Lisa Barton
President and Chief Executive Officer at Alliant Energy
Thank you, Susan. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our third-quarter earnings call. Today, we're pleased to share our Q3 results, another quarter where we delivered solid financial performance while advancing our key strategic priorities. We'll take you through the details of our performance, share our outlook for the remainder of the year, provide insights into our strategic initiatives and discuss how we're positioned for continued success and growth over the longer-term.
We are narrowing our 2024 ongoing earnings guidance range based on our confidence in our ability to offset a majority of the negative impacts of temperatures, and we are reaffirming our long-term earnings growth target of 5% to 7%. Looking ahead, I'm pleased to share our 2025 earnings guidance and dividend targets. Our 2025 earnings guidance midpoint represents a 6% increase to our midpoint of our forecasted 2024 ongoing earnings and our 2025 annual common stock dividend target is $2.03 per share, a 6% increase from this year's dividends. While we are sharing our Q3 2024 results today, our team is acutely focused on the future and building a strong pipeline of investment opportunities while concurrently solving for affordability.
Our relentless focus on delivering consistent predictable results with a steadfast commitment to customer-centricity, affordability, reliability and sustainability serves as the foundation of our strategy. In a rapidly evolving energy landscape, four key strengths set us apart and underpin our success in supporting growth of long-term shareholder returns. An economic development focus. We drive growth in the communities we serve, creating shared prosperity and building robust local economies. Use of a dynamic resource planning model, our flexible approach to resource planning ensures our ability to scale generation quickly with a non-litigated resource plan to meet evolving customer and community needs.
Forward-thinking, regulatory alignment, we work proactively with our regulators and interveners to shape frameworks that solve for affordability and growth, strengthening our ability to provide win-win outcomes. Strategic capacity positioning, leveraging existing resources along with strategic generation Q positions enables us to adapt our generation portfolio as customer needs evolve. These differentiators enable us to pivot as needed to grow with our customers. With that in mind, I'm excited to announce we are preparing to bring two prestigious data center companies to our Big Cedar Industrial Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
We expect these data centers to add 1.1 gigawatts in Phase 1, which is anticipated to come online by year end 2028. This first phase is of new data center demand is projected to boost our peak demand by nearly 20% over the next five years with the potential for a second phase by the end-of-the decade. We are confident in the timing and the magnitude of the 1.1 gigawatts, all of which is backed by fully executed land, transmission and energy supply agreements.
We will continue to provide updates on future loads and new customers as we gain greater clarity on the size and timing of the forecasted load. Our recently approved individual customer rate or ICR in Iowa is enabling Alliant Energy to adapt and align with the needs of both future and existing customers while ensuring meaningful long-term growth for our investors. We appreciate the Iowa Utilities Commission recent decision supporting our rate review settlement and use of the ICR construct. This order stabilizes base rates for Iowa customers through the end-of-the decade, providing predictability for current and future customers.
The ICR also serves as a tool for economic development and community growth in Iowa. We look-forward to the Iowa Utilities Commission review of our ICR contracts for these new customers. As we have mentioned in the past, we are committed to ensuring all such arrangements are beneficial for existing customers, new customers and our shareowners. This year, we are refreshing our clean-energy blueprint, which serves as our resource planning process and roadmap. This unique dynamic and non-litigated resource planning process provides for meaningful stakeholder engagement.
It is a disciplined and thoughtful approach that proactively adapts to MISO accreditation changes and aligns our energy resources with growing demand. By evaluating our needs to support low, mid and high-low growth scenarios, we have the ability to flex our resource plan as necessary. The 2025 to 2028 capital expenditure plan incorporates a mid-growth scenario or Phase 1 of anticipated economic growth at Big Cedar. We recognize supporting reliability, resiliency and the clean-energy transition requires continued robust planning, a strong transmission network and a mix of flexible, controllable resources such as natural gas, energy storage and advanced grid technologies to ensure grid reliability.
Our capex plan includes investments in strengthening and improving the performance of our existing natural gas investments, additional energy storage, additional highly efficient natural gas assets to further diversify our energy mix. And finally, as we have done in the past, we will continue to evaluate extending the operation of existing fossil facilities and repowering opportunities. These investments in energy resources will enhance energy security, create local jobs and provide valuable tax revenues for the communities we serve, all while maintaining affordable rates for our customers across Iowa and Wisconsin.
In both Iowa and Wisconsin, the regulatory environment is collaborative, constructive and fosters growth. Collectively, it's a win for all stakeholders and critical to our success in meeting the evolving needs of our customers and the communities we serve. I want to underscore our unwavering commitment to continue providing top-tier reliability and achieving our long-term sustainability goals outlined in the Corporate Responsibility report published this week. We are extremely proud of our efforts to enhance our portfolio of zero fuel cost clean-energy resources. Alliant Energy continues to be a leader in the clean-energy transition with 1.8 gigawatts of regulated wind and by the end of this year, 1.5 gigawatts of regulated solar resources. We plan to continue investing in renewable generation and energy storage.
In fact, over 40% of our 2025 to 2028 capital expenditure plan includes investments in wind, solar and energy storage. These investments result in our company having one of the cleanest fleets in the country. Our focus on customers and building stronger communities is at the heart of everything we do. With our strong track record of exceptional project execution, we are confident in our ability to continue meeting customer, community and investor expectations. Speaking of communities, I would like to extend my gratitude to the many business partners, vendors, and providers who collaborated with our foundation to help raise more than $0.5 million this year to support programs that combat hunger and food insecurity across our service territory.
Before we dive into our financial results, I want to take a moment to express my deepest gratitude to our dedicated team members who go above and beyond to help communities in need. In support of the industry's mutual assistance efforts, our team lent their expertise to restore power to communities impacted by Hurricane Helene. The team's dedication and willingness to lend a hand exemplifies the strength and unity of our industry. Thank you for your incredible work and commitment. I will now turn the call over to Robert to provide our financial results, earnings and dividend guidance, financing plans, and an update on regulatory matters.
