Scott J. Lauber
President and Chief Executive Officer at WEC Energy Group
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today as we review our results for the third quarter of 2024. Here with me are Xia Liu, our Chief Financial Officer; and Beth Straka, Senior Vice President and Chief in Corporate Communications and Investor Relations.
As you saw from our news release this morning, we reported third quarter 2024 adjusted earnings of $0.82 per share. This excludes a charge of $0.06 per share related to the disallowance of certain 2016 capital expenditures under the Qualifying Infrastructure Plant rider in Illinois. With this solid quarter, we remain on track for a strong 2024. Our focus on executing the fundamentals of our business is creating real value for our customers and stockholders. Today, we're reaffirming our earnings guidance for the year. On an adjusted basis, the range is $4.80 to $4.90 a share. Of course, this assumes normal weather through the remainder of 2024.
We continue to see strong foundation of growth in the region. The unemployment rate in Wisconsin stands at 2.9%, continuing a long-running trend below the national average. Microsoft is making good progress on its large data center complex in Southeast Wisconsin. The company has continued to increase its landholdings as part of this development. It has reported that Microsoft now owns more than 1,900 acres up from 1,300 acres at the beginning of the year and work is well underway.
We're seeing development elsewhere in the state as well. Amazon, for example, opened a 1.1 million square foot warehouse in Kenosha earlier this year. The company is growing steadily with additional distribution facilities and is also starting to use electric delivery vans in its fleet. And in Green Bay, Georgia Pacific completed a major mill expansion just last month with an investment of $550 million.
Of course, this growth is spanning small commercial and residential development throughout the region. This highlights the strength and the potential of our local economy and underscores the need for the investments in our updated capital plan. And speaking of capital plan, we're very excited to roll out the plan for the period 2025 through 2029. As you may have seen from our announcement this morning, we expect to invest $28 billion over the next five years. This is the largest capital plan in our history, an increase of $4.3 billion above our previous five-year plan. That's more than an 18% increase.
Once again, a major factor in our plan is the economic growth we're seeing in Southeastern Wisconsin, particularly in what we call the I-94 corridor between Milwaukee and the Illinois State line. This plan supports 1,800 megawatts of additional demand over the next five years, that an incremental 400 megawatts from our previous plan.
In our new five-year plan, we expect our asset-based growth to an average rate of 8.8% a year. This supports our long-term projected earnings per share growth of 6.5% to 7% a year on a compound annual basis. As I mentioned, we increased our capital plan by $4.3 billion, driven by an increase in regulated electric generation, transmission and distribution and partially offset by a reduction in energy infrastructure.
Let me give you a few updates on the details. Over the next five years, we'll continue to transform our power generation fleet to support economic growth, reliability and compliance with the EPA rules, by investing in renewables and natural gas generation. Between 2025 and 2029, we plan to increase our investment in regulated renewables by $2.1 billion over our prior plan.
In total, we plan to invest $9.1 billion in 2,900 megawatts of solar, 900 megawatts of wind and almost 600 megawatts of battery storage. That adds up to 4,400 megawatts more than quadrupling our carbon-free generation from where we are today. These resources save on fuel cost and provide benefits to customers through tax credits. To support economic growth and system reliability when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine and on those extreme weather days, we need dispatchable resources.
We expect to spend an incremental $900 million on modern, efficient natural gas generation over the next five years versus the prior plan. This includes both combustion turbines and reciprocating internal combustion engines or RICE units. Also, we plan to invest an additional $400 million in liquefied natural gas capacity for another 2 Bcf facility. This will be used to meet customer demand for heating and ensure gas supply for our power generation. In addition, American Transmission Company will be adding transmission capabilities to serve the region's robust economic growth, connecting new renewables and strengthening of the system.
Our plan calls for us to invest $3.2 billion in that effort between 2025 and 2029. This represents a $200 million increase from the previous plan. And to help ensure reliability and support economic growth, we're continuing to invest in our distribution networks with an additional $700 million in the plan. Given the significant investment opportunity in our regulated businesses, we have reduced our planned investments in our infrastructure segment by $800 million compared to the last plan. This leaves us approximately $400 million in the plan for next year. And today, I'm pleased to announce our plan to acquire a 90% interest in Hardin Solar III Energy Park located in Ohio, we expect to invest approximately $410 million to add 250 megawatts of renewable energy to our infrastructure portfolio when the projects come online, currently expected in the first quarter of 2025.
Our future is bright, investment opportunity has never been stronger, and we're focused on execution. We look forward to providing more detail on our plan in just a few weeks at the EEI conference. Turning to the regulatory front. I have a few updates across our service areas. In Wisconsin, rate reviews are nearly complete for test years 2025 and 2026. All testimony and hearings are concluded in the case, and we expect the decision by the end of the year with new rates effective January 1st, 2025.
As you know, in Michigan, the public service commission -- the Public Service Commission has now approved the settlement in the 2025 rate cases for both Michigan Gas Utilities and Upper Michigan Energy Resources, each with an ROE of 9.86%. And in Illinois, we're actively engaged in two dockets. One is the review of the safety modernization program. The next steps are an ALJ proposed order at the end of November, final briefings to the ICC in December and the commission's final decision expected in the first quarter of 2025. The other docket is an evaluation of the future of natural gas in Illinois, which was initially planned to conclude next year. The ICC extended this docket into 2026. Of course, we'll keep you updated on any further developments.
Now I'll turn it to Xia to provide you with more details on our financial results and our financing plans.
