David A. Campbell
President and Chief Executive Officer at Evergy
Thanks, Lori, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin on slide five. This morning, we reported second quarter adjusted earnings of $0.85 per share compared to $0.68 per share a year ago, equal to a 25% increase. On a period-over-period basis, these results were primarily driven by higher transmission margin, an increase in weather-normalized demand, higher other income and income tax benefits. On our prior earnings call, I highlighted that our nuclear plant, Wolf Creek, had started its planned refueling outage. I'm pleased to report that the Wolf Creek team completed the outage under budget, continuing the excellent operational performance at the plant. Company-wide, we've maintained a steady trend of strong cost management as we strengthen our continuous improvement culture.
Our team's execution has enabled a solid start to the year, and we are reaffirming our 2021 adjusted EPS guidance of $3.20 to $3.40 per share. We plan on giving an updated perspective on 2021 performance as part of our Investor Day next month. This morning, we're also reaffirming our target of compound annual EPS growth of 6% to 8% from 2019 through 2024. Moving on to slide six, I'll provide a summary of our regulatory and legislative priorities and recent activities. First, with respect to our sustainability transformation plan dockets, we completed the final STP workshops in Kansas and Missouri, wrapping up the items outlined in both procedural schedules. These dockets will remain open as we continue to file responsive follow-up information.
As I've said before, this constructive process has been beneficial as it has allowed us to educate and inform our stakeholders on our strategic business plan while also providing a channel for receiving constructive feedback from the parties. Another policy priority that we have identified is securitization legislation. While passage of this legislation was not critical to the near-term elements of our plan, through hard work with staff and other parties in both states, we are pleased that securitization was passed this year in both Kansas and Missouri. Kansas House Bill 2072 was signed into law in April, while Missouri House Bill 734 was signed by Governor Parson in early July and becomes law at the end of this month. Given the filing deadlines for our long-term resource plan in both states, securitization financing was not considered in the analysis relating to our respective integrated resource plans.
However, having the law in place in both states, we'll factor into our ongoing analysis of the preferred plan for the future evolution of our generation portfolio and the approach that will optimize affordability, reliability and sustainability. Securitization is particularly helpful with respect to optimizing the affordability aspect of our ongoing generation fleet transition. Along with enabling the cost-effective handling of extraordinary costs and undepreciated values, the securitization law in Kansas also includes predetermination features. This will allow us to collaborate with regulators on the topic of removing coal from rate base and replacing it with renewables in advance of implementing any actions. Within the next few months, we plan to file for predetermination of our latest plans for the retirement of coal at the Lawrence Energy Center and the upcoming solar edition in Kansas.
The Missouri legislation shares many features in common, but there are distinguishing elements. For example, in Kansas, a predetermination is required before retiring coal with the securitization of financing order. The Missouri decisional prudence process is similar to predetermination, though in Missouri, it is optional rather than mandatory, and Missouri approach contemplates an asset retirement plan that can be broader in nature. The Missouri law also refers explicitly to evaluating the retention of coal and rate base for reliability purposes, even if capacity factors remain relatively low, for example, due to such factors as seasonal coal operations or low SPP energy prices as more renewables come online. In addition, the Missouri legislation provides for a new investment in replacement assets up to an amount equal to the securitized assets.
In both states, these features will help to enable a well-planned and predictable process as we advance our fleet transition. I'll turn now to winter storm Uri costs. In Kansas, we've been granted authority to defer these costs and we filed an application seeking a recovery in return of storm impacts through fuel adjustment mechanisms starting in April 2022. The net impact for Kansas Central would result in approximately $115 million of costs recovered from customers over a two-year period. At Kansas Metro, during winter storm Uri, we experienced higher-than-normal off-system sales. These sales exceeded the fuel and purchase power costs during the event. As a result, the increased margin will benefit Kansas Metro customers by an estimated $35 million, which will be passed through the fuel costs over a one-year period beginning in April 2022.
In Missouri, we have requested similar AAO deferral treatment for the winter weather costs and expect a commission order on this process later this year. Metro customers on the Missouri side will receive their allocated portion of the higher off-system sales margins, which we currently estimate is around $25 million in customer benefit, which we have asked to deliver to the fuel adjustment mechanism over a one-year period. Conversely, Missouri West customers were subject to higher fuel and purchase power costs during their winter weather event. Given the amount of these higher costs upon receipt of deferral authority, we intend to utilize the recently signed securitization legislation to request commission approval to securitize the excess costs and recover them over an extended period.
Specifically, we expect to request securitization of approximately $295 million with recovery over a fifteen-years period, which would minimize and smooth the impact for our customers. Slide seven highlights topics that we expect to cover during our upcoming Investor Day, which will be held virtually on September 21. At the event, we expect to focus on our strategic business objectives and overall priorities for the business. Along with an update on STP execution through 2024, we expect to comment on 2021 and provide a first look at the company's 2022 earnings outlook. We'll describe how Evergy is driving operational excellence across our business, including reliability, customer service, generation availability and cost. We'll discuss our capital deployment and infrastructure investment plans.
We'll also profile our ongoing focus on regional rate competitiveness, which is a key priority for our team as it is for our customers and our regulators. Our objective as a company is to become recognized for driving operational excellence and delivering excellent service to our customers at regionally competitive rates. We aspire to be clear in our objectives and consistent in our execution so that our regulators, investors and all of our stakeholders know what to expect and know that we will deliver. We will also discuss our long-term growth drivers and objectives, including those relating to our ESG profile and generation fleet transition. Investor Day will give Kirk and I, along with our colleagues, a chance to expand on the significant value potential we see at Evergy. Along these lines, slide eight summarizes Evergy's investment thesis.
As an all-electric Midwestern utility, well positioned geographically to capitalize on cost-effective renewables options, we strive for consistency in performance and being known for execution and delivering results. Customers are at the forefront as affordable and reliable service are paramount objectives. Operational excellence is a critical enabler to achieving these objectives, and we are committed to a continuous improvement path in reliability, customer service, transmission and distribution services and fleet operations. Stakeholder collaboration and constructive relationships with our regulators and other key partners in Kansas and Missouri are also foundational. The passage of securitization legislation in both states was a great example of that collaborative process in action, and we look forward to an open constructive dialogue with stakeholders throughout the years ahead.
As we've described, infrastructure improvements are featured in our sustainability transformation plan. Investments in grid modernization and the ongoing transformation of our generation fleet will enable us to better leverage technology, improve resiliency and efficiency and help us to optimize across the objectives of affordability, reliability and sustainability. Disciplined cost management and rigorous performance benchmarking are necessary complements to our investment program in order to ensure that our service and rates remain cost competitive and affordable. The company has established a strong track record in cost management since the merger, and we see ongoing opportunities to maintain that trajectory.
The final element of our investment thesis that I'll highlight is financial excellence, including a strong balance sheet and an attractive total shareholder return, driven by our targeted 6% to 8% annual EPS growth from 2019 through 2024, plus our dividend yield. In summary, we are very excited about the opportunities for our company during this period of change in our industry, and we are committed to the sustained effort that will be required to deliver against our high-performance objectives. We look forward to discussing our strategy and investment thesis in greater depth next month.
I will now turn the call over to Kirk.
