Pedro J. Pizarro
President and Chief Executive Officer at Edison International
Hey, thanks a lot, Sam, and good afternoon, everybody.
Edison International's core EPS for first quarter 2023 was $1.09. We are pleased with our start to the year and we are confident in affirming our 2023 core EPS guidance of $4.55 to $4.85. We also remain confident in delivering our long-term EPS growth target of 5% to 7% from 2021 through 2025. Maria will discuss our financial performance and outlook.
My key message today is that we continue to see a number of positives in the near term, and in the long term, and these make us excited for our Company's future. SCE's actions to sustain and strengthen the electric grid, mitigate wildfires, and enable decarbonization through electrification are critically needed by California, and are increasing our investment opportunity. In the longer term, our Pathway 2045 analysis highlights the continued investment in transmission and distribution needed to evolve the grid.
This is being recognized by regulators in California. In 2021, the California ISO released a 20-year plan, estimating about $30 billion of transmission investment needed through 2040, consistent with our Pathway analysis. Only a few weeks ago, CAISO published its draft 2022 to 2023 transmission plan, with its current thinking on system needs over the next 10 years. Their draft plan calls for 46 transmission projects, with a total estimated cost of $9.3 billion. Over $2 billion of that represents proposed incumbent projects for SCE, and over $5 billion represents FERC Order 1000 competitive projects within Southern California, for which SCE will be able to compete.
In the near term, SCE continues its diligent execution of its Wildfire Mitigation Plan, and has reduced the probability of losses from catastrophic wildfires by 75% to 80% compared to pre-2018 levels, predominantly from grid hardening measures that allow the utility to mitigate risk, while keeping electricity flowing to customers. I want to say thanks again to the many of you who visited us in person at our headquarters, and heard directly from several of our leaders about the utility's achievements and ongoing actions.
In March, SCE filed its 2023 through 2025 WMP with the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety. Highlights of the plan are shown on Page 3. Our Number 1 priority remains the safety of the public, customers, workers, and first responders. In 2023, the utility is building on the work already accomplished, while focusing on five key areas. These are continuing to harden the grid, ramping up targeted undergrounding work in severe risk areas, continuing to reduce PSPS impacts, expanding aerial fire suppression funding to year-round, and furthering technological advancements.
SCE's flagship grid hardening program, covered conductor, remains its key mitigation measure. More than 2,850 additional miles of covered conductor will be installed between 2023 and 2025. By the end of 2025, SCE expects to have replaced more than 7,200 miles, or about three quarters of overhead distribution power lines in high fire risk areas with covered conductor. SCE also plans to complete about 100 miles of undergrounding by 2025 to address the high risk presented by unique factors in certain areas, and plans to underground a total of 600 miles by the end of 2028.
Additionally, to quickly suppress fires, regardless of how they start, and protect the communities SCE serves, the utility continues to partner with the LA County Fire Department, Orange County Fire Authority, and Ventura County Fire Department, to expand their firefighting capabilities. As highlighted in the WMP, this support has been expanded to year-round aerial fire suppression from the quick reaction force, made up of the world's largest fire-suppression helicopters, with unique night firefighting capabilities. The WMP is adaptive and it's focused on furthering technological advancements to find new ways to mitigate wildfire risk. SCE is continuously developing new approaches and collaborating with other utilities, with academia, and with the energy sector, to make our communities safer. The WMP highlights technologies, such as the Rapid Earth Current Limiter, Early Fault Detection, and using artificial intelligence, that will continue to advance our suite of wildfire mitigation measures.
Going back to the long-term view, a key driver for SCE's investment in the grid, and for enabling customer affordability is transportation electrification. We aren't just talking here about regulatory policies, or long-term forecasts here. We are seeing customers really start to embrace and adopt EVs today, including operators of medium and heavy-duty vehicle fleets. SCE was an early mover, and today has the country's largest suite of transportation electrification programs, led by an investor- owned utility, with over $800 million in approved funding for its Charge Ready programs, which include a program aimed at the medium and heavy-duty segment.
Momentum and customer interest have certainly increased, and we are beginning to see vehicle availability improvements in the heavy-duty segment, with more options available to order. SCE is currently working with nearly 200 sites to potentially support approximately 4,000 medium and heavy-duty vehicles. Customers operating heavy-duty vehicles are requesting higher-powered chargers, resulting in larger load requests that may require additional distribution system upgrades to ensure adequate capacity is available. SCE continues to engage with these customers to understand when, and where these vehicles will materialize, to ensure the grid is ready. Beyond transportation electrification, building electrification is another critical opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. SCE has proposed a $677 million program to help catalyze the adoption of electric heat pumps and that is currently being reviewed by the CPUC.
I will conclude by noting that even as SCE makes substantial investment in the grid to keep the utility, and the state on track for decarbonization and electrification efforts, affordability is always top-of-mind. SCE's long-standing culture of actively pursuing, and maintaining productivity improvement, and cost control measures, has enabled it to have the lowest system average rate among California investor-owned utilities. Some recent examples include the pending settlement agreement with TURN and Cal Advocates to move to a customer-funded wildfire self-insurance model and SCE's operational excellence program, which includes over 600 employee-driven ideas with capital efficiency and O&M benefits. These include work planning, procurement, and technology as shown on Page 4.
Beyond these, we will constantly pursue new opportunities for digitization, automation, and generative artificial intelligence, to drive further improvements in customer interactions, asset data quality, and back-office efficiencies. The expected benefits should progressively increase, as we accelerate implementation through 2024 and beyond, further benefiting affordability for SCE's customers.
With that, Maria will provide her financial report.
