Dan Tucker
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Southern
Thanks, Chris; and good afternoon, everyone. As you can see from the materials we released this morning, we reported strong adjusted earnings per share of $3.65 for 2023, which was the very top of our 2023 guidance range. The primary drivers of our performance compared to 2022 are higher utility revenues and lower non-fuel O&M expenses and income taxes, somewhat offset by higher depreciation and interest expenses. Mild weather was also a significant headwind with 2023 marking the mildest year in our history for our electric service territories.
Our ability to deliver 2023 adjusted results at the very top of guidance is a great testament to our team and to the resilience and strength of our portfolio of companies. A detailed reconciliation of our reported and adjusted results compared back to 2022 is included in today's release and earnings package.
Turning now to electricity sales in the economy, weather adjusted retail electric sales were down 0.4% for 2023 compared to 2022. Strong usage drove commercial sales growth of 1.3% for the year, which was partially offset by lower residential usage with both commercial and residential sales impacted by the return to the office dynamic. We continue to see robust residential customer growth with the addition of over 46,000 residential electric customers and nearly 27,000 residential gas customers. Since 2020, we've added over 200,000 residential electric customers, which represents the highest four year total in decades.
Industrial sales finished down for the year nearly 2%, largely due to continued slowing in housing and construction related sectors, as well as lower sales to chemical companies due to outages and long planned plant closures. Consistent with the drivers detailed in Georgia Power's recently filed 2023 Integrated Resource Plan update, economic development in our Southeast service territory remains incredibly strong.
Several years of extraordinary success in attracting new and expanding businesses to our states underpins our long term electricity sales forecast. While electricity sales growth is projected to remain around 1% to 2% for 2024 and 2025, growth from 2025 to 2028 is projected to accelerate to an average of approximately 6% annually with Georgia Power's total retail electric sales growth projected to be approximately 9% annually over this same period.
The magnitude and velocity of this growth are significant drivers for the increased capital investments reflected in our current outlook. This projected growth also represents a tremendous opportunity to de-risk our outlook and benefit customers as the substantial projected growth in kilowatt hour sales from new manufacturing facilities and data centers has the potential to put downward pressure on existing customers' rates.
Turning now to our earnings projections for 2024 and beyond. Our adjusted earnings per share guidance range for 2024 is $3.95 to $4.05 and our projected long term adjusted EPS growth rate is 5% to 7% from that range. In early 2021, we provided the investment community with a stable post-Vogtle 3 and 4 construction EPS projection with an initial and reasonably wide 2024 guidance range. It is perhaps the greatest of understatements to say that the world has changed a lot since early 2021. On a macro basis, we've seen significant inflation and higher -- and then higher for longer interest rates, which alone has translated to interest expense for 2024, hundreds of millions of dollars higher than any of us assumed three years ago.
Additionally, relative to our projection in early 2021, the projected in-service date for Vogtle 4 moved into 2024 from 2023. In the face of these challenges, we've continued to work extremely hard to grow our business and to create value for investors. Compared to our projections in early 2021, our state regulated utility rate base for 2024 is projected to be approximately $6 billion higher, while lower O&M expenses and higher sales are projected to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars more than previously projected to help maintain affordability and help pay for those investments.
We estimated adjusted earnings of $0.90 per share for the first quarter of 2024. Our capital investment plan continues to be well over 95% attributable to our state regulated utility businesses. The current five year capital investment forecast, totaling $48 billion, reflects a $5 billion increase in state regulated utility investments relative to our forecast a year ago, this 12% increase in capital spending reflects our ongoing efforts to further increase the resiliency of our electric and gas networks and our technology infrastructure. It also partially reflects new resources proposed in Georgia Power's 2023 IRP update, about 60% of the brick and mortar megawatts proposed.
We have maintained our disciplined, measured approach to capital forecasting for our state regulated utility businesses. Given the magnitude of change in our projected sales growth and the time frame in which new resources are needed to serve higher peak demands, we felt it was appropriate to go ahead and reflect certain new resources in our capital plan.
Additionally, our capital investment forecasts tend to grow, especially in the later years as the visibility into customer additions improves, regulatory processes unfold, compliance obligations evolve, and our long-term integrated system planning is refined. While the increases in this year's five-year forecasts represent an outsized upward adjustment due to the scale and velocity of the projected growth in the near-term, we do believe it's reasonable to expect the historical trend of capital increases to continue going forward.
On its own, our capital investment forecast of $48 billion supports annualized state regulated rate base growth of approximately 6%, providing a solid foundation for our long-term outlook. Any upsides to the capital forecast will simply serve to add durability to an already strong outlook. Strong investment grade credit ratings remain a priority. We continue to believe that in order to be a high quality equity investment, a company must also have high quality credit. As we near completion of Vogtle Unit 4, the reduction in major project construction risk and the improvement in our FFO should strengthen and meaningfully improve our credit profile.
To help ensure we preserve what we believe will be a positively differentiated profile, we are also turning on our internal equity plans to fund the incremental capital investment at our subsidiaries that I highlighted earlier. These plans typically provide approximately $350 million of new equity annually.
Additionally, we'll preserve our financing flexibility and optionality with a continuous focus on preserving and improving shareholder value. For example, we will continue to maintain an at-the-market, or ATM, plan to partially finance potential additional increases in capital spending at our subsidiaries, or potentially to partially refinance callable hybrid securities if we determine doing so preserves or improves our credit and long-term EPS objectives.
Southern Company strives to deliver a superior risk-adjusted total shareholder return, and we believe the plan that we've laid out supports that objective. Our customer and community focused business model, the growing investments in our premier state regulated utility franchises, and the priority that we place on strong credit quality, and our remarkable dividend history all contributes toward making Southern Company a premier investment.
Chris, I'll now turn the call back over to you.
