Pedro J. Pizarro
President and Chief Executive Officer at Edison International
Well, thank you, Sam. And before I start commenting on the quarter, I wanted to note the senior leadership changes that we announced last week, Kevin Payne, SCE's President and CEO, plans to retire on December 1, and this is after 35 years with the company. Kevin's had a profound impact at the utility, most particularly with its customer-centric focus, leading our wildfire risk mitigation efforts and advocating for and advancing the company's clean energy strategy. While I am going to miss my good friend very much, I am delighted with our deep bench: Steve Powell will succeed Kevin as President and CEO; and Jill Anderson, currently Senior Vice President of Customer Service, will succeed Steve as EVP of Operations.
Promoting Edison talent will ensure a seamless transition, and I believe that Steve and Jill both bring exceptional experience to their new roles. I know that a number of you have already met Steve and Jill and many of you will have an opportunity to meet them next week at EEI's Financial Conference as well. Turning to the quarter. Today, Edison International reported core earnings per share of $1.69 compared to $1.67 a year ago. This comparison is not meaningful because during the quarter, SCE recorded a true-up for the final decision in track one of its 2021 general rate case, which is retroactive to January 1. Reflecting the year-to-date performance and our outlook for the remainder of the year, we are narrowing our 2021 EPS guidance range to $4.42 to $4.52.
We are also reiterating our longer-term EPS growth target of 5% to 7% through 2025. Maria will discuss our financial performance in detail in her report. Now starting with past events. SCE today announced two updates related to the 2017 and 2018 wildfire and mudslide events. Page three in the slide deck provides an overall summary. First, SCE revised the best estimate of potential losses to $7.5 billion from $6.2 billion. As we have mentioned in our continuing communications on this topic, we evaluate the best estimate quarterly. As part of the ongoing and very complex litigation process, we diligently consider new information that arises to provide all of you with our best estimate.
Based on additional information across a broad set of claim types collected during the quarter, along with an agreement with the CPUC Safety and Enforcement Division, or SED, which I'll talk about in a minute, SCE revised its estimate of the total potential losses. While the total estimate increased this quarter, SCE continued to make meaningful progress, settling claims and completed approximately $485 million of settlements. SCE has now settled about 70% of the estimated exposure for the 2017 and 2018 events. I want to emphasize that we do not need equity above our previously disclosed 2021 financing plan to fund the higher estimated losses. Maria will address this topic later on the call.
Second, the utility reached an agreement with the SED to resolve its investigations into the 2017 and 2018 wildfire and mudslide events and three other 2017 wildfires. As we have previously disclosed, the SCD has conducted investigations to assess SCE's compliance with applicable rules and regulations in areas affected by the Thomas, Koenigstein, and Woolsey Fires. It was possible that CPUC would initiate formal enforcement proceedings to pursue fines and penalties for alleged violations though we were unable to estimate the magnitude or the timing as part of our best estimate. The recently executed agreement, which is subject to CPUC approval, would resolve that uncertainty.
The agreement has a total value of $550 million, composed of about $110 million fine, $65 million of shareholder-funded safety measures and an agreement by SCE to waive its right to seek cost recovery for $375 million of uninsured claims payments out of the $5.2 billion total in the current best estimate. In the SCD agreement, SCE did not admit imprudence, negligence or liability with respect to the 2017 and 2018 wildfire and mudslide events and will seek rate recovery of prudently incurred actual losses in excess of available insurance other than for the $375 million waived under the SED agreement. While SCE disputes a number of the alleged violations reaching an agreement puts one additional uncertainty behind us.
Let me now address the Southern California wildfire season. SCE continues to make solid progress on the execution of its Wildfire Mitigation Plan or WMP and its PSPS action plan. SCE has installed over 1,000 miles of covered conductor year-to-date, bringing the total to 2,500 miles since program inception. Over the past three years, the utility has replaced about 25% of its overhead distribution power lines in high fire risk areas with covered conductor. SCE has also performed another annual cycle of inspections in high fire risk areas, supplemented with additional inspections targeting dry fuel areas.
This resulted in approximately 195,000 assets, undergoing 360-degree inspections in SCE's high-power risk area. SCE also continues to be on track to meet most of its goals outlined in our WMP by end of the year. And the scorecard is shown on page four of the slide deck. All these ongoing mitigation actions continue to strengthen our confidence in our utilities overall improved risk profile with respect to wildfires. Turning to page five. We highlight the metrics we showed you last quarter, which are proof points of how SCE believes it has reduced wildfire risk for its customers.
We have added an additional metric. Looking back at past wildfire events and considering the utility's current PSPS protocols, we can't quantify the damage that would have been prevented. Using red flag warning days as a proxy for when the utility would use PSPS today, SCE would have prevented over 90% of the structures damaged or destroyed for fires larger than 1,000 acres associated with its infrastructure. However, we think it is much more important to assess how much total risk SCE has reduced on a forward-looking basis. And we have summarized this on page six.
In total, considering physical mitigation measures such as covered conductor, operational practices such as tree removals, inspections and vegetation management and the use of PSPS. SCE estimates that it has reduced the probability of losses from catastrophic wildfires by 55% to 65% relative to pre-2018 levels. This is based on a recent analysis using risk management solutions, industry-leading wildfire model and SCE's data related to actual mitigations deployed and mitigation effectiveness, which enabled us to quantify the risk reduction. While the risk can never be fully eliminated, the utility does expect to further reduce risk and to decrease the need for PSPS to achieve this risk reduction with continued grid-hardening investments.
As California continues to transition to a clean energy economy, maintaining and even improving system reliability becomes essential, particularly with greater reliance on electricity. SCE worked closely with the Governor's office, CAISO, the CPUC, customers and many stakeholders to avoid rolling outages this past summer when the state and the entire West once again faced record temperatures. Major California energy agencies, including the CAISO, California Energy Commission and CPUC have indicated that additional capacity is needed to support summer 2020 -- summer 2022, pardon me, under extreme conditions like the heat, drought and wildfires we have seen repeatedly over the past several years.
To accelerate construction of new capacity, the governor issued an emergency proclamation that requested the CPUC to work with load-serving entities to accelerate construction of energy storage for 2021 and 2022. To this end, in addition to securing over 230 megawatts of additional capacity from third parties, SCE plans to construct about 535 megawatts of utility-owned storage for this upcoming summer. This is a material increase in incremental capacity to mitigate the risk of statewide customer outages for summer 2022, caused by extreme weather events and continued drought conditions.
While the governor signed the largest climate package in state history, which included 24 bills and over $15 billion in climate, clean energy and wildfire preparedness funding, there is still an ongoing need for a lot more to be done. So I would like to highlight a paper that we recently released and it's entitled "Mind the Gap: Policies for California's Countdown to 2030." This policy paper is Edison International's latest contribution to identify policies and actions needed to help California reduce emissions and decarbonize the economy.
In the paper, we identified state and federal policy recommendations needed for California to meet its 2030 climate target, which is a foundational way point for the state to achieve its goal to the decarbonize its economy by 2045. While California has made progress in reducing GHG emissions, closing the gap between the current trajectory and its 2030 goal requires a significant acceleration of effort. It means quadrupling the average 1% annual reduction in GHG emissions achieved by the state since 2006, quadrupling that to 4.1% per year between 2021 and 2030. That's a tall order, but it's feasible.
It will require market transforming policies and incentives to advance critical areas, such as decarbonizing the power supply, preparing the grid for shifts in usage and increasing demands and electrifying transportation and buildings. As the only all electric investor-owned utility in California, SCE is well positioned to lead this transition. We will continue to work in close partnership with policymakers and stakeholders to identify ways to improve funding, planning, standard setting and other approaches to successfully achieve the equitable and affordable transition to a clean energy economy.
To emphasize affordability, our analysis shows that an electric led transition is the most affordable pathway. Since the greater efficiency of electric motors and appliances will reduce customers' total costs across all energy commodities by 1/3 by 2045. Edison International is committed to achieving net 0 GHG emissions across Scopes one, two and three by 2045. And this covers the power SCE delivers to customers as well as Edison International's enterprise-wide operations, including supply chain.
This all continues our alignment with the broad policies needed to address climate change and ensure a resilient grid. We will also continue to engage with state, national and global leaders to advance the clean energy transition, which is why today, I am joining you by phone from COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, where am representing both Edison and EEI.
And with that, Maria will provide her financial report.
