shareholders' meeting today. Leo was the Senior Vice President of Ethics and Enterprise Assurance for Lockheed Martin. In that role, he leads Lockheed's award-winning ethics program and its enterprise risk management function. As the company's Chief Sustainability Officer, he is responsible for ensuring responsible growth and global corporate citizenship. Leo was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and spent 3 years flying the F-14. He also served as the Deputy Secretary and designated Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Leo, thank you for your service to our country, and welcome to the Board of Directors. We look forward to working with you. In addition, we want to express our sincere gratitude and deep appreciation for Steve Wilson, who is retiring from our Board of Directors in adherence with the Board's retirement age policy. We're all indebted to Steve for his years of service for Ameren and its excellent guidance on many issues impacting Ameren's business and strategy. We wish them all the best. Chonda, please proceed.

Thank you, Warner. I submit to the meeting the form of notice of the meeting for Ameren Corporation, together with an affidavit of mailing of the notice to the shareholders of record at the close of business on March 9, 2021. And the date set by the Board of Directors for the purpose of determining the shareholders entitled to vote at this meeting. I also submit to the meeting a certified list of the holders of record all of the issued and outstanding shares of the capital stock of Ameren Corporation at the close of business on the record date. All of these documents will be filed with the minutes of this meeting. Our inspectors of elections are present at this meeting and have reported that we have received proxies representing a substantial majority of our outstanding voting stock, which constitutes a quorum for this meeting. Accordingly, this meeting is now open for voting for the election of directors as well as the other items described in the proxy statement. If you have not already voted your shares and you would like to do so or if you would like to change your vote, you may do so now by using the vote your button on your screen. The polls will close following the presentation of the proposals. The first proposal is the election of 13 directors, whose names and qualifications are listed in the proxy statement. The company has an advanced notice provision in its bylaws and no nominations were received. Accordingly, all nominations are closed. The second proposal is the advisory approval of the compensation of our named executive officers as described in the proxy statement. The third proposal is ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as Ameren's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2021. The the Board unanimously recommends a vote for each of these proposals. I now declare that the polls are closed. Based on a preliminary report of the inspectors of election, the company has received proxies sufficient to elect all 13 director nominees, give advisory approval of our executive compensation program as described in our proxy statement and ratify the appointment of the auditors. The final vote totals will be reported on a Form 8-K, which we will file with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 4 business states.

Thank you, Chonda. There being no other business to attend to, I now declare the meeting adjourned. At this point of the meeting, I will review our performance over the past year as well as provides to look ahead into our business. But before I do so, I need to share that the comments I make today and contain statements commonly referred to as forward-looking statements. I encourage you to read this slide. Looking back on 2020, there is no doubt it was truly an unprecedented year. The COVID-19 pandemic challenged our customers, communities, country and company in ways that we have never experienced before. It is required us to find new ways to adapt, and we shape how we live our lives at home, in our communities and at work. It has also brought about tremendous heartache and lost to many. We continue to hold close in our thoughts and prayers those who are still battling this disease and lost level ones or experience other personal or economic losses due to COVID-19. While much has changed in a world, Ameren's focus on putting our customers at the center of everything we do has remained constant. We remain steadfast in our commitment to achieve our mission to power the quality of life for the more than 6 million people we serve in Missouri and Illinois. Our ability to deliver safe, reliable, cleaner and affordable energy has never been more important. And while we are focused on addressing the challenges associated with the pandemic and achieving our mission each day, we also never lose sight of our vision, leading the way to a sustainable energy future. Our ability to achieve our vision and deliver superior long-term, sustainable value for our customers, communities and shareholders is directly linked to successfully executing our 4 key sustainability pillars: Environmental stewardship, social impact, governance and sustainable growth. I am pleased to say that the actions we've taken are delivering significant value under each of these pillars and have well positioned us to continue doing so in the future. The first pill of our sustainability value proposition is environmental stewardship. This pillar is not a new area of focus for Ameren. For decades, our company has been focused on being a good environmental steward for our customers, our communities and our country. Our focus on this important issue is not waivered. Indeed, it has intensified, just as enhanced with our customers, shareholders and key stakeholders, especially related to climate change. That is why it's important that we are clear on where Ameren stands on this important issue. At Ameren, we strongly support a responsible clean energy transition that achieves net 0 carbon emissions by 2050. And that effectively takes into consideration reliability, affordability, the advancement of clean energy technologies and jobs. We are aggressively advocating for immediate and significant federal funding for clean energy technologies by carbon capture and storage, advanced renewables, nuclear and storage, hydrogen and so many others so that we can achieve net 0 carbon emissions as a country by 2050. We strongly support significant additional investments in renewable generation and transmission infrastructure as well as robust energy efficiency programs. We report a rapid advancement in the electrification of the transportation sector, the highest carbon emitting sector in our country. And we strongly support constructive federal and state energy and economic policies to support these significant investments and infrastructure in research and development to deliver a more resilient and reliable energy grid and keep our customers' energy costs affordable. I am pleased to tell you that we are backing up our words with actions. In September 2020, Ameren announced its transformational plan to achieve net 0 carbon emissions by 2050 across all of our operations in Missouri and Illinois. This plan includes strong interim carbon emission reduction targets of 50% and 85% below 2005 levels in 2030 and 2040, respectively. In addition, our plan is consistent with the objectives of the Paris agreement in limiting global temperature rise to 1.5-degree Celsius. This assessment is at the heart of our updated climate risk report, which we issued this morning. This report is based on the recommendations of the task force on climate-related financial disclosures. And for the first time, we published information using the sustainability Accounting Standards Board reporting framework and mapped our business activities for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Earlier today, we also posted our 2021 sustainability report, which expands on many of the topics I will touch on today. These works, along with our other reports, can be found at amereninvestors.com. Key elements of our transformation plan includes significant investments in clean wind and solar energy, advancing the retirement of certain coal-fired energy centers, extending the life of our carbon-free Callaway nuclear energy center beyond 2044 and robust investments in energy efficiency; transmission and new clean energy technology research. In addition, our plan includes investments in our natural gas business to eliminate methane emissions from our distribution system. Importantly, our plan is focused on achieving the clean energy transition in a responsible fashion, balancing environmental stewardship, with the reliability and affordability our customers expect. We are already making progress on our plan. In December 2020, we acquired the 400-megawatt High Prairie Renewable Energy Center in Northeast Missouri. This facility is the largest wind generation facility in Missouri. And in January 2021, we acquired the Atchison Renewable Energy Center in Northwestern Missouri, which, when completed later this year, is expected to be its 300-megawatt facility. Both of these facilities were not only delivering cleaner energy to our customers, but they are also driving significant local economic development. In Illinois, we are also focused on advancing to a cleaner energy future. We continue to advocate for legislation that will drive greater investments in solar energy and energy storage, advance the electrification of the transportation sector and continue to support significant investments in the energy grid. And finally, at the federal level, we continue to work with key stakeholders and policymakers to advance constructive energy and economic policies that support the net 0 carbon future by 2050 for all sectors of the economy, including the power sector, while balancing customer reliability and affordability. As I said a few moments ago, our efforts for environmental stewardship remain focused intense as we continue to deliver strong value to our customers, communities and shareholders under this sustainability pillar. Our next key sustainability pillar is social impact. There's no question the pandemic has had a profound social impact on our country, including the health and economic well-being of our customers in the communities we serve. As always, and throughout the COVID-19 crisis, safety remains a core value for our coworkers, while also helping to ensure the safety of our customers and communities. We have taken many significant steps in our operations to ensure that we continue to do our work safely while executing on our vision, mission and strategy. We recognized a significant ongoing impact of the pandemic, with some customers struggling financial, many for the first time. At the onset of the pandemic, we promptly instituted disconnect moratoriums to help specialized payment programs and help customers gain access to energy assistance funds, including those provided by Ameren and from federal and state government programs. Throughout 2020, we conducted fundraising campaigns with our co-workers and Board of Directors to support COVID-19 relief, energy assistance in United Way. Those efforts, along with funding from Ameren Cares and programs supported by our state regulators, resulted in Ameren providing more than $23 million to help those in need and the communities we serve in both Missouri and Illinois. But our focus on social impact goes well beyond our commitment to financial assistance and shareable contributions doing pandemic. It includes our long-standing focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DE&I and additional actions to address racial prejudice and justice and intolerance. To be clear, there is absolutely no place for racism in justice or intolerance to Ameren in our communities, in our country or anywhere in the world. Such acts are in direct opposition to our steadfast commitment to DE&I. In recognition of the continued and growing importance of DE&I, we established it as a core value and have begun taking additional actions aimed at making sustainable positive change in this area. In June 2020, we virtually hosted our fourth DE&I Summit. The event brought together Ameren coworkers with community and national leaders, where we announced a series of additional actions. These included a 5-year, $10 million commitment to nonprofits focused on DE&I. And new opportunities for our coworkers to learn from DE&I-focused community organizations. Ameren is also dedicated to inclusive economic growth. In 2020, we spent approximately $810 million with minority, planning and veteran owned businesses through our industry-leading supplier diversity program. In further support of diverse businesses, we're one of the founding partners with the University of Missouri St. Louis of DE&I accelerated program, aiming to establish and grow minority-owned businesses in our communities. Our robust focus on DE&I and ESG matters are being recognized. I am pleased to say that for the 12th consecutive year, Ameren was named by DiversityInc as one of the nation's most outstanding utilities for diversity and inclusion. In addition, the company was also named to an inaugural list of top companies, environmental, social and governance leadership. Our other key sustainability pillar is governance. As a committed to excellence, it is critical that we operate with the highest of standards and even with our customers, coworkers, regulators, elected officials and other stakeholders. Consisting of excellence begins with ensuring strong oversight and governance policies, signing with the Board of Directors. We have a highly experienced, diverse and engaged group of leaders on our Board who bring unique skills, experiences, backgrounds and perspectives towards oversight of the company's strategy and operations, including ESG matters. Our Board and management have established governance structures that enable a focus on the ESG matters that are integral to Ameren's strategy, mission and vision, including the addition of ESG metrics and joint executive compensation programs. In particular, our Board of Directors refined our executive compensation program by adding a long-term incentive based on implementing our clean energy transition plans as well as the addition of workforce and supplier diversity metrics to our short-term incentive plan for 2021. Ameren's commitment to transparency and compliance excellence was also recognized by the center for political accountability in 2020, ranking Ameren as one of the nation's leading companies and the top ranking utility for political disclosure and accountability practices. Our strong commitment in governance will continue to deliver value for our customers, communities and shareholders. Our final sustainability pillar is sustainable growth. Our ability to achieve sustainable long-term growth that deliver superior customer and shareholder value is directly tied to the successful execution of our strategy. I am pleased to report that despite the significant challenges we faced in 2020, our coworkers work together as a team and effectively executed our strategy across our entire business. Their actions resulted in Ameren delivering significant value to our customers and shareholders. We safely and effectively manage $3.2 billion in capital projects, worked with stakeholders to achieve constructive regulatory outcomes, and we're disciplined in managing our costs. Customers have clearly benefited from the execution of our strategy. As Ameren's electric rates remain among the lowest in nation, while we've improved reliability and increased customer satisfaction. At the same time, shareholders have benefited. Our weather-normalized earnings per share grew approximately 7% over 2019 results. Since 2013, the company has delivered weather-normalized earnings per share growth over 70% or an approximate 8% compound annual growth rate. During that same period, we also delivered total shareholder returns of 171% compared to the Philadelphia utility index average of 116% in the S&P 500 utility index of 111%. Reflecting the confidence of Ameren's Board of Directors, in February 2021, we announced an approximate 7% increase for our quarterly dividend, the eighth consecutive year of growth, following an increase of 4% in October 2020. I'm very pleased with the strong value that we have delivered to our customers and shareholders over the past several years, we are not done. Looking ahead, we are focused on continuing to deliver superior value as we execute our 5-year capital expenditure plan laid out in February of approximately $17 billion in projects to enhance resiliency and reliability of the energy grid, responsibly transition to a cleaner and more diverse generation portfolio and implement new digital technologies and cybersecurity tools. Our plan discussed in February includes investments expected to deliver strong compound earnings per share growth of 6% to 8% from 2021 to 2025, using our 2021 earnings per diluted share guidance range midpoint of $3.75 per share as the base. These factors, coupled with the dividend, which we expect to grow in line with our long-term earnings per share growth guidance, positions Ameras to continue delivering sustainable and superior long-term value. In closing, we have been and will remain focused on delivering strong, sustainable value to our customers, communities and shareholders. In addition, we will remain focused on executing our strategy that will deliver on our mission, power the quality of life for the millions of customers that we serve in Missouri and Illinois as well as take important steps towards achieving our vision, leading the way to a sustainable energy future. And so doing, I am confident that we will continue to deliver superior value to you, our shareholders. Thank you for your confidence in Ameren, our leaders and our coworkers. This concludes the business review. We will now move to the question-and-answer portion of the meeting. As I mentioned earlier, we received several questions from our shareholders prior to the meeting today. [Operator Instructions] We will attempt to get to as many topics as possible, and we'll wrap up the question-and-answer session no later than 11:00 a.m. To facilitate this portion of the meeting, I invited Andrew Kirk, Director of Investor Relations to present the questions to me. Welcome, Andrew.

Thanks, Warner, and good morning. We received several questions from our shareholders. A few of the questions related to system reliability issues that occurred in Texas earlier this year and in California last summer, both of which include rolling blackouts or brownouts. In particular, the shareholders asked what Ameren is doing to protect against such event occurring on its system, especially given our plans to incorporate greater levels of renewable generation in our system and retire our coal plants in the future.

Well, thank you, Andrew, for that question. Well, look, to begin, I want you to know that our system performed very well during the extremely cold weather that we experienced really across our country earlier this year. And frankly, what's contributed to the issues faced in Texas and other parts of the country. Our systems strong performance from my perspective was due to the incredible dedication of our coworkers who we just stepped up and working, frankly, very harsh weather conditions as well as really -- the strong operation of our coal-fired energy centers and gas storage fields as well as keeping in mind the significant investments that we made to winterize our energy centers and the transmission infrastructure in the past. So as we look ahead and as I noted earlier in my comments, we're focused on achieving net 0 carbon emissions by 2050, and we plan to achieve this goal in a responsible fashion. The plan that we announced balances strong environmental stewardship with the reliability and affordability that our customers expect. Now we're going to add greater levels of renewable generation to our fleet. And we're going to make significant investments in transmission to enhance the reliability and resiliency of the energy grid. I plan -- it's also going to retire our baseload coal-fired energy centers over time to ensure that we have sufficient baseload generation resources available to meet our customers' needs as well as provide sufficient time for new 24/7 clean energy resources when they become commercially available and reliable and affordable. And as I said earlier, we plan to seek extension of the operating license of our carbon-free Callaway Energy center and make investments in our hydro generation resources. So Andrew, as you can probably tell, we believe using a diverse supply of generation resources during the clean energy transition is going to allow us to preserve the reliability and affordability. Our customers expect right now, carbon emissions significantly, and ultimately, we strongly believe it's going to be in the best interest of our customers, community and country. And so we look forward to executing our plan in the future.

Well, thanks, Warner. Our next question is, is management staying out of political hot topics like the Georgia voting law?

Thanks, Andrew, for that question. Look, to be clear, I and the executive leadership team, we're not experts in the various voting laws across our country. And so we're not able to effectively weigh in on all the specifics of the various voting laws being undertaken and discussed. It's Fed, and as you might expect, we primarily focus our efforts on energy and the economic policies that can impact our ability to provide safe, reliable, cleaner and affordable energy to our customers, communities and, frankly, our country. I have said that one of Ameren's core values is respect where we value others. And so as a result, and we simply believe everyone entitled to vote should be provided a fair opportunity to do so without unnecessary burdens. It's the cornerstone of our democracy.

Thanks, Warner. Our next question is whether we have too many directors on the Board?

Yes, thanks for that question. As I stated earlier in my prepared remarks, one of the key pillars to delivering long-term sustainable value to our customers and shareholders is the strong corporate governance. And we are very fortunate that we have an outstanding group of directors that bring a wide range of diverse skills and expertise to the Board. And so from what I said, you have the important challenges and opportunities that are facing our company and our industry today and in the future. We believe that we have the appropriate number of directors with the right skills to provide a strong corporate governance and oversight that is so, so important to today.

Thanks, Warner. Our next question, I know you ran a trial in [indiscernible] Missouri for providing Internet access via Ameren. Additionally, many of the local rural electric cooperatives have begun to offer Internet access. Given the fact that Internet access in our more rural communities is either overly expensive or very slow, I would like to know what's Ameren plans to expand Internet access to a wider audience?

A lot really being discussed in this area around our country and certain in our regions. So thanks for that question. Look, it has been lost on me or our executive leadership team, that there is a digital device in our country and frankly, in some places in our service territory. That digital vibe came more clearly in the light during the pandemic, and it absolutely needs to be addressed now that more people will work from home. And we expect more be learning remotely in the future. And so that's why we are supporting legislation in Missouri that will enable us to utilize our electric system fiber in partnership with our Internet service providers to provide broadband access to uncertain and underserved areas. We really believe this legislation could provide a means to provide broadband access to these rural areas. While revenue from these services would help us keep our electric rates lower. So Andrew, we really see this as a win-win for our customers, clearly, for our region and certainly for our company.

Our next question asks us to address corporate cancel culture?

Yes. Well, thanks, Andrew, for that question. And look, I don't pretend to be an expert on corporate cancel culture, and I know there are a lot of definitions of it. And so Andrew, if it's defined as an unwillingness to consider posing points of view as, frankly, some do, and that would be absolutely inconsistent with our core values and culture. And I say what I can do, I can tell you about Ameren's culture. In Ameren, we refer to our culture here as all in. It's a culture that has four pillars. The first pillar of our culture is that we care. We care for each other, for our customers, for our communities and certainly, for the environment. The next pillar of our culture is that we serve. We don't just serve here at Ameren. We serve the passion. We serve our customers. And so I'd like to say that our coworkers that we're just not in the energy business, frankly, we're in the customer business. And our next pillar of our all-in culture is that we deliver. Each day, we go out to deliver for our customers and our communities and our shareholders. And finally, the way we do all these things is the last pillar of our culture is that we bring together as a team. And so when you put all this team together, our culture is guided by our core values, and our core values are safety and security, respect, integrity, diversity, equity and inclusion, accountability, commitment to excellence, teamwork and stewardship. And so that's just a summary of our all-in culture here at Ameren. Frankly, I'm very proud of it, and what we're doing with our coworkers do deliver that culture each and every day.

Thanks, Warner. Our next question is really two requests for us either to stay out of politics or stop making political contributions without stockholders' approval.

Yes. Thanks for those comments -- for those shareholders. And look, in today's political charged environment, political contributions are clearly getting a lot more attention. And so well, this is true. We strongly believe it is in our customers, communities and our shareholders best interest that we remain actively engaged in the political process. Now if you step back and you think about today, the types of energy and economic policies being discussed at both the federal and state levels. They absolutely require us to be fully engaged with policymakers, their staffs, and other key stakeholders. So that we can inform and educate them on the potential implications of policies. It's a key part of our job every day. So particularly, there's no doubt I'm referencing policies related to climate change, infrastructure and tax policies among so many others. So the bottom line is we are part of our country's critical infrastructure, and it's important that we get these policies right. And so going on with some of the other parts of the question, Andrew. With regard to political contributions, it's true that we do not seek advanced shareholder approval of our political contributions. But shareholders should know that we have robust governance procedures and oversight over all of our political contributions. Every year, our political contribution policy is reviewed by our nominating Corporate Governance Committee of the Board of Directors. In addition, all of our political contributions are shared with the Board of Directors at each meeting. And Andrew further, as I noted earlier in my remarks, Ameren was recognized as one of the best companies in the country. One of the best companies in the country and achieved the top ranking among utilities for political disclosure and accountability practices by the center for political accountability in 2020. So we're quite proud of that. So as a result, we strongly believe our governance program around political contributions is robust and clearly in the best interest of our customers, our communities and our shareholders.

Thanks, Warner. Our next question, during the February 2021 blackout in Texas, the Ford F-150 hybrid truck was used to provide power to homes that lost electrical power. This capability was reported on the National News and Ford received favorable publicity and goodwill from everyone. I would like to see vehicle-to-home capability as an option for all-electric vehicles in the U.S. in the next 2 years. Is this possible? Can Ameren add this to their electric cars and service trucks? Also, what is Ameren currently doing to make vehicle-to-grid a reality in the future?

Andrew, thank you for that. Lots of impact there. Let me start with this. So first, let me just say that at the outset. Ameren is excited. We're excited about the electrification of the transportation sector. And especially, as I mentioned earlier, it's our nation's largest premium sector today. So to be clear, from our perspective, for our country to achieve net 0 carbon emissions by 2050 and drag down emissions significantly in the interim. The transportation sector must significantly reduce these carbon emissions. So that's why we haven't been sitting back. We've been proactive, and we've been leading forward and taking a number of steps to support the clean electrification of the transportation sector. So -- for example, we're leading the Midwest EV charging collaboration initiative. This is an initiative where we're working with utilities literally throughout the Midwest and supporting policies that drive investment for EV infrastructure to reduce [indiscernible]. In addition to Illinois, we're strongly supporting legislation that will drive significant easy infrastructure investment. In Missouri, we are also providing incentives for businesses and multifamily dwellings to sell transport as well as off the road equipment. So that's the first part of the shareholders' question. But if I get more specific. With regard to the shareholders' desire to have all EV vehicles, vehicle to home capability in next 2 years, I really can't speak to the automakers' plans for all their EV cars. My sense -- my personal sense is that it will be possible for some models. But honestly, from what I know, I'd be surprised if this would be the case for all models within 2 years -- maybe over some longer period of time, but within 2 years, that could be a tough one to do. With regard to the vehicle of grid question, well, I'll say that's an even more complex manner. If you think about managing the grid integration of these vehicles into the grid in some fashion, it's going to require robust standards to ensure that our customers have a safe, reliable integration and that they expect each and every day, and the grid is so critical to that. The good news, Andrew, is that we're already working with industry partners, automakers and other key stakeholders literally across the country on vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid integration, including the Electric Power Research Institute, which is obviously doing a great deal of work here. We're excited about how quickly these technologies are emerging. And frankly, the fact that more than 100 new electric vehicle models are -- have been stated that they're expected to go to market in the next 24 to 30 months. That's exciting. So we're going to continue to be actively engaged in all these activities, Andrew, because we strongly believe this is a path towards a clean energy future for our region and our country. And also because it's going to help lower our customer rates by spreading our fixed infrastructure costs, which are sizable across more sales units. And so bottom line, it's another win-win for our customers, our communities and the environment.

Thanks, Warner. Our next question, with the effect of COVID during the previous year, why are we wanting to get increases in compensation to already highly paid employees?

Yes. Thanks, Andrew, for that question. Look, I recognize that the compensation matters, especially for executive leadership in our higher compensated coworkers, but they're sensitive matters, and especially in light of the pandemic we're all facing today. And so as shareholders, as you might expect, we have strong governance and oversight of our executive compensation. Now in particular, compensation for the entire executive leadership team is established by independent directors in the Human Resources Committee of the Board of Directors. As you probably read and is outlined in the proxy statement, that committee took great care in setting executive compensation, which included working with an independent compensation consultant. I can tell you that committee looked at a variety of factors in establishing executive compensation, including conversation practice, both inside and outside of our industry. They are very mindful of the fact that a large portion of the compensation earned by members and executive leadership team is, frankly, performance based. I'd say the actions that community took were clearly in line with industry practices. And in addition, I'll note that the community did reduce the 2020 short-term incentive compensation for all members of the executive leadership team do in part to COVID-19 considerations. I will say it was also mindful of the acts that we have taken to support our customers and communities during the pandemic, including COVID-19 relief funding and energy assistance, totaling approximately $23 million, as I said a little bit earlier. Now a portion of these funds provided to customers came from COVID-19 fundraising effort, which all directors and our executive leadership team members donated personally to help our customers and communities. So Andrew, I think I covered it all right there.

Thanks, Warner. Our next question, as a business owner, I received rebates for making my plant more efficient. Now Ameren wants to make more revenue per kilowatt hour generated. Hard to understand in this meeting. How do you sell this to the public?

Thanks for that question. Let me start with that. I'm pleased to hear this shareholders taking advantage of our energy efficiency incentive programs. I think that's just absolutely terrific because those programs are absolutely designed to help the environment and as well as help curb our customers with their utility bills, right? So having said that, to ensure that the energy grid remains reliable and resilient for your business and for all of our customers as well as the transition to a cleaner energy future, we have to continue to make significant investments in our energy infrastructure. And as I said a little bit earlier, in 2020 alone, we made over $3 billion in energy infrastructure. And I'd tell you, those investments are paying off. Over the last several years, our reliability has improved, while at the same time, our electric rates remain among the absolute lowest in the country. So for us to continue to make these investments to continue to deliver the value to our customers in the future that they expect, well, we need to recover the cost of these investments. And so as a result, Andrew, in both Missouri and Illinois, where we're pursuing the cost recovery and the investments that we've been making.

Thanks, Warren. Our next question, what are your plans when clean energy shuts down the coal plant in Marissa, Illinois. If we've invested in windmills for power, where are you going to discard the radioactive blades? And finally, if you have interest -- if you have invested in wind power, what return is possible with the government subsidy?

Another multidimensional question. Let me see if I can take it in its piece for. Let me start here first. With regard to the potential retirement of coal plant in Illinois, I can't speak to this matter directly because we don't know that coal plant that that's been referred to. But what I can say is this. In advance of a planned retirement of a generation resource in Illinois, a study is done with the independent system operator to determine whether the closure of that generation resource would create e reliability issues on the grid. And so if that's the case, actions are taken to mitigate those risks. So that's number one. Two, people ask, well, what kind of actions might be taken? Well, those actions could include requiring that plant to, perhaps, operate longer. Or it's certainly possible that additional transmission and distribution investments would need to be made before that plant retires to mitigate reliability risk. So that gets to the variability issue. With regard to the wind turbines -- look, let me be clear, they're not ready to act. Now let me get to your disposal question. With regard to disposal of the wind turbines at the end of their useful lives, work is being done in the industry to find a sustainable solution, a sustainable solution to either decommission or perhaps repurpose those blades in the future. And we are actively engaged in efforts in this area and certainly monitoring developments being taken [indiscernible] but frankly, around the world. And finally, with regard to government subsidies for wind generation investment, like production tax credits perhaps, they do not impact our returns in these investments because the benefits of these tax rates are passed on to our customers for a little more overall cost of the project. And so the bottom line is that tax credits for wind and solar generation helped reduce the overall cost of the clean energy transition for our customers, which is a terrific thing.

Thanks, Warner. Our next question. I'm looking forward to utilizing more sustainable fuel in the future. Will Ameren be investing in more resources to assist homeowners and solar development in their communities?

Well, thanks for that question, Andrew. And let me just say the simple answer is yes. Ameren Missouri, they provided more than $10 million in incentives and rebates over the past several years for private solar installations. Our shareholders and customers you should know that money is still available for interested homeowners and businesses. And you can find information about this program on our website. But we're staffing there. We're also offering several other solar products and services to our customers, including our community solar and neighborhood solar programs. Andrew, our objective is really pretty straightforward. It's to make our products and services easy for our customers to access solar through these programs as opposed to having to install solar on the property as well as for those customers, who can't do so, think about rates, right? They can't do those types of things. And so under our community solar program, we cite, procure, build and maintain the solar generation facility. And so under this program, customers enroll in this program, they benefit from this shared solar resource at a rate that is reviewed and approved by the Missouri Public Service Commission. And that I got great news on fact, our second community solar program was recently approved by the Missouri Commission. So we're really excited about this. And so for all these things, Andrew, for more information on all of these programs, and I recommend our shareholders and our customers go to the website.

Thanks, Warner. We received a few comments from shareholders who have experienced challenges in accessing their shareholder log in account through Ameren's website. Can you comment on this?

Yes. Andrew, thank you for raising this matter. So look, to begin. I want to apologize to those shareholders who have experienced challenges accessing their accounts through our website. Look, I know it's been frustrating for some of you, and I appreciate you raising this concern with this. Now the issue you're encountering has arisen due to an upgrade that we made to our shareholder access system last year in December. And so in particular, we made that upgrade, frankly, to enhance the overall security over access to your account information, which we all know today is so important. So today, this upgrade now requires shareholders to use a commonly used two-factor authentication method to access their account information. Now, Andrew, that change in procedure, frankly, caused confusion among some of our shareholders. And so access to those accounts were locked out due to multiple attempts to gain access. And so what are we doing, right? What are we doing about it? Well, several things. First, look, we're going to provide an updated communication to the affected shareholders about how they can use the two-factor authentication method is as well as other instructions that we're going to post on our website to help others to ensure they know how to log in under the updated access system. And look, we've also brought in extra resources to work directly with those shareholders who continue to experience these issues without the accessing their account. And so shareholders, if you're having issues, please contact our investor services. You can find their contact information on our website. But one thing I'll say is this, Andrew, rest assured, we are absolutely focused on getting this right, and we certainly appreciate our shareholders' patience as we work through these issues.

Thanks, Warner. Our next question, what price per ton do you consider to be an appropriate social cost of carbon? And how do you factor this number into your long-term resource planning?

Yes. Well, thanks for that question, Andrew. As I think about this, Andrew, before I answer the specific question, I think it's important to provide a little context on our long-term resource planning process. And so throughout this morning, and I've referred to our transformative clean energy transition plan. And as I said, that includes our goal to achieve net 0 carbon emissions by 2015. Now that plan includes our largest ever expansion of renewable wind and solar generation over the next 20 years. And I just give that context, that's -- we expect to add 3,100 megawatts of wind and solar by 2030 and a total of 5,400 megawatts by 2040. And frankly, at the same time, we're going to advance the retirement of our coal-fired energy centers. And our first cold-fired energy center is going to retire next year. And we plan to extend the life of our carbon-free nuclear energy center beyond its current operating license date of 2044. And so needless to say, and I'm sure shareholders can appreciate this, these plans aren't created in a vacuum. Now the key elements of our clean energy transition plan are embedded in Ameren Missouri's integrated resource plan, we like to refer to it as the IRP. So what is this IRP? Well, this is our long-term resource planning document that we file every 3 years with the Missouri Public Service Commission. And this plan is developed over many months with extensive stakeholder input. And our most recent plan was filed just last year in September. And so now in our IRP, what we do is a number of things. We presented a number of scenarios that estimate our customers' energy needs over the next 20 years and then determine how we can best meet those needs, taking in consideration a host of factors, including are the expected future costs of generation resources to meet their needs, like the renewable energy, I just spoke about earlier, factors that could impact future customer sales, such as energy efficiency programs and the electrification of the transportation sectors, which I addressed a little bit earlier in another question. We think about future commodity prices as well, as potential energy policy changes that could incorporate a price of carbon emissions in some fashion in the future. So now after that context, let me get you the question. So under our IRP, we are not required to estimate a social cost of carbon. Instead, what we do, what we are required to include in our scenario analysis, a range of carbon prices that are informed by several external viewpoints on future carbon pricing for a variety of reasons, not just the social cost of carbon. And so those external viewpoints may include views from policy analysts, government agencies, other utilities as to what carbon prices may be should certain energy policy changes be made as well as external views on the social cost of carbon. So based on all these inputs, we developed, several carbon pricing scenarios, and, Andrew, those are all reflected in our IRP. And so in the interest of time, I won't go through all of those scenarios this morning, but our carbon pricing assumptions can be found in our 2020 IRP, which is a public document. And so you can find it at amerenmissouri.com/clean to get better information. But the bottom line is this, we do incorporate a potential cost of carbon in our long-term resource planning and that potential cost of carbon under the various scenarios outlined in our IRP clearly played a role and helping us formulate our transformative clean energy transformation plan, which really seeks to balance, strong environmental stewardship with reliability and affordability.

Thanks, Warner. Our next question, Mr. Chairman, the carpenter pension fund holds a total of 171,200 shares of the company's stock. As long-term investors, we strongly believe that the company's executive compensation plan should be designed primarily to drive successful execution of the Board's long-term strategic business plan. Today's public company executive compensation plans are largely formulaic, peer-related plans with simplistic annual say on pay voting reinforcing plan homogeneity. Would you or the chair of the Compensation Committee speak to whether Ameren might be better served by and executive compensation plan tailored specifically to the company's particular circumstances in its unique long-term strategic business plan.

Lots of unpack there. So thank you for that question. And look, we appreciate you being a long-term investor. So as I step back and the way we look at it, we strongly believe our executive compensation plan is tailored to meet our long-term strategic plan. So let me break it down in his piece part. So with regard to our short-term incentive compensation plan, it is focused on achieving several key performance indicators directly tied to our strategic plan, including many are tied to ESG metrics, which we all know are so important today. Those metrics include those related to safety, customer reliability, customer satisfaction, diversity, equity and inclusion. And yes, of course, earnings per share. So that's our short-term plan. But then when you think about our long-term incentive plan, we do have metrics that are tied not only to total shareholder return, but we have metrics that are tied directly to the execution of the clean energy transition plan that I've been talking about, frankly, all morning. And so as a result, we strongly believe our executive compensation program is directly tied to our long-term strategic plan, which is absolutely designed to deliver strong long-term value to our customers and our shareholders.

Thanks, Warner. Our next question, given the urgency that exists to combat the expected effects of climate change and global warming, what can Ameren do to speed up efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its generation facilities and other operations?

Thank you for that question. And Andrew, no doubt that throughout this morning, I think I've outlined the steps that we are taking to execute our transformational clean energy transition plan that includes a goal of achieving net 0 carbon emissions by 2050. And as I said before, is consistent with the Paris agreement. And so again, in the interest of time, I won't repeat all the comments that I've made because I'd probably take another 20, 30 minutes. But let me just say this, we strongly believe the actions we are taking will play a significant role in addressing climate change for our customers, our communities and, frankly, for our country.

Thanks, Warner. Our next question what is the company's plan to take advantage of the opening market in electric vehicles?

Thank you, Andrew, for the question. Boy, there's no doubt a lot going on in the electric vehicle market. And a little bit earlier, when I was responding to another question from a shareholder, I outlined the numerous actions that we're taking to capitalize on the greater electrification, the transportation sector. And it's a lot. It's a lot. So again, in the interest of time, I won't repeat all of those things. But let me just say this, now the bottom line, there's greater electrification of the transportation sector, which is the largest carbon emitting sector in our country today. It will be an absolute win-win for our customers, the environment and certainly our shareholders.

Thanks, Warner. Our next question, do you see raising the dividend anytime in the next year? [ Randy Schultz ]

Well. Thank you for that question, Andrew. This is always one of those items that are of great interest to our shareholders. And so let me just say this. With regard to our dividend, and as I noted a bit earlier, earlier this year, we raised our dividend approximately 7%, which is the eighth consecutive year that we've raised the dividend. And so obviously, that shows the confidence that our Board of Directors have in our long-term strategic plan. And so looking ahead, we expect our future dividend growth to be in line with the company's long-term earnings per share growth expectations and within a dividend payout range of 55% to 70%. And so Andrew, earlier, I noted that our long-term earnings growth expectations are 6% to 8% from 2021 to 2025. And so something that we've said before, and I think it's important that future dividend decisions, of course, will be driven by earnings growth, cash flow, investment requirements and other business conditions. So Andrew, we've covered a lot today. And so this will wrap it up. This is going to complete the question-and-answer portion of our meeting today. So I really appreciate all the great questions from shareholders. But due to time constraints that there were a handful of questions that I wasn't able to address this morning. So we'll post answers to those questions on our website at amereninvestors.com in the near future. If you have additional questions, please feel free to reach out to our Investor services and Investor Relations teams. Their contact information that's on our website. And so in closing, rest assured, that we are going to remain focused on executing our comprehensive business strategy by leading today so we can transform tomorrow, and then so doing, continue delivering strong customers and shareholder value. And so thank you all for listening in today, for your interest in Ameren Corporation, and hope you have a great day. Thank you, everybody.

This concludes the meeting. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day.