Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated (PEG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining us for PSEG's 2021 Investor Conference. I'm Carlotta Chan, Vice President of Investor Relations of PSEG, New Jersey's largest investor-owned electric and gas utility. We are coming to you live this afternoon from our headquarters in Newark with an exciting lineup of presentations featuring members of our senior management team. You can access the slides and other materials on our Investor Relations website at investor.pseg.com. During today's conference, we will be making forward-looking statements and providing estimates that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. We will also discuss non-GAAP operating earnings, which differs from net income as reported in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States. Please refer to the reconciliations of this non-GAAP financial measure and a disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements in today's slides and on our IR website. Following the presentations from the management team, we will host a half hour Q&A session. I will now turn the conference over to Ralph Izzo, PSEG's Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, to begin the presentation.

Thank you Carlotta. And thank you all for joining us this afternoon. As we speak, there's about 13,000 men and women [Audio Gap] working hard [Audio Gap] The energy that's used cleaner than ever before and it's delivered with a degree of reliability and resilience that's been unsurpassed in our's or anyone's history in this industry. What that means for you, the investors [Audio Gap] today. It's the fact that PSEG, as a result of bringing about that future vision is a sustainable, predictable growth platform [Audio Gap] words, others will use numbers, other [Audio Gap] combination of all of the above. And [Audio Gap] that is predominantly regulated. And we'll describe what that word predominantly means in various ways in a few moments. And it's regulated in 2 different jurisdictions. Of course, our transmission operations are regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and our distribution operations by the state of New Jersey. Kim Hanemann, our newly elected President of the Utility will talk about some more specifics around each of those particular set of assets. [Audio Gap] also talk about [Audio Gap] what we're doing in [Audio Gap] carbon-generating sources, which will make up the other 10% of our business. [Audio Gap] is just 1 part of our ESG strategy. And you'll hear us talk about the fact that our social leadership and our governance leadership are long-standing attributes of this company. But what's new is the recognition we're receiving for those. So let's dig a little bit deeper [Audio Gap] regulated utility. 90% of our earnings are expected to come from public [Audio Gap] a leader in operations [Audio Gap] and a leader in growth. The growth [Audio Gap] aging infrastructure and the need to invest in a clean [Audio Gap] not only in utility, but also in our generation operations. And we have [Audio Gap] of this [Audio Gap] before. [Audio Gap] structure is one that we will be hard at work to replace for many years into the future. [Audio Gap] results. Let me just give you a few highlights right now. First of all, we are establishing 2022 non-GAAP operating earnings [Audio Gap] at midpoint to be the starting [Audio Gap] 5% to 7% earnings growth pattern from 2022 through 2025. [Audio Gap] predictability of those earnings were [Audio Gap] dividend from $0.08 a share [Audio Gap] the Fossil sale that we expect to happen either late this year or early next year [Audio Gap] $500 million share repurchase [Audio Gap] reduced volatility in our earnings and the improvement in our business mix, we're able to operate solid [Audio Gap] ratio -- solid investment-grade ratings, yet a reduction in our FFO to debt levels from the current [Audio Gap] 16% to a lower teens of 13% to 14% [Audio Gap] visibility. [Audio Gap] all of this, the need to issue any new equity. So let's talk about [Audio Gap] the regulated [Audio Gap] for the past [Audio Gap] grow [Audio Gap] earnings. And that growth [Audio Gap] solid in our rate base. It's been a broad base growth. It's been a [Audio Gap] driven somewhat by transmission, as you could see here in the bottom part of the stacked bar, increasingly of late by gas investments, as you see in the third component of the stacked bar in green. And on a percentage basis [Audio Gap] the bulk of the rate base, you can see [Audio Gap] has been our clean energy agenda [Audio Gap] distribution has not [Audio Gap] But when you talk about [Audio Gap] our capital program by $1 billion [Audio Gap] turn our attention in a post-COVID world [Audio Gap] improve what we're calling the last mile of electric reliability. [Audio Gap] 2 dynamics in the home in a post-COVID world, where the home is the place where people come back after work, but in fact, becomes a place [Audio Gap] like a transportation center as we charge our electric vehicles, a communication center as we charge our phones and a work center, a commercial operations center as an increasing portion of the population works from home. [Audio Gap] and Kim will give a lot more information about those investment opportunities that are available to us in that last mile. [Audio Gap] of the rate base [Audio Gap] who recognizes a rate base rate of return investment set that we have at the utility [Audio Gap] thing I've said is to please [Audio Gap] paradigm of rate base growth equal to load growth is not a paradigm that's true for PSE&G. So [Audio Gap] past year for a moment, the double-digit earnings growth over the past decade [Audio Gap] sprinkled around this 1-year summary [Audio Gap] electric vehicle investments. Just prior to that 2020 date, we would have listed $1 billion worth of energy efficiency investments. And $1 billion -- almost $2 billion worth of gas system modernization. So our dedication and focus on growth has been a consistent hallmark for the past 10 years. What we turned our attention to, however, in the past 12 months, has been a reduction of the volatility [Audio Gap] some parts of the business. [Audio Gap] we talked [Audio Gap] If you didn't hear what I said for the past 10 minutes, it was all brilliant and actually indicative of a very strong growing company with strong ESG credentials. But so in last July, we talked about the fact that we were making a strategic decision to look for alternative owners of our nonnuclear generation assets. And then we started marking progress with -- further progress in terms of reducing volatility. And the hallmark of that would have been the April decision, a unanimous decision by our New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to grant us the maximum allowable value for our zero emission certificates for the next 3 years. That took us out 4 years to May of 2025. We then demonstrated progress on that strategic decision with the announced sale of our Solar Source portfolio in June of this year. And then, of course, the penultimate step in the strategic review we announced just this past August, with the intention to sell our Fossil fleet to ArcLight. That -- we expect that to close, as I said a moment ago, either late this year or early next year, pending some regulatory approvals. That brings us to where we are today in September, where we're issuing this new guidance of 5% to 7% growth over the next 3 years. The new guidance for 2022 of $330 million to $360 million, which, by the way, we do expect to narrow as we get closer to the commencement of next year or early into next year. The increased capital spending from $21 billion to $25 billion of $15 billion to $17 billion at the enterprise level and in fact, the change in the dividend. Over the near term, there's a few things that we'll be paying a lot of attention to further reduce the uncertainty and volatility in earnings. Chief among that is the expectation that we will secure the long-term economic future of our nuclear fleet. Added to that is the implementation of the newly allowed conservation incentive program, or CIP, which we'll put into place in June for our electric operations, we will put into place for our gas operations this coming October, next month. And then also, we are -- as we approach a fully funded pension trust, we intend to derisk that pension portfolio with a more conservative investment allocation outcome that will allow us -- as you know, we do not average our pension results in every year, at the end of December. We snapped the line and say what that means for our income statement going forward. So lots of efforts. I won't go through each of these lines, but lots of efforts underway to make sure that the portfolio remains as predictable and as stable as is possible. So we're making some bold predictions about what we expect the future to be. And based upon the past 10 years, I think you should have every bit of confidence, notwithstanding the forward-looking statement that Carlotta referred to a moment ago. But here, I'm trying to show you where we've predicted our earnings would be each of the past 10 years and where our earnings ended up being. And as you can see from the chart, we have been within the range or have exceeded the range in each one of the past 10 years. And I would put that performance up against any other entity within our industry. So starting off in 2022 as a clean year, assuming no fossil earnings, assuming the FERC agrees to our regulatory compromise with our state consumer advocate and our State Board of Public Utilities on a 9.9% base ROE for our transmission, plus a 50 basis point adder for being a member of RTO, so which is the clean 2022, taking that midpoint of the earnings guidance, we believe in our capital program and our rate base growth and in the forward market, as it signals to our current nuclear fleet, that we can grow earnings from 5% to 7% over that time frame. Because of the quality of those earnings, because of the growth in the utility earnings that we've experienced and our expected future growth in utility, you can see here we've marched that dividend increase from a $0.04 a share change to an $0.08 a share change, and today, we now believe we can produce a $0.12 a share change in that dividend growth. And the indicative rate that we are predicting for next year, of course, subject to Board of Directors' approval every quarter is that we will bring it up to $2.16 a share. There is no stronger source of pride than we have in our financial performance than the fact that this company has paid a dividend every year for over a century. So the stewardship of that track record is 1 that we take extremely seriously on the management team. So remember a moment ago, I mentioned that forget the paradigm that says rate base growth is a function of load growth. That's not the case for PSEG. We're not totally divorced from that. We do have some customer growth and some new business that's part of our capital program. And to be sure that there is no clean way to simply say that when we invest this dollar in our capital program, it only serves this 1 master. But at the risk of oversimplifying, we you do try to show you here how our future capital program is allocated from the point of view of reliability investments versus clean energy investments. And it's about 50-50 for everything from our energy efficiency investments to our clean energy future, electric vehicle investments to our methane reduction in our gas system modernization all point towards a cleaner energy future and a cleaner tomorrow. The critical importance of these 2 categorizations is as follows: we're making investments that customers and policymakers want us to make. We're not having to convince people that this is important. Everyone in New Jersey, everyone at the BPU, everyone at the FERC realizes that these are essential investments. If we're to bring about a future where customers use less energy, where the energy they use is cleaner than ever before and the reliability that it is so important to them as they become so much more dependent upon electricity in particular, is unsurpassed from anything they've witnessed in the past. So that environmental leadership, that 50% investment in a cleaner energy future is not new for us. In fact, the industry average generation portfolio is achieving standards of performance that we were at almost 2 decades ago. And in fact, despite that superior performance of 16 years ago, our rate of improvement through improved nuclear plant operations, through retirement of coal assets, through investment in highly efficient natural gas plants, we've improved faster than the rest of the industry. So that environmental leadership is not new to us. What is new is what you see on the right side of the slide here is the fact that half a dozen independent rating groups that assess ESG leadership credentials is starting to recognize the role we've played. Ralph LaRossa later on will talk a little bit about that social component, and Tammy Linde will tell you more about the governance component of our ESG leadership. So let's talk a little bit more about that environmental leadership. We have thrown a gauntlet down for our industry and any other industry as well. We are seeking to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. That date is sooner than anyone else. And the breadth of the gauntlet that we have thrown down is broader than anyone else. It's not limited to our generation operations, which we expect to be purely carbon-free once we sell these, not the gas assets that we are under contract to sell. It's inclusive of our electric and gas distribution and transmission operations. It's not limited to Scope 1. It's inclusive of Scope 2 as well. So how do we bring this future about? Well, as I just said, all of our generation in the future to the extent that we own generation will be carbon-free. It will be anchored in our nuclear assets, but it will grow with our offshore wind investments and solar investments. That 10% of the company, however, will just be a complement to the 90% of the utility operations, where we will continue to emphasize energy efficiency, methane reductions, SF6 reduction in our substation operations, energy efficiency in our own office buildings, electrification of our fleet. That won't get us to 0 on a gross basis. We will need the development of a carbon offset market to get to the net-zero point. And while we haven't set a target for Scope 3, what our customers do to produce carbon, we will focus on electric vehicle fleet electrification as well as energy efficiency to help our customers use less natural gas, use less electricity and power their transportation with a cleaner electric supply portfolio. What does that mean? Well, it started back June last year. We were very unhappy about that orange bar on the left side of this slide showing the valuation discount that we believed we did not deserve compared to the utility index and premium peers. And your confidence in us as we've sought to pursue the strategic alternatives for our nonnuclear fleet, brought us basically on par with our index, but we don't believe we're the average company. And we're going to prove that to you in the months and years ahead. We believe we will set the standard for valuation among the premium peers. Because of the solid tradition we have as an operational leader, because of the clear stability and predictability of our earnings going forward, because of the strength of our balance sheet, because of the consistency of our investment portfolio with where our customers and policymakers want us to go, we believe that valuation gap will close. It's not going to happen just today. It will happen over time, but we are sure that it will close. So you're going to hear from an outstanding executive team in the next few minutes. Our Chief Operating Officer, Ralph LaRossa, is going to come up here and talk about that business mix, that 90% utility, and a little bit about the 10% nonutility component, although he'll reserve more comments about that for after Kim Hanemann comes up to speak. Kim will go into much more detail about what we've been investing in, in our capital programs, what we expect to invest in, in our future capital programs. And then Tammy will come up and talk a lot more about the regulatory landscape at the state level and at the federal level. And we'll demonstrate to you why everything that I've mentioned briefly, and Kim will go into greater detail in terms of that capital program, is completely consistent with where public policy is headed. Dan will translate all of that for you into financial terms. And then the 5 of us will come back up later on to answer any questions you may have. I think we throw a break in there for those of you who haven't had a chance to grab your lunch just yet to -- and to check any e-mails that may be pending. But with that, I'm going to ask Ralph to join me at the podium, and I'm going to step aside. Actually, Ralph will take over the podium. And I'll see you later. There goes the microphone, Ralph.

Okay. All right. Thanks, Ralph. I'll try to get this thing all lined up here. So I am going to just follow up and talk a little bit more about the future PS, try to drive some of the points that Ralph mentioned on stability and then focus a little bit on that strong operations that we've come to reliance so often. Let's start here just with that future of PSE&G. And I think Ralph said it very well, and we're going to reinforce it throughout today. The future PSE&G really features a premier utility in PSE&G that will help customers use less energy on a regular basis and deliver that energy in ways more reliable than they've ever seen before. And on the right-hand side, you see the zero-carbon focus that we have from a generation standpoint, and that remainder of PS is going to be focused on just a much cleaner generation portfolio, highlighted by our nuclear plants, our nuclear fleet that we've put in place and also a small but potentially growing offshore wind opportunity for both generation and infrastructure installations. And I'll talk a little more about that later on after I come up after Kim. So that's the stable mix. Again, Ralph talked about this quite a bit. PSE&G is going to be bringing a whole bunch of that to the table here. You can see in the top part of this slide, over 90% of that earnings, we'll keep saying that over and over today, ad nauseam, but we want to make sure that point is brought home. We'll be coming through that stable utility earnings from PSE&G. But that stability all starts with a stable revenue stream. And I think it's really highlighted here through our transmission rates, our formula rates that we have at FERC. That's almost 50% of our rate base, a little bit less than that, but through the formula rate and the time [Audio Gap] We got it back? We're back? We're okay? All right. Sorry about that. The operations guy feel kind of awkward being up here when you're having all these challenges from a sound standpoint. But I just get back to -- from a revenue standpoint, that solid stream starts with FERC. But we wanted to also drive on the point that our other side of the business, the distribution business that's regulated by the Board of Public Utilities here in New Jersey, we've also been able to eliminate quite a bit of that volatility back in June of 2021. We negotiated and have implemented an electric SIP program, which really smooths out that side of the business and has an annual true-up. And then later on in 2021, we've worked again with the state BPU and implemented a gas CIP program, which also does that same thing and levels out that revenue stream similar to but not exactly like a decoupling mechanism that we've seen in other parts of the country. We're still okay guys? I'm going to keep going. All right. Great. So if those revenue streams are the start of stability, I'd like to say operations is the bedrock of the utility -- of the strong and stable operations that we have. Everything starts for us with safety and reliability. That comes out first for us. It's our major focus, and our performance there remains very, very strong. That translates for us into very strong customer rates that are stable. They've been stable for many years, and I'll show you a little bit of that and there's also some slides in the appendix that kind of highlight where we are from that standpoint. And that all turns out at the end of the day to provide our customers with great customer satisfaction. We've seen that in a number of ways and different awards that we've received. And those customers have benefited from those stable rates over time. The -- we're okay, guys. I'm good. Thanks. So I'll pick it back up in the middle. The capital program that we've put in place not only is based upon our base rates, but also different programs that we've put on working with our Board of Public Utilities, to put in filings in place. Over -- since 2009, we've had over 23 different filings that we've put in that allowed us to bring really great programs to the state and probably none that I'd like to talk about more than the last -- where we've raised all of our substations in advance of flooding, and the customers really saw that benefit from Ida over the last few years -- over the last year. And in nuclear front, we can't forget about that team. They've done an outstanding job providing very, very strong -- very strong performance. And for the first time ever, have attained the highest possible performance rating that INPO will give. Both of our plants have achieved that. So just great work by our nuclear team to deliver that strong operational background and performance. And then finally, we've done all of this while we've continued to attract the workforce that really represents the customer base that we've had. So -- and that we served. So we're very, very proud of our operations and something that I've been part of for a very long time, but I really wanted to focus on 1 story here for you from an operations standpoint, which I think really drives on the point for us as to what we're all about. And that is the performance that we've been able to achieve during the pandemic. As many of you know, utilities for frontline workers, we had to deliver that constant service to customers. And we all pulled together, not just the 10,000 folks that are out in the field that are working all the time, but all of our support organizations. When the pandemic first hit, we were able to secure PPE through our very strong procurement organization. We were able to keep our IT systems up and running and move into a remote call center operation all throughout the pandemic, and not miss a beat, in fact, performance levels that we've never achieved before. Dan and his team, not only have provided a very strong balance sheet for us, but they were able to close the books on a regular basis for us and not miss a beat. Our human resources organization has worked together with us to put in different work plans and safety protocols so that all of our employees have and remain very, very safe throughout the pandemic in the work that they're performing. And then it all tied together with Rick Thigpen and his team from an external affairs standpoint, working to deliver many support dollars, meals and even PPE to a lot of the community here in New Jersey. So when I look back over my career and I think about what we've been able to achieve during this pandemic, it actually shows the best of PSEG in many, many different ways. I'm going to end before I turn this over to Kim, just saying a couple of things about what I think is the big question that everyone will have, which is will we be able to deliver on the growth platform that we've put forth. And this slide, as Ralph said, some people tell stories through the numbers, some through words, I'd like to use pictures. The top right-hand side of this is all about the customer bill. There is no doubt in my mind, if you look back over this, that our customer bill has the headroom in it to allow for us to make those investments that we've talked about. And Kim will go through that in a little more detail, and we have that also in the appendix. There is no doubt that customers require that reliability as we talked about in our powering vision statements. Customers require that because of what they're seeing from the storms and the natural disaster has taken place here in New Jersey, and again, highlighted by Ida most recently. And we also have a tremendous amount of old infrastructure, that last mile going to a customer's home that needs to be replaced and a workforce that's ready, willing and able and also able to grow as we move forward to deliver those and replace that infrastructure. So I think we've got a great story from a growth standpoint. I think it's highlighted here. I think this slide tells the story from a picture standpoint very well. And I also think that we've got a great leader who's going to come up here now to talk a little more detail about that in Kim Hanemann. When Dave Daly announced his retirement earlier this year, I was very proud to turn around and see Kim stand in there as a great leader for this organization as we move forward. Kim and I have worked together since 1985. I hope to be the one of us wanted to admit that. But we both started out in the gas distribution business. And I have to tell you, there's nobody better positioned right now to take us to the next level in the utility that's going to be the premier for PSEG as we move forward. So with that, Kim?

So first and foremost, thank you, Ralph, for those very kind words. And you -- everybody hear me good? Excellent. Excellent. So I'm new to this group, but I am definitely not new to the utility. I'm incredibly proud and excited for the opportunity to lead this talented team at PSE&G through the future. You really -- you're very familiar with our utilities -- our utility. We have a robust investment program, $14 billion to $16 billion over the 5 years, it's up $1 billion. I'm going to walk through each of the segments of the business in a bit more detail. And I'm also going to highlight our continued strong performance in reliability, safety and customer satisfaction as well as our continued focus on O&M, cost control and the impact on customers' bills. Just a little bit reminder of who we are. We're the state's largest utility. If you look on the top right of the New Jersey map, you see our service territory. We hug the New Jersey Turnpike between New York and Philadelphia, and all the major cities within the state. We have a mature service territory with about 0.5% to 1% growth annually. If you look at the pie chart at the bottom right, our -- more than $22 billion of rate base is roughly evenly split between distribution and transmission. As I mentioned, we in the utility, we are consistent. We have consistent values and consistent performance. Safety is always first and foremost with our culture and our company. Going to take a minute to explain these charts. The color segments on the charts indicate the various quartiles of performance within our benchmarking groups. The green -- lower is better. So the green at the bottom indicates top quartile or top decile performance. The black line shows PSE&G's performance over the past 5 years. As you see in the top 2 charts, PSE&G's safety metrics are in top decile. We continue to demonstrate very strong reliability, top quartile reliability results. Our SAIDI, which is the System Average Interruption Duration Index, it basically measures how long, on average, each customer loses power in the year. In 2020, we achieved top decile performance in that metric as well. So these strong safety and reliability results manifest in strong customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is central to us especially during the pandemic when our customers relied on us even more. As Ralph mentioned, we had to reengineer our work processes during the pandemic to continue to provide those essential services to our customers, services like our storm response process, emergency response, our appliance repair work, all while keeping both our customers and our employees safe. We received our highest -- as you see by these charts, over the past 5 years, we have continued improvement in all of our customer segments, and we received our highest scores in 2020 and the trend is continuing on through 2021. The bottom right highlights just a few of our recent customer awards as well. Now here's a chart you're all familiar with. It's our 5-year capital program. It's now $14 billion to $16 billion. It's up $1 billion over the 5 years. We have a clear runway beyond 2025 for ongoing capital investments in this program. I'm going to walk through each one of the segments in a bit more detail, including our IAP, which is Infrastructure Advancement Program. And as you know, all these investments result in a rate base growth of 6.5% to 8% over the plan. Just a reminder that the recoveries of this rate base are approximately 90% contemporaneous return between our clause programs as well as our transmission formula rate. Next, I'll walk you through the key components of our investment program. So first up is transmission. Our transmission portfolio is transitioning from the large end-of-life projects to our 69 kV reliability expansion program. The picture on the right shows our Roseland Pleasant Valley project currently in active construction. Our 69 kV expansion program will replace our aging 26 assets with 69 assets that are more -- have more capacity and more resilience. Additional growth in our transmission portfolio will be driven by 2 things: load increases due to electrification and the second will be generation topology changes, both from generation retirements as well as in the interconnection of offshore wind and upgrades required to interconnect that to the grid. Ralph LaRossa is going to come up a little bit later and talk to you a little bit more about some of the opportunities in the PJM state agreement approach for offshore wind transmission and Tammy will go over a little bit more detail on our pending ROE settlement at FERC. So if you remember, I said I wasn't new to the utility. I worked in field operations through Floyd, through Sandy, through Irene, through Isaias and most recently through Ida. I can tell you I've witnessed more significant weather events in the past 10 years than my first 25 with the company. Here are some pictures of Ida's impact across our service territory. We had confirmed tornadoes in our Southern division. We had historic flooding throughout our service territory. That shot on the right indicates a 56-inch high water mark at one of our substations. These extreme weather events require 2 things of us. First, continuous improvement on our ability to respond to these events and restore our customers when they happen. And then the second important thing is continuous investment in our infrastructure to make it more resilient to these extreme weather events. For our electric distribution business, Ida proved out the effectiveness of our Energy Strong program. Superstorm Sandy and Irene, impacted 29 stations and substations and switching stations as well as the 0.5 million customers they served. Energy Strong program has focused on hardening these stations, and none of the Energy Strong hardened stations were negatively impacted with Ida. This fact was recognized by both our governor and our President of the Board of Public Utilities. This picture here is of our Summerville station in Summerville, New Jersey. This station was hardened as part of Energy Strong. It experienced 56 inches of flooding. You can see the mark there on the firewall for the transformer. Although we couldn't access this station because of the flooding, the SCADA we had installed as part of our Energy Strong program. The SCADA install allowed us to effectively monitor the station, and we understood that it wasn't impacted. As we complete the remainder of the station hardening projects, our portfolio will now begin to transition to more of 1 of work at 67 stations to upgrade for load growth and for electrification as well as these last mile reliability investments. Going forward, you'll hear us talk a lot about last mile reliability. Our electric distribution system, like most others, was built for higher reliability in our business centers rather than our residential neighborhoods. Think about the past 18 months, people's homes have become their workplaces, their school rooms, and even their refueling stations. Our customers now expect that same level of reliability at their residents that they did enjoy in their business offices. To meet that increased expectation of our customers, we will need to make additional investments in this last mile reliability. These are assets that we've typically run to failure. And with our changing customer expectations, we will need to proactively replace these assets. And indicated in the box are the kind of assets we're talking about. We're talking about overhead and underground circuits down streets. We're talking about poles and transformers and secondary and service wires. We're starting that first venture into the last mile with our infrastructure advancement program. I now go over some of the additional details of that program with you. So we'll be filing our infrastructure investment program within the fourth quarter of this year. It will be a 4-year program, and we anticipate approval or being able to start the program midyear of 2022. This includes all important necessary work in order to harden our system. This program will also create over 500 direct jobs, good paying jobs, for infrastructure construction. And it also will provide us an opportunity to train the next generation of craft workers, skilled craft workers in the state of New Jersey. Key elements of this program. There'll be about $300 million in the last mile reliability investments. There'll be about $300 million as well in electric substation modernization. We'll be replacing 6 stations that range in age from 52 to 92 years old. We'll have about $150 million in EV make-ready work for the transition at our PSE&G locations for the transition of our fleet to electric vehicles and last about $150 million to upgrade 7 M&R stations in gas. So in total between $800 million and $900 million. This program is really just the first step to address our last mile of reliability. We have a long runway of additional investments to replace these assets. For our gas distribution business, we continue to drive our gas system modernization program to replace cast iron unprotected steel mains. We are the largest single operator of cast iron. We have over -- at the end of 2020, we have over 3,100 miles of cast iron still remaining in our system. Continuing at our current main replacement rate, we will reduce that about 41% between 2020 and 2030, which is ahead of the national target of 30%. But if we continue at this current rate, we will also take us until 2039 to eliminate all of our cast iron inventory. We have been able to successfully demonstrate our ability to execute this program as well as we have the ability to accelerate it. Last but certainly not least is our Clean Energy Futures program. Three of the 4 programs also have future investment opportunities. 3 of the 4 programs we have launched already. First is our EE program, our Energy Efficiency program. It's $1 billion over 3 years. Just a reminder, we also were given a $111 million bridge program prior to the approval of the EE program. This program is good for our customers. It saves money on their bills. It's good for our state, and it's good for the environment. As Ralph Izzo has said on several occasions, the cleanest kilowatt is the one that's never used. So this has a long runway for continuation of this program in order to meet the state's goals. The second program is our AMI or smart meter program that was approved in January. It's a $700 million program over 4 years. This year, we're basically working on installing that communication network. And then mass meter deployment will start during '22 and continue on through '24. This is really a game changer for our customers. It will provide them information at their fingertips regarding their energy uses as well as enable a great many future energy technologies. The third program that has been launched is our electric vehicle program. This program is really focused on the make-ready work for residential vehicle charging stations, public fast charging stations and some fast-charging stations along highway corridors as well. The BPU is currently reviewing and conducting a stakeholder process for the medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. We anticipate they will finish -- they will publish their framework towards the end of this year. We believe there is opportunities for us to help the state facilitate the goal of conversion of the medium and heavy-duty vehicles, and we anticipate being able to make a filing sometime next year for that. So another benefit of all of these infrastructure programs is job creation. We're very focused on paying -- on creating good paying jobs for New Jersey residents with additional focus on creating opportunities for diverse businesses and residents. Our infrastructure programs like GSMP and Energy Strong have created over 1,500 direct union jobs, good paying construction jobs a year. Our IAP program, the advancement program, is estimated to create an additional 500 jobs a year. And our clean energy program we have launched, that program is focused on creating over 3,000 jobs in the energy efficiency space. There's specific hiring in that program for underemployed, unemployed and low and middle-income class residents. We're collaborating with the New Jersey Department of Labor and community groups to find candidates. We have specific targets for diverse hiring and New Jersey hiring and as well as the program is providing training for the candidates to provide them the skills to be successful. Also included in our 5-year investment program are a number of critical technologies. They're aimed at enhancing the customer's experience as well as further improving our reliability and efficiency. And the center of it all is our customer. We're implementing a new customer relationship management system. It will allow us to anticipate customer needs better and tailored services to match their lifestyles. At the top, I've talked about the AMI program that is really foundational going forward for us, providing customers real-time information and supporting the deployment of future technologies as well. On the bottom right, as part of our Energy Strong II program, we are replacing our outage and distribution management systems. We will be integrating that with our AMI and it will allow us to better predict restorations and failures as well as improve the process of restoring customers. And lastly, we are implementing a number of new digital channels and mobile applications for both our customers and our workforce. Through all of this, we continue to keep a very sharp eye on controlling our O&M. Despite the weather challenges, we have held our distribution O&M relatively flat over the period. And when you look at all of O&M, it's been a 2.2% growth rate over the 5-year period. We have teams laser focused on identifying best practices, continuous improvement initiatives and technology to achieve these cost savings and they've been very successful in delivering these results for us as well. As Ralph also said, we're very conscious of the impact of our -- on our customers' bills from our investment programs. The bar chart on the left basically demonstrates that our combined E&G customer bills are down 25% from more than a decade ago. The bar chart on the right shows the cumulative impact of all of our investment programs, including the IAP program. Bottom line, these investments are estimated to increase the customer's bill about 2% a year, basically in line with inflation. So I hope I've been able to successfully communicate the consistent story for our utility. We have a robust capital investment program, $14 billion to $16 billion, up $1 billion over the 5 years. Our investment program is aligned with the state energy goals. We'll modernize our infrastructure and harden our system. It will drive emissions reduction and it will meet customers' higher expectations on reliability. Our focus is consistent and unwavering regarding safety, reliability and customer satisfaction. We'll continue our track record of controlling costs and successfully executing our capital programs. I want to thank you for the opportunity to share our story today. And I am going to turn this back over to Ralph LaRossa, a great mentor and leader to me over my long career here at the company.

All right. Thanks, Kim. So I'm going to touch on just a few more topics before we're going to take a short break. First, I'll give you a quick update on the Fossil sale, a little bit about what's going on the nuclear front, what we're doing at control costs across our power business and then spend a few minutes, if I can, on the Offshore Wind opportunities that we have in front of us. So first, on the fossil fleet sales, as Ralph said, no surprises here. Things are on track. They continue to be on track. We've been successful in working with ArcLight in all the transition activities that are required, made all of our regulatory filings. I will say our focus has been on capturing all stranded costs. We've been able to do that. We expect to do that as we go forward, but also in treating our employees in a very just and reasonable way. We have been -- had a tremendous focus on the people in our organization. And I'm proud to say that we've been very successful in placing a number of folks who have been looking to stay with us, and we continue to see that as an opportunity as we go forward. On the nuclear side of the Power business, great, great news to see that the federal government has taken up the interest in and seeing the benefit of the nuclear industry. There has been unwavering support here in the state of New Jersey over the past year. Again, through the pandemic, we were able to file for and receive our second ZEC approval from the Board of Public Utilities. Great work by a number of folks across the board to have us achieve that. But I will tell you that our focus remains steadfast on telling the story and then achieving the outcome around long-term solutions for the nuclear plant and the revenue streams that are required to support it. And I think you're seeing those conversations take place, as I said, down in Washington, but I know that we're continuing to have conversations with people here in New Jersey to make sure that we stay on track and have that as a fallback if things do not progress at the federal level with the PTCs, that, again, seem to be moving in the right direction. However, I'd tell you the -- we have to do our part. And I think if you look at the left-hand side of this chart, we have been doing that over the last several years by holding our O&M expenses down and flat in many cases across the power business. You see, though, in 2022, when I spoke about just a few seconds earlier, which is the capturing of the stranded costs that would have been left with us after the Fossil sale. You can see the step down in our O&M expenses. They're spelled out in some more detail below. We've also provided for you there the reduction in the depreciation expense as well as the interest expense that we expect to have going forward once the sale is completed. On the right-hand side of the chart is the gross margin stability that we will have, even with the small part of our 10% of the business, the small part of our business going forward. I'd tell you that about 90% of that revenue stream from that 10% of our business is going to be very stable. It's going to be very stable for multiple reasons, both from a hedging standpoint, but also from a ZEC standpoint and from the operational excellence that the team has put in place and have been able to achieve those results that I spoke about earlier. So let me take a few minutes to talk about the Offshore Wind business and what we see as opportunities for us on that front. Talk a little bit about this by just walking you around the map that you see at the bottom of the state. Starting up in the left-hand corner, we've, again, as Ralph said, tried to work with policymakers at the state of New Jersey for many years. And very proud to say that we have facilitated with the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the building of a New Jersey Wind Port that will provide what we think will be the state with a great opportunity to expand its offshore wind industry. That wind port that we've worked with the state on will provide access for boats and for installation vessels to get quick access on the sea wood side of all bridges and with deepwater access directly into the Atlantic, gives us a really big strategic advantage from a state standpoint. I want to say we're not becoming a port operator. We're simply enabling the state by providing them with a land lease that's going to very adjacent to our nuclear facilities that's going to enable this industry to grow. The state to their part has gone out and put out 2 major bids for offshore wind generation. The first was awarded to Orsted and ourselves with a 25% stake. It's Ocean Wind at the bottom left. They've also gone ahead with their second offshore wind solicitation that was awarded through Orsted and another developer earlier this year. And then we expect that there'll be another leased area that will be developed off to the northern part of those 2 wind farms that have already been awarded. That provides a state with a great industry, but also provides us with a large opportunity. I also wanted to touch a little bit on the bottom left-hand side of the map, which is the Offshore Wind opportunity that exists off of Maryland -- actually off of Delaware, but a solicitation by the state of Maryland. And as you can see indicated on the time line, we expect Maryland to select an offshore wind developer later this year. So a nice portfolio of opportunities exist for us on the offshore wind within the Offshore Wind industry. Specific to us, 3 areas of focus. The Ocean Wind project, which we've talked about, that 75%, 25% joint ownership, the offshore winds facility off of Delaware, that I also spoke about. But on the right-hand side of the chart, the 1 that we're probably more excited about in the recent past, and that is the offshore wind transmission facilities that are going to be built at the request of the Board of Public Utilities. We've submitted a bid to PJM late -- about 1.5 weeks ago, and we are really hopeful that we'll have an opportunity to help the state of New Jersey achieve all that offshore wind growth in the industry that it has planned to do, but we'll be able to do that through what we know best and that is the actual installation of the transmission facilities. We expect that to provide an opportunity of close to $1 billion for the selected entities on those projects. Those bids won't be awarded until late 2022, based upon the latest update that we got from the Board of Public Utilities last week. So those numbers are not in our -- in the plans that we've shared with you, but they provide us with some opportunities to continue to grow along with the state of New Jersey as they move their policies forward from an offshore wind standpoint. So 3 very specific areas for us to grow this business in, and we're very, very excited to partner with the state to reach its policies. So with that, I think I'm going to call a break. Is that right? About -- how long are we're taking Carlotta? 15 minutes, and we'll be back with you shortly. Thanks for your time. [Break]

Welcome back, everyone. I hope you enjoyed those ESG videos. I would now like to introduce Tammy Linde, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, who will present the regulatory and policy update.

Thank you, Carlotta. And you heard this morning from Kim, Ralph and Ralph, how PSEG will be predominantly regulated with a strong set of sustainable and predictable growth opportunities ahead of it. I will explain from a regulatory and policy perspective how we have a long runway ahead of us to achieve those goals and to do it successfully. I will first start off with an update and review of some of our significant accomplishments that we've made over the last year to resolve several regulatory uncertainties. Second, I will reinforce the value of our strategy to align with state and federal policy goals. Third, I will review some of the ongoing positive dialogue that we are hearing about a long-term nuclear solution. And then I will wrap up my presentation with some of the highlights of our good corporate governance program and our commitment to ethical behavior of PSEG, which serves as the foundation to how we do business every day. Let's get started. So in the face of COVID and the many obstacles that it threw our way, we had a very busy and productive year on the regulatory front. Back in the spring of 2020, we were facing several regulatory uncertainties. For example, there was a threat of a potential complaint against our transmission ROE at FERC. And today, I'm very glad to say that we have a comprehensive settlement awaiting approval at the FERC. And that settlement is both on our transmission ROE as well as our formula rate and was entered into with the -- between PSE&G, the BPU, and Rate Counsel. And there have been no protest or oppositions filed to that settlement. Also in the spring of 2020, we still had PSE&G's clean energy program pending at the BPU. And standing here today, I can say that the BPU has approved nearly $2 billion worth of that program, and PSE&G is implementing it -- underway implementing it. During the last year, we've also had some favorable regulatory approvals for rate mechanisms, including our CIP program, our CIP rate methodology, which provides predictability on our distribution rates, and New Jersey also, like several other states in the United States, put in place a deferral mechanism for incremental COVID costs. In the spring of 2020, we were also facing ahead of us, the ZEC 2 application process. And that ZEC 2 application process, as you know, allowed the BPU to reduce the value of the ZEC. And earlier this year, we also resolved that on regulatory uncertainty. The BPU commissioners unanimously approved that ZEC award for all 3 of our New Jersey nuclear plants, and they did it at the full value allowed by New Jersey law. And we were also very pleased to hear the dialogue during that public BPU approval process about the need for a long-term nuclear solution. Another important theme that you heard from Ralph and Kim this morning is something that you've heard from us several times before. And that is our strategy to align with state and federal policy goals. In New Jersey, that means for PSE&G that as the oldest and largest utility that it means investing in our grid to ensure that it is ready for the stronger and more severe and more frequent storms that we know we're facing. For our clean energy program, it means energy efficiency investments to help our customers use less electricity and natural gas and also to lower their bills. With respect to other regulated investments, such as electric vehicles and offshore wind, it also means helping our customers use energy that is cleaner. On the federal front, with respect to our recovery of and on our transmission investments, it means that we're expecting FERC to approve our transmission ROE and formula rate settlement in the near term. As I indicated, that settlement is awaiting FERC approval and it not only provides certainty, if approved, to our transmission revenue requirements, it also -- I'm sorry, to our transmission returns, but it also provides a significant reduction in utility bills on the transmission side for our customers providing both predictability for us and lower bills for our customers. Also on the federal side and separate and apart from our base ROE, we are continuing to advocate in opposition to the FERC's ongoing consideration of the elimination of the 50 basis point adder that is added on top of transmission-based ROEs. That transmission 50 basis point adder is currently pending a review at FERC, and we are in opposition to its elimination. We're also actively involved in a host of other federal policy initiatives, including FERC's ANOPR in which FERC is evaluating the expected increase in renewable integration into the grid. As part of that ANOPR, FERC is looking at whether or not it should change its transmission planning, parameters and cost allocation. That is separate and apart from our return in our formula rate but it does have the potential to shape what transmission gets built in the future and which customers pay for that. Lastly, I'll highlight on this slide that we're also engaged in watching the ongoing and fluid dialogue down in Washington on tax policy. That tax policy change or discussion has the potential to put nuclear -- existing nuclear on a level playing field with other renewables such as offshore wind and solar. Now this next slide really highlights from my perspective, exactly how effective our strategy has been and is when we align with state and federal policy goals. If you look at the left slide of this -- left side of this slide, it shows the programs. It's a summary of the programs that we have had approved in New Jersey since 2009. And as Ralph LaRossa indicated earlier, there are over 20 applications that we have filed since this -- during this time period that were approved. And I also want to highlight that there were 3 different governors during this time period and the associated change in administration. The middle portion of this slide summarizes New Jersey's energy policies that we're both helping on right now with several of our programs and that provide the opportunity for future investment. The right side of this slide is perhaps the most powerful. If you see on this list, there are several programs that have been approved that we are currently investing in. Energy Strong 2, our clean energy program. And as Kim highlighted, we have our IAP listed here, which is an upcoming program that we expect to file later this year at the BPU. Each of these programs is tied back to New Jersey's energy policies and show the value of aligning our strategy with these state policies. I also want to focus now on nuclear. With respect to nuclear, we are very encouraged by the ongoing acknowledgment, both at the federal and state level, of the importance of preserving at-risk nuclear as part of climate goals. There is quite a few options pending and under consideration in Washington. And very importantly, both the Biden administration as well as the House and the Senate have acknowledged the importance of preserving existing nuclear in order to meet climate goals. So of the various options that are pending in Washington and under consideration, the nuclear PTC from our perspective has the most potential to be successful. It would provide greater certainty to nuclear plant operators to invest for the long term and it would place existing nuclear on a more even playing ground with existing policies for wind and solar. There are other policies that are being considered, including the bipartisan infrastructure item, that is the DOE grant program. That is a positive element in the sense that it does acknowledge the importance of nuclear as part of the future. But it has very little funding and it has some challenging aspects that are involved in the eligibility. I'll also mention the clean electricity performance program which is another program that is being considered in Washington to support and preserve existing nuclear. This program is encouraging because it also recognizes that nuclear is important to climate goals, but it is definitely not a replacement instead of nuclear PTC, which holds the promise of an effective federal policy. We definitely support and prefer a 1 comprehensive federal policy for long-term nuclear support to preserve these plants. But we also recognize that New Jersey has been very effective in supporting the New Jersey nuclear plants, including the award of the ZECs, which are currently pending -- which are currently in place until May of 2025. And as a result, New Jersey definitely provides a potential additional parallel path for a long-term solution for nuclear. Let me wrap up my presentation with what really is the foundation for how we do business at PSEG, and that is good corporate governance and a strong ethics program. At the heart of our sound corporate governance and ethics is our diverse experienced and engaged Board of Directors that is led by an independent director. And our Board is also refreshed on a regular basis with new perspectives to enhance its experience and diversity. This Board of Directors, combined with our strong and effective internal management structure provides the support and controls to ensure that our leading ESG program is sound and in effect and properly disclosed. And it also creates the good governance to regularly look at improving our -- and enhancing our ESG portfolio and disclosures. Let me close things out by summarizing what I covered today. First, as you heard from me, we have, over the last year, had great success through settlements and regulatory approvals in resolving quite a bit of regulatory uncertainty that we faced last year. Second, you've heard from many of our speakers today that our capital program is soundly tied back to state and federal policy, which is an important and effective strategy. Number three, you're hearing, and we're hearing that there is broad support for a long-term nuclear solution in the future. And we are committed and proud of our strong ethical way of doing business and our diverse and engaged Board of Directors, which is at the helm of our good corporate governance. Thank you very much. I'm next going to introduce Dan Cregg.

Terrific. Thank you, Tammy. Appreciate it. Thanks, everybody, for joining us today. I appreciate you being with us. Hope you enjoy the videos and everybody's remarks to date. I'll be pulling things together from an overall financial perspective, give a good look at the numbers, talk about some of the financial flexibility that we have talked about today, talk about some of the cost control and then wrap things up just with another look at the earnings and the dividends, a little bit more focus on that. Before I touch on those items, though, I just wanted to give a little bit of color and reflect on the company that you see on this slide, Slide 58. And it gives a good snapshot looking backwards and on the other side, looking forwards, with respect to what things are going to look like for us on the other side of the nonnuclear divestiture. So clearly, the business mix, you can see on top of this page, we go from what has been a growing regulated contribution now moving to 90%. And I think that's a meaningful number. That's a very significant number. As we have stepped up through time, Ralph Izzo showed a slide earlier, where you could see the percentage of our business that is regulated, we've gotten to that 90% range. I think that's very meaningful. I also think from the generation standpoint, we're going to dispose of almost 7,000 megawatts of fossil. So we'll be disposing of that merchant element of the business, have a better environmental profile as we move into offshore wind generation. And so that is a pretty significant change, as is on the nuclear side moving from nuclear facilities that have just recently gotten, what Tammy talked about, a $10 ZEC through 2025 and moving towards trying to see that support follow through for long-term nuclear. Middle of the slide, PSE&G. Yes, there's a $1 billion increase in the capital program from '21 to '25. I would argue more importantly is just the long runway that Tammy just showed you on the right side of that slide. So a solid program in place right now, but I think a good way to go into the future. And then lastly, financial strength, and you see that throughout the bottom of the slide, whether that's the increasing of the dividend -- increasing of the dividend increases that we'll see, a lowering of the FFO to debt threshold, the repurchase that we talked about earlier today as well as the overall growth of the company from an earnings perspective. So one of the key elements as well, if you think about the changes that are on either side of that before and after look is the sale of the nonnuclear business. And we've talked broadly to you about the use of those proceeds. We're going to go down a little bit more granular, put a finer point on it, and this Slide 59 does that for you. So all in all, if you think about the process that derived this, we talked that we were looking to have a very robust process as part of this transaction, and that is exactly what happened. We had a lot of interest in these assets. And as we look forward to complete the transaction, we've said to you that we've made all the filings to get those approvals. The fact of the matter is as we look at it for the date fourth quarter this year, first quarter next year, we do not see obstacles to be able to complete this transaction. I think it's just going to be that going through the regulatory approvals to get there. Aggregate amount of proceeds between both fossil and solar $2.15 billion after tax is about $350 million or so of tax included in there. And we have said to folks that we would be looking, first and foremost, to take out Power's debt. And that's what you see in the middle of this page, we have 2023 maturities. We have 2031 maturity. That 2031 maturity came from one of the inaugural issuances at Power in 2001. It was a 30-year debt at 8 and 5x. So we'll be glad to see that coupon leaving the overall financing structure. But we had said on September 8, we had given a 30-day notice. And so October 8, those debt -- the maturities on those dates. So all of the debt at Power, frankly, will be gone. That leaves us with about $0.5 billion. And you can see from here, that's how we size the share repurchase. And so maybe just one thing to pause. If you think about the nature of the transaction, this was not about repairing the balance sheet. This was a strategic move to look to remove volatility, to look to try to get those assets in a hands -- in the hands of somebody who would more appreciate the valuation and get a better valuation for those assets. So not being a balance sheet repair, we are taking out debt. We also have a little bit of equity removal and just pulling down on both sides of the cap structure. What you also see at the bottom of the page, there is the potential for Power to relever. And so, yes, Power will be left with no debt on the other side of this transaction and the redemptions, but there is still is the opportunity. And we say here that could be at a 40% FFO to debt ration, where we need to do that. Moving forward and beyond just the proceeds of the fossil sale, the overall financial profile of the company is strong. And this gives you some of that indication. Middle of the page you can see S&P's ratings for us A rated at the Utility; BBB rated at Power; and at Enterprise with stable ratings. Moody's, as you can see here a notch higher and in the case of the Utility 2 notches higher compared to S&P. And so from that higher approach a negative outlook, but again from that higher approach and then as we think as we think about how we would finance the company on a go-forward basis, the last column on the right gives you that indication. And so at the Utility continue to finance the business looking at the cap structure, the regulated cap structure of that business. So about 55% equity ratio. To the extent we're deploying capital in the business, we would deploy that capital, 45% from Utility debt and the balance of equity from cash flows from the business, potentially some Power debt as well. I just mentioned from the standpoint of Power, where we to move forward with the financing there, we think an FFO to debt of 40% is a very reasonable place to go. And then lastly, on the bottom right of the slide, you can see overall managing FFO to debt at the mid-teens. And so really, we tend to think about managing that at the BBB that S&P has us a little bit more so than the Baa1 that Moody's has us. And so that is why at the bottom of the page, we're showing a minimum threshold from the business mix, from what we see within the business and from discussions with S&P and Moody's. We see a minimum threshold of 13% from S&P and 14% from Moody's. And so bottom line, better business mix, lower FFO to debt thresholds and more financial flexibility. This next Slide 61, just gives you an indication of what that financial flexibility really looks like. And so on the left side of the page, you can see an FFO to debt percentage on the left side. And in yellow, it's those minimum thresholds that I just talked about. On top of that, in green really is where we would intend to run the business, more in the kind of a 15%, 16% FFO to debt ratio. To the right, we try to give an indication as to what that looks like from a debt capacity standpoint. So the excess debt capacity after funding the entire plan, after funding Ocean Wind 1. And without equity in the plan, we still see about $2 billion of excess debt capacity. If you think about how we would tend to invest that and if you think about what I just said about how we would fund utility investments, that $2 billion could manifest itself in about $3.5 billion of utility investments. So we have that dry powder 4 incremental utility investments, 4 offshore wind investments and potentially for a return of capital. So we have a $500 million buyback here. That certainly would be in our decision-making process on a go-forward basis. So coming off the balance sheet and really just looking to O&M. This slide gives an overall Enterprise view of O&M. You heard a little bit from Kim and how its managed that the Utility, Ralph touched a little bit on our focus on Power. This what's gives you the overall picture really flat across the 5 years and then you see the downdraft as the fossil business goes away. So it's something that we continually look at. And Ralph touched on it just a little bit, but I think that one of the absolute goals we had as we looked at the sale of the fossil business was to make sure that there were no stranded costs whatsoever that were lingering at Enterprise. And so that's how we approached it. The fact of the matter is there's elements of costs, maybe some of the things that Tammy talked about before. So some of our governance costs, the Board costs, then you got corporate secretary's cost. We are still going to have those kinds of costs to run the business with or without the fossil business. So some of those costs were going to get allocated to a business which is now gone. And so as we went through and designed what we would look like on the other side, we absolutely made it a point to make sure that none of the costs would remain or to the extent that they did remain, we would find offsets. In doing so, I think it was also extremely important to us to make sure that we were tough on positions but fair on people. And so as we've seen in the past as we retired some plants and as we've gone through some other changes in the business, one of the key focuses was to try to find the great talent that we had, continue to give them opportunities in other parts of the business. And we were very successful in doing that and moving in what Ralph LaRossa called earlier, a just transition as we change the business. So everything that we've talked about really manifests itself in our earnings. And I show on Page 63 here, '21 and 22's earnings. And I'm going to start really just by level setting 2021's guidance. And so far left of the slide, we started the year with earnings guidance of $3.35 to $3.55. We updated that guidance on our second quarter earnings call, lifting the bottom end of that guidance up by a $0.05, really just based upon the results that we have seen to date. And then 10 days later, yes, it was only 10 days later, we update it again. And it was 10 days later because that's when we reached agreement with ArcLight to sell fossil. And so at that point, the accounting standards are such where you would continue to book everything related to fossil, but you would no longer book depreciation we moved to held-for-sale accounting. And so that was the biggest driver on August 12, as you see here, where there was a lift on both sides of the guidance range of $0.10 per share. A little bit of interest savings as we move into the balance of the year, at the end of the year, but mainly it was the absence of fossil depreciation, while we're booking the balance of fossils activities. So that moved us to $3.50 to $3.65. As we move over to 2022, Ralph Izzo introduced earlier today our initiation of guidance for 2022 of $3.30 to $3.60. A bit of a reset year. You're going to have a full year of the transmission ROE settlement that Tammy talked a little bit about. You're going to have a full year without fossil and solar as being part of the operations. You're also going to see the Power interest being -- the debt being redeemed, so therefore, the interest is going away. But against that backdrop, you're also going to have what we have had for all the years that we've shown you in some of our historical results. You're going to have continued growth at the utility, continuing to grow that top line and the share repurchase will come through 2022 as well. So as we look at 2022 in a reset year, we kind of think about it as being about flat to our original guidance, which really of '21, which excludes that change in the absence of depreciation by virtue of the held-for-sale accounting for fossil. And then one other point, you'll also note 2022 is a $0.30 range. We started the year last year with a $0.20 range. Yes, we have less volatility in the business. We intend to narrow down that range as we get to the other side of the year. At that point, we'll know the discount rate, and we'll know the returns for pension and so on and so forth. So that's what you'll see as we go to 2021, but that's a snapshot of earnings guidance. On the other side of that reset year, which has that transmission ROE full year effect, which has the absence of fossil, we will again see growth in earnings, and this page gives you that indication. So we anticipate that growth is going to be more stable. The absence of the fossil business is going to help with that. Ralph LaRossa talked before about the conservation incentive program, dampening some of the volatility that we see at the Utility in addition to the formula rate that we have right now for transmission. But we also anticipate we're going to grow at a higher rate. And so one of the slides Ralph showed up front as well, it had our overall earnings over the last decade or so, but it also had the percentage of earnings that we got from the Utility. And if you do the math and take that apart, it would tell you that the Utility was growing faster than Enterprise was growing. The driver there, I think, as we know -- as we all know, was the declining power curve. And so what we're seeing now with the fossil business gone is the absence of some of that offset with respect to a fast-growing Utility. And so when we had more of that in the back end of the left side of this slide, you can see that our CAGR from 2018 to 2021. So over that 3-year period was 4.5%. But if I adjust for that depreciation item I talked about on fossil, it would take you down to 3.5%, and that compares to the 5% to 7% growth that we're showing on an ongoing basis. And then this Slide 65, you've seen most of what is on this slide before. Kim showed the rate base growth over time; Ralph showed it to you over the last 10 years compared to income, and now we're showing you the next 5. This is no different from what Kim showed you. What I do do, I show it again in part, frankly, because it's so critical to our growth going forward. But in part, I'm showing you 2022 to 2025 earnings going forward. And what we have been showing you is 2021 to 2025 rate base CAGR. So we've added to this slide and move forward to align the rate base CAGR with the earnings CAGR from the standpoint of both looking at 2022 to 2025. So as you step forward in the way that I just described, you step from a jumping off point of 2020 at about $22 billion of rate base to 2021 with $24 billion of rate base. So jumping off of that higher base brings your rate of growth down, as you can see, about 0.5%. But the range is the same, and that makes a lot of sense. We've really pulled off the front end of that period. And the front end is the period that has the most certainty with respect to that rate base growth. So same range, overall, but we just jumped to you so you could make that comparison '22 to '25. And that earnings growth really is shown on Slide 66. It reflects the 5% to 7% CAGR that we talked about from 2022 to 2025. It also shows you at PSE&G stand-alone that same rate of growth from 5% to 7% 2022 to 2025 is in place. It's driven by a business that's 90% regulated. Overall, from an Enterprise perspective, it's driven by the capital plan that we've talked about. It's driven by the contemporaneous and newer contemporaneous nature of the investments we're making. But on top of that, a rate case in 2025. So to the extent that we do have some capital that awaits our rate case, 2025 trues that up as well. And our first initial look at that rate case, it's early, but it still does look like a very meaning -- manageable rate case for us to be able to work our way through. It's also going to rely upon cost control. And so we'll continue to manage costs. One of the things that Ralph said upfront was that we have managed our pension assets very, very well, 97% funded as we step our way through August. And so we will start to pull back and have a little bit of a more conservative view within those trust investments. And so the overall cost plan, we'll manage that as we step through time. And again, we anticipate funding the plan without any need for external equity. On top of that, if you think about the debt capacity slide that I showed you earlier, there is incremental capacity for incremental investments. And we would anticipate, again, that's going to be coming through incremental utility investments. We have always been able to find a way through our 5-year capital plan to lift the back as we get closer, as we know more about some things that are happening. And Kim talked a lot about those opportunities that would be out there as did Tammy. Offshore wind opportunities remain. We do not have offshore wind earnings baked into this 2025 year. So the offshore wind opportunities, Ralph talked about it from a transmission standpoint, from a generation standpoint. Those remain ahead of us. And I also talked a little bit about the potential to do share repurchases and have a return of capital to shareholders. So we'll continue to look at that. We'll also continue to keep our eye on Washington and what's going on from a PTC perspective, from a transmission ROE perspective as well with a 50 basis point adder. So all in all, I think a really busy year where we've taken a lot of the uncertainties out of the business and provided a much more stable ability to grow on an ongoing basis. And all that manifests itself into dividend. So if you take a look at where we are, the box underwrites as what we've said for a very long time. We have an opportunity for consistent and sustainable dividend growth into the future. And we have delivered on that. We've delivered on that for over a decade. Frankly, we've delivered on that for 114 years now of paying a dividend. So our predecessors have served us well in that vein as well. And we're very pleased to be able to say that in 2022, we will increase that rate of increase from $0.08 per share per year to $0.12 per share. Our payout ratio, we've also laid that on the bottom. We jumped from 57% to 63%. Our dividend is up, and we talked about it being a rebase year where we're basically going to be flat. That's the driver for that. But frankly, it continues to be covered about 140% by the utility. It's about in line with our peers. And frankly, if I think about the business mix going forward, that's an entirely appropriate and reasonable payout ratio that we would expect to see from that perspective. So with that, I think that takes us to some key takeaways, and I think we're going to take a couple of minute break. We're going to rearrange ourselves here. We're all going to come up and do a quick Q&A session for everybody. So thank you for listening, and we'll be right back. [Break]

Hi, everyone. We're going to begin our live Q&A session for the members of the financial community. [Operator Instructions]

For those of you who don't believe that fate has a sense of humor. Carlotta 4 times said we're about to begin our live Q&A session. Also, I think I'm going to just check with our technical folks, there's a slide of #68 that I'm glad is up there. And if you -- the participants in this webinar can see that slide, what I'd say to you is that while the other 67 slides are very important, this one encapsulates our main messages of the day. And the management team spent countless minutes and hours trying to get this right in on one slide. And I've just been told that during my description of this slide, we had technical difficulties and I wasn't audible and Dan for reasons that all the other universe can understand decided to skip the slides. So after all that time, we didn't cover this slide for you in its summary fashion as we had intended to. But let me just spend a minute on it because it is really important, right? So PSEG is now 90% regulated. And it's not just any regulated company. It's public service electric and gas, which has just been an outstanding operational and financial performer throughout its history and especially highlighted in its recent history. And the remaining 10%, at least in the year 2022 has 90% of its gross margin already hedged. And as a zero-carbon or low carbon, we still drive vehicles and the emit and the carbon out of our tail pipes and things like that. But it is as much aligned with the future of environmental, social and governance issues as any company could possibly be. Kim talked about $1 billion expansion that just starts the last mile infrastructure investment program continues the aging infrastructure replacement that is so important and has a very long runway for us as well as continued our path of investing in that cleaner energy future, both of those investment opportunities and aging infrastructure and the clean energy future are instrumental and widely accepted by public policy throughout New Jersey and in Washington and within our customer communities. Tammy talked some about the specifics of the near-term policy decisions that are being made in Washington and that were recently made in New Jersey. And now we just continue to make sure that we are aligned with that. And Dan translated all of that for you into a $3.30 to $3.60 a share for 2022 with a 5% to 7% growth rate coming off of a clean 2022, one that is free of the nonnuclear generation, is accepting of the reduced FERC transmission, allowed ROE, giving us the confidence in the quality of those earnings to raise the indicative dividend rate, continuing that 114-year history of paying dividends every year. Still returning capital to shareholders in the form of a repurchase, enhancing our financial flexibility at the lower FFO to debt ratios that the clean and more predictable business mix allows us to operate at and being able to do the full utility capital program as well as the 25% of the Ocean Wind investment without any additional need for new equity while repurchasing shares and paying the higher dividend. So just a fortress balance sheet and exciting prospects going forward. So in this room, my voice was going up and down. Hopefully, everyone out outside the room was able to hear what we had to say. But I think, Carlotta, we're ready for the first question, if the audience is ready to ask.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question is from the line of Shar Pourreza with Guggenheim Partners.

Just a couple of quick questions here. First, Ralph, looking at sort of the long term EPS guidance of 5% to 7% consolidated and the 5% to 7% at the Utility level. Could we get a better sense sort of for the drivers that move be in that range, they can particular how the 2 bridge given sort of that forward curve backwardation and potential impacts on nuclear? I guess what sort of offsets you potentially have there, it could be a simply as your taken a bit of a conservative bend as we're thinking about the Utility guide?

Yes. I'd say that the #1 driver for rate, Shar, is that 90% of the company, like Dan I think pointed out that the rate base CAGR looks like at 6% to 7.5%. Kim and Ralph talked about our own and control, our new customer and low growth. Those are small numbers, like load growth is essentially 0. O&M growth on retail is about 2%, if I remember correctly. So that creates a bit of a drag on the rate base growth. And I think Tim also talked about the fact that 90% of that rate base growth is contemplaneous. So there's a 10% regulatory lag there. So the one thing we were hoping to do today was never have to talk about the forward curve, and we had a 10%, but I respect the fact that people are still interested. So the overwhelming part of the 5% to 7% EPS CAGR is driven by that rate base CAGR. Yes, to the forward curve, clearly, we've all seen some strong improvement in it of late. And as we've said to folks, we don't try to outguess the market. We don't have a separate point of view in the market. It would not be unreasonable to assume that we have hedged a little bit more than we might have normally going into that curve. However, I will point out that the depth of that forward curve is not as robust as perhaps we or other of our investors would like it to do. So the length and depth that one can take advantage of in terms of that price movement is not exactly robust. We're not going to start giving CAGR's subsidiary-by-subsidiary, but suffice to say that whatever the CAGR is on that 10%. And part of that 10% is a fixed contract on Long Island. And that's not going to move the overall parent needle much. Dan, do you want to add anything to that?

No, I think what you said, Ralph is right. And I think at the back end, you're going to see a little bit more open on the front end, which is more where the prices have moved, you're going to see us more head. So a little bit of moderation on that front.

Got it. And then just looking at sort of that investment capacity on Slide 61. I want to just get a little bit of a sense on the push and takes on how that capacity gets utilized. I know obviously, you mentioned more return of capital. So I guess, maybe a question for Dan is when you sort of rank as you kind of see the opportunity set today between organic spend versus further buybacks versus even an acceleration of the dividend or it could be sort of all 3 of them, right? And just remind us, does that capacity include any potential proceeds from a Power relevering?

Okay. It's Dan, it couldn't, right? If you -- basically, if you think about it, Shar, it is capacity. So the question really is about the debt capacity and the uses that is capacity vis-a-vis an FFO debt target. So -- and it's an Enterprise target. So irrespective of where it's coming from, you would see that kind of capacity. And very simply, I think the way that I would describe it is, first and foremost, utility, incremental utility investments on the regulated side, growing that part of the business. Secondarily, opportunities, which admittedly maybe a little bit lumpy as you work your way through some of the offshore wind opportunities. But return on capital is always there for us as an opportunity as well.

And again, just to add that investment capacity is beyond the $15 billion to $17 billion of CapEx.

And the next question is from the line of Fleishman with Wolfe.

I just want to make sure you could hear me. So I guess just a quick question. This 5% to 7% growth rate, is it kind of steady over the '22 to '25 period? Is there any kind of shaping to it or anything like that?

So Steve, I don't want to start giving year-by-year earnings guidance, but it's not a straight line. I don't want to suggest it as this. There's a little bit of a start-up issue, right, with some of the additional $1 billion that we're putting into a utility that we'll need regulatory approval sometime later next year. So it's not -- I wouldn't call it formulate one year after the next. By same token, it's not a step function in 2025, please. I didn't mean to suggest that at all. But -- so that's not perfectly straight line, but it's not a step function in the out years.

Okay. And then just on the things that are kind of not in the plan as of yet, such as offshore wind and I guess, the nuclear PTC, it looks like the transmission is more would it be by '25, it would be later per the schedule you gave. But just when are -- I mean, nuclear PTC obviously has to pass, but on the offshore wind, how should we think about when that would transition to be part of your plans and any sizing of it?

Yes, that's fair. So first of all, the offshore wind Ocean Wind 1 would basically be a full year in 2025, but the earnings contribution is so de minimis at that point that it's for all intents and purposes, not in these numbers. The transmission, while that would be operational in 2020, 2029. There would be the potential for AFUDC to creep into the '24, '25 numbers, but that's not in here either. In terms of the nuclear PTC, the current conversation in Washington is that those would have 5-year durations. And we would expect them to go into effect upon passage which would be either '22 or '23, depending on when you think Congress might be able to get its act given that, as you correctly pointed out, is not in there either. So there's a variety of opportunities that we chose to. I wouldn't call it conservative, I just thought that we couldn't bank on them just yet, so we didn't think that they should be included. In the further category of fate has a sense of humor, Carlotta's flashing signs, and she doesn't realize I'm going to tell it now that she's in direct line with a spotlight that's burning by retina. So Carlotta, if you might want to put those sides up somewhere else, that would be great. Thank you. It's just me. It's just the angle I've got. So hopefully, that helps, Steve.

Your next question is from the line of Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

Starting off with regards to the CapEx that you laid out there, is there any early feedback on your last mile program that you can share with us? And then just wanted to see if you maybe able touch on the prospects for extending in CEF-EE and GSMP. And what could these extensions look like in your mind?

It's funny when you hear other people describe CEF, GSMP. You begin to realize how much we talk to people. I'm going to just take a simple water and let Ralph LaRossa and Kim Hanemann answer that.

Yes, sure. So I think on the last mile, we've had some preliminary discussions regarding that with policymakers. I think the focus of responding to the last storm of Ida here in New Jersey has really got people thinking about what more we can do to continue to make the grid more resilient, to make our gas infrastructure more resilient. So I expect there to be a lot of positive feedback once we lay out the details of that plan. It has not been done yet. We're pulling that all together. Our GSMP program completely aligns again with the state policy, specifically on greenhouse gases, and we're full in on that. And I believe that our test replacement plan just can't go fast enough. So that all sort of tied together. And really, provides us with an opportunity to create some jobs at a time when there's clearly a need for that from an economic standpoint for the state. So all positive on that front. At Clean Energy, we've been moving along. We've started to bring on a number of our contractors and in-house personnel to meet the program needs. And I think as we continue to prove to folks that we have the ability to actually execute on that program, you're going to see another desire to create more jobs on a clean economy from the state of New Jersey. So all moving in the right direction. The last piece will be the electric vehicle infrastructure. And I think you've seen the state again, talk about that quite a bit. I see the goal that we play there will be more like we play on the streetlight program, where we provide the infrastructure and backbone and that the last, last piece of the infrastructure being the cash register for these electric vehicle plug-ins, will probably be done by others.

Tammy, would you add?

No. it's okay.

If I'm not mistaken, Superstorm Sandy and that was Hurricane Ida were among the top 5 storms in terms of damage for the state in Jersey, if not top 5 or top 10. And while they were not identical, the similarity in terms of their flooding, were strong, one was more tidal one, the other was more rain related. But in Sandy, if I'm not mistaken, we lost about 90% of our customers. And because of the improvements we made in Ida, we lost a little bit under 10% of our customers. So it actually led to complements from both regulatory leaders and elected officials in New Jersey, recognizing the value of the investments we made. Of course, you hate to have something that results in 30 lives lost such as Ida did in New Jersey be an opportunity to point out the rhythm of certain investments, but nonetheless it was.

You next question is from the line of Durgesh Chopra with Evercore ISI.

Guys, can I just go back to the reconciling the rate base growth and the EPS growth at the facility.

Sure.

So the rate base growth is like 6% to 7.5%. And then if you tack on some sort of 500 million share buyback to that, the utility should be growing either at that rate or higher. So I'm just -- is that a conservative utility guidance? Or there is some regulatory lag there? If you could just sort of touch on that again for us.

Dan can go into the details, but I think the main levers, Durgesh, as you pointed out, are there's a modest 10% regulatory lag, and there is O&M growth. And there's been a complete absence of load growth. But, Dan, if you want to get more specific than that.

No, I think that's exactly right, Ralph. And if you look -- maybe one place to look is the IIP and the design of the IIP is to have some what's not a stipulated base that is part of the clause program, part of the spend program. And then the balance works its way through the clause that stipulated base component gets trued up into the rate case. And so as you move through time, you will recover it for that. But it's somewhat have a little bit of O&M and it's some of that regulatory treatment. In short term it as recovery, but better it's there.

Understood. So I think the benefit, I think that it's a regulatory lag O&M and the other capital, does that makes sense? Maybe just quick follow-up. How should we think about the timing of the 500 million buyback throughout the 5-year plan or 4-year plan?

Yes, all we've been willing to say is it's contingent on the close of the fossil sale. The exact mechanism will pursue. We haven't mentioned here. Dan, do you want to say any more about that?

Maybe Ralph is exactly right. And maybe just to highlight, a little bit of a difference between the timing of the dividend and the timing of the buybacks. So what we have said is that calendar year 2022, for calendar year, you will see that 12% indicative increase come through. But given that its use of proceeds for that extra $0.5 billion, that's pending the close of the fossil sales. So we said fourth quarter of this year, first quarter of next year. So some of that timing is a little bit uncertain. But on the other side of that, you should see that, and we will move very swiftly after that.

Your next question is the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Bank of America.

Hopefully, you guys can hear me. It's a little echoing.

Yes, we can hear Julien. How are you?

Excellent. So perhaps just at the outset here, can you talk -- try to bring back several of the pieces met here in the Q&A already. But can you talk about what is the desired amount of latitude in your program? Obviously, front end loading this buyback, I mean, how did you decide on 500 million versus, say, a larger number? Is there anything that you're sort of concretely waiting to materialize or not for going back to the plan and saying we could do more buybacks. Again, I'm not going to put you too much in that direction. Just trying to understand what the flex points that you're thinking about, given the amount of latitude you have versus the required metrics historically described at the agency.

Good question, Julien. We tried to lay that out in one of my earlier slides. So we gave more color and more granularity with respect to the equity use of proceeds from the fossil and the solar sale. So that -- we waterfall that down to get aggregate proceeds of $2.15 billion. The $1.6 billion was the takeout of the debt and the related make-whole related to that debt. And so 500 million, I think, is pretty clean sized based upon what a from the standpoint of a true. Prospectively, yes, there is incremental debt capacity. We try to lay that out as well and give an idea of magnitude. That's after the capital program after everything that's in the plan. And that is capital that is available to us for the very use is one of which it is a buyback. But I think the concept that some of the things that Ralph LaRossa talked about is there are some sizable opportunities for us in offshore wind, but they're not terribly known. And so I think, yes, we tended to find incremental utility opportunities as we walk through time. We could probably try to anticipate what those may be, probably a little bit harder on the offshore wind side. So what we try to do is lay out the magnitude of availability to us in that capacity and then layout some of the opportunity we have.

Right. And if you don't mind, can you talk about the size of some of those needs for offshore, just to correspondingly, a follow-up on that last question. I mean you talked about transmission here as being $1 billion opportunity. Is that award presumably all or nothing, is that a 100% you guys? Just how do you think about that offshore transmission piece but also altogether, the capital potentially allocated offshore coming up here as you think about the supply.

Sure. I would let Ralph speak to that.

Julien, so we proposed about 7 different alternatives as part of that. I think the BPU has been pretty hopeful in their desire to basically pick and choose among the different options that multiple bidders are providing. We're pretty confident in the quality of our bids, both from a technical standpoint as well as from an economic standpoint. So we think the BPU will be happy with our submittals. But I think there still is an opportunity for them to pick and choose among that. As far as the actual offshore wind investments, those are something that we're just a 25% partner in those projects and we really lead that to our partner and then disclose the capital investments there.

Just generally, we were storing of, I think we have publicly said that offshore wind can be about 4,000 [indiscernible]. So if you look at Skipjack alone, that's a 700-megawatt expansion. So that's about $3 billion depending upon what share that we took. So these are all 10-figure opportunities that additional investment capacity could be reserved for.

Your next question is from the line of Paul Fremont with Mizuho. [Operator Instructions] Your next question is from the line of Michael Lapides with Goldman Sachs.

Real quickly, just when thinking about the stub of what's left with PS Power, just the nuclear plants. Do you expect O&M there to face inflationary pressures? Or do you see O&M there being -- do you have the ability to kind of save or incremental cost savings to make the nuclear plants more efficient from a cost perspective over time over multiple years?

Yes, Michael, Ralph LaRossa will give an answer that.

Michael, so I think what we've -- what I tried to portray there is we've really held our Power O&M flat over time, and we're not going to be burdened by any stranded costs that are left over from the fossil business. So I expect that to continue. It's really been enabled by -- while it's small, it's only -- I think we identified on the slide about $150 million of capital that we're spending in our nuclear plants. It's a small amount, but that focused investment really enables us to avoid maintenance by picking and choosing the right facilities that we're going to replace and it's been very successful for us, and I expect the team to continue to do that.

Got it. My other question is kind of thinking about the offshore wind. How do you mean these are -- this country, we haven't built a lot of really sizable, scalable offshore wind facilities. How do you think about mitigating the capital spend risk or the capital you have to deploy into the project, if you take stakes in Ocean Wind 2 or others and like lots of large-scale energy infrastructure projects, they face either time line or budget issues? How do you protect yourself from that?

So Michael, it's Ralph again. So I would say, first of all, you pick a really good partner, and we think we've done that with Ørsted. They have had a great success, and I think they've documented that in many of their presentations. So the offshore development and the structures that are there, we're relying on their expertise. From the standpoint of actually bringing the power onshore, we've got a lot of expertise. You know that from our transmission build, but what I don't think people realize is the amount of that work that was actually done in inner water. I may not be that transparent folks, but just the crossing of North Bay as an example, was a major effort that we undertook and we're very successful in that and met all of our budget expectation. so I'm not really concerned about it from our standpoint. And I think our partner has had a very good track record.

The next question is from David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley.

I was wondering if you could maybe speak a little bit to the future of nuclear here and your thoughts strategically around your long-term ownership of the plants. If you do see the federal PTC come through later this year. Has that announced is that a long-term digit bringing for the plants? Or what would the next step for you at that point?

Sure, David. So I'll start there, Tammy, if you want to add anything about what's going on, feel free. So we've pretty consistently said we're viewing nuclear in 3 phases. And due to some terrific work done by the regulatory team and the nuclear team Phase 1 has been successfully concluded. That was the unanimous version to give us the maximum ZEC award this past April. That gives us a 4-year runway to try to secure the long-term future of nuclear. And that really has 2 components to it. And we've been doing things 3 years at a time, simply does not work their capital-intensive business like nuclear, especially when the state's Energy Master Plan recognizes that keeping those plants around at least until 2050 is the lowest cost path to pursue the state's carbon aspiration. So one is to extend the duration. Second is to change the $10 ZEC, notwithstanding some recent run-up in energy prices, we do think that the longer-term energy price forecast is going to be one that makes $10 an adequate to earn our cost of capital on those plants. And we've been exploring 3 pathways to secure that long-term future. One has been a state FRR. That's a little bit in the balance right now, and Tammy could speak to that in a moment. The second has been the federal solution. And I must tell you, if you had asked me that question 6 months ago, I would have handicap that at some small positive number, but pretty down close to 0. Nowadays, not any longer. I am absolutely convinced that anybody who believes that climate change is real in the house or the senator and the administration realizes that we cannot achieve our targets without the preservation of the existing fleet. So I'm cautiously optimistic that the PTC will become law. This is going to be a very important week in Congress with respect to that, and obviously, a whole myriad of other issues. Once we secure that long-term future, whatever that turns out to be, then our third and final phase would be to see whether or not we're the correct natural long-term owners of those assets. And that will be determined by whether or not the company continues to get the kind of valuation that I think it deserves as a stable, virtually fully regulated ESG leader, which I believe should set us at a premium to the rest of the space and really set the target, set the standard for premium valuation. But that Phase III is a little bit off because we've got a lot of work to do here in Phase II. So, Tammy, I don't know if you want to talk about FRRs or activity down in Washington.

And the only thing I'll add to your explanation, Ralph, is that we really are very encouraged by the broad support and recognition of the value of nuclear both in the state and at the federal level. And that recognition really builds the options and make a variety of options available of the market. So it's still too early to think which that will be, whether it will be a nuclear PTC or a combination of the nuclear PTC and some state support. And as Ralph said, there is also the potential for an FRR mechanism. New Jersey put that on hold to see how some other federal and regional efforts develop. But we're very encouraged, and we'll see what happens in the next 12 months or so.

The next question is from the line of Paul Fremont with Mizuho.

I guess my first question is, does the company plan on updating hedge guidance similar to the hedge guidance that you gave when you had the fossil assets?

Yes. So we're just talking about that. I guess we haven't done that in a year. I lean towards yes, but in the absence of giving you specific numbers, Paul, you should just think about us doing it ratably over a 3-year period as we've done in the past. We're going to be a little bit more hedged right now just given where the forward curve is, of course, recognize that our plants don't operate at a liquid hub. So there is basis considerations that one must factor in. But Dan, if you want to expand on that, please?

Yes, I think the simplest way to think about it, Paul, it is in a consistent 3-year ratable hedging within the band and in terms of instances when you may see some higher prices, you may anticipate as being higher than that. And so this would be one of those times that would be a natural thing to think about. So we can continue to provide some updates to that. But again, the nature of the smaller aspect of the company is one of the rationales with respect to less of that. But we'll continue to provide some at on that for sure.

Okay. And I guess I'm really sort of focusing on reference prices. So obviously, we have a sense of the percentages, but we have no sense of what price you're locking in?

And I guess we have done that in the past, and we can revisit that. I think Ralph did show a slide we talked about 2022. It was just a couple of hours ago. I don't think you had a dollar figures also...

Right. That was a...

Okay. No, I appreciate that feedback on -- yes, the goal here was to not spend the bulk of our time on that 10% if that creates a distraction and we'll be a little bit more visible on that front.

And then sort of the second question for me is given that we've seen a lot of near-term inflation and significant increases in forward electric and gas prices. You talked about sort of a 2% a year bill impact. Does that change given the high -- particularly the high cost of commodity gas and electricity for next year?

So again, it's not -- we don't want to carve in stone that is 2% every year. It's a trend over the life of our capital programs. And Tim, I think, showed that slide where we actually come in just slightly under that 2% CAGR per year. I think you're referring to some of the spikes that have taken place in the EU and in the U.K. in particular. Of course, just given the kind of mechanisms we have here in New Jersey like BGS, we haven't seen anywhere near that kind of inflation. I don't think we want to be a company that goes out and advocates for the kind of run-up in prices that have been seen elsewhere, even with the ramp in natural gas prices, our BGSS Group has done a good job of controlling costs, saw the of Ralph or you or Kim want to add anything to that. But we're not seeing the kind of cost pressures that I think many of us have read about in Europe to see.

I would just add from our combined customer base, most of it is -- most of our customers aren't combined. And for the gas piece of our business, the supply is about 40% of the bill. So we are keeping our eye on it, but we've also mitigated it dramatically because of our ability to store our gas, and we've done that for Utility customers. So that's in place. Obviously, the front end of term is up, but the back end is down, and we hope to be able to continue to use that storage to use that out for customers.

And is that 40% also apply to the electricity side?

On the commodity piece, I don't have that number at my hand to get that.

Paul, I think the way to think about it is if you think about BGS, which Ralph referenced, not everybody is on a BGS rate, but that is a lot of the customers. And you think about what that rate is made up of, it's an auction that happened last February that February before and the February before. So all of that is prior to this rate. Future auctions are going to have an impact on what happens from a BGS customer standpoint. And so the sustainability of prices that we're seeing now, we're going to have something to say about it and how bidders and BGS might think about that sustainability, we have something to say about it. So I think we're a long way from seeing that much of an increase in the bill, but we'll keep our eye on.

If you are going to see, I think, to your point, Dan, a reduction in the capacity component of that BGS, you're going to see an increase in energy component, but it is going to be a third contributor. We -- I don't think we've talked much of that the impact of our ROE settlement with the ratepayer advocate. That was -- is that $150 million or $180 million?

Yes, it's in that ballpark.

I think it's between $150 million and $200 million and revenue requirement reduction where we talked about the $0.10 to $0.12 a share impact, but the customer benefit is sizable.

Your next question is from Jonathan Arnold with Vertical Research Partners.

A quick one on just -- I want to make sure I understand what you said about the financing on and earnings on Ocean Wind 1. I think you said it's de minimis through the period in earnings.

Because of the timing of the project and the -- and the expectation that right now, that would be an ITC-supported subsidy, lack of a better word?

Okay. So and my question is really, though, is it in the CapEx number, the $17 billion whole CapEx number. Because I think I heard Dan say that it is factored into your $2 billion of incremental debt capacity.

The answer is kind of, Jonathan, but I'll explain that. That investment will be equity and earnings, so it would not show up on our balance sheet as capital. So it's not in that capital number, but it's accounted for within the numbers that we're showing.

Okay. So that investment, whenever it gets quantified is sort of in guidance effectively?

It's paid for but not contributing, but it's not in the capital number exactly.

You have no idea how much we argue over that footnote, Jonathan. I'm so glad you asked, John, that question.

Okay. And then one also just on -- just going -- I realize you don't want to spend a lot of time talking about the margin exposure. But is the 90% hedging a '22 specific disclosure. So what you...

Yes, that's -- no, that's '22 specific. Because as we said, you should think of the base load energy component is more ratably hedged. And we haven't had the next capacity auction to carry us out into the second and third year.

So it's 90%, including capacity. Is that correct or...

You're absolutely right, John.

Yes. That's right. So that's capacity energy.

So just thinking more holistically than just the energy piece.

Correct.

Yes. It's exactly right.

Okay. Because I'm going to ask you because you're typically 100% hedged on energy in the second quarter, any given year that's going into that. And then if I may just one another thing -- presentationally in terms of the guidance, we are on that. It looks like you're now sort of holding the parent drag of the financing, and we'll have you into the --- in with the -- I guess, to carbon infrastructure. But will you now also argue that it's effectively on the Utility. And you do the math just on the pace of the guidance, getting sort of 13% nonutility. And I feel like the way you're allocating the parent and potentially exactly making it would actually be a little higher than that. So maybe that's a '22 thing and with sort of growth towards the 90% or maybe I'm not seeing that correct?

Dan, yes.

I'd have to -- I'm not sure I fully follow your math, Jonathan. Maybe we can just take a couple of minutes offline and see what you're talking about.

Your next question is from the line of James Thalacker with BMO Capital Markets.

Maybe just a follow-up question for you, Dan. Clearly, as we move through the end of this year in 2022, there's going to be some FFO loss from the sale of the possible assets and with transmission settlement. But obviously, you're paying down all the debt of power. When I do a rough cut, it looks like you're going to be sort of in the low to sort of mid-teens FFO to debt. Could you give us kind of an idea of how you're seeing where you are sort of on a normalized basis in 2022?

Yes. On that one slide I did show where we had the debt capacity on the right-hand side of the slide and the FFO to debt on the left-hand side. We showed the thresholds, but we also showed where we would anticipate being. And I think I said we'd be in that 15% to 16% range as you look through the plan. So I think your description fits within that broader description, James.

Okay. Because I'm assuming that you're not actually going to have some incremental FFO as you do with spend, but I just want to -- from a starting point, I just want to make sure you're kind of that base. And then the -- just as a follow-up question on that, what factors are you -- I guess, are you guys weighing as you decide whether or not you'll relever power since obviously, it's going to impact your consolidated metric ultimately?

Yes. It will impact, James, but it will be part of it. So what we have done historically is just taking a look at what the most efficient place is for us to finance the business to the extent that we have debt capacity at the parent debt capacity of Power. Increasingly, some of that availability at the parent has been the most efficient. And so we have moved a little bit more in that direction. And then we'll frankly continue to do exactly the same thing. We'll look for the most efficient location to finance. Just knowing full well that there are those cash flows that sit at the Power level, there is the potential to put some debt back on. I can tell you it will be 5 8s, which is again originally from the inaugural financing, but there is potential. And we'll just look to what makes the most efficient sense to finance the business. The other thing I would say as we do step forward and have some size to be determined of an offshore wind business as well, that long-term fixed price revenue stream or regulated revenue stream from the standpoint of transmission, not to say it's in the Utility necessarily is still be in the regulated revenue stream also presents an opportunity to finance there on time.

And your final question comes from the line of Sophie Karp with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

So what has been discussed already in the -- most of my questions have been answered, but maybe a couple of kind of housekeeping items here. First, just looking at your top level EPS growth guidance, right, I'm going back to Shar's question. Is the consolidated and the utility both grow at the 5% to 7% range? Basically, it seems like what you're saying is that you will have similar growth in the remaining merchant business, which is the nuclear plants. So just want to make sure I hear you clearly, what you're saying there that this is -- do you see growth there? And where would that be coming from?

Yes. So I tried real hard to avoid breaking both of them down. And as simply said that the primary driver was that 6% to 7.5% CAGR in rate base, and that was really the bulk of the earnings growth. I did hint that, or I guess I explicitly stated that we were a little bit more hedged than normal, and we have some pretty bullish prices in energy markets right now. But I didn't -- and I think Dan also mentioned that it takes a lot for that 10% of the business to move the parent. And remember, Sophie, that 10% of the business includes Long Island, which is nowadays, I think that's got to close to the $0.10 or thereabouts. So if you take $0.10 as a fraction of $3.45, which is a midpoint, that's 3% of the 10%. So even big swings in our expectations for that carbon -- zero-carbon generation infrastructure and other category. It won't move the 5% to 7% of the parent within the accuracy of the crystal ball that we have. So Dan, do you want to...

Just think about the utility driving enterprise and the balance of the business is small to the point that it's really not going to move the needle. That's how you should think about. So...

All right. Got it. And then...

It's not us that's cutting you folks off. But okay, so I'm being told that, that was our last question. So I do want to thank you. I know that we would have preferred to have been able to do this in person. We thought for your convenience and candidly, for your wellness and safety that a virtual presentation would have been better. I understand we did have some technical hiccups, I apologize for those. Carlotta, Dan and I look forward to seeing many of you throughout this week at one of the industry's leading conferences. Carlotta, Dan and Ralph LaRossa will see you at EEI. I will be off to COP26 trying to save the planet with the PSEG at the forefront of doing that. So with that, please, again, thank you for being here. We look forward to describing and talking with you further about our 90% regulated business mix, our robust capital program, our zero-carbon operations, our fortress balance sheet, our 5% to 7% growth rate in EPS, our increased dividend and our return of capital to shareholders to the $500 million share repurchase program. Thanks, everyone, for being here. I look forward to seeing you. Take care.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.