Lynn J. Good
Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer at Duke Energy
Abby, thank you, and good morning, everyone. Today, we announced adjusted earnings per share of $1.20 for the first quarter. These results reflect a $0.22 headwind from weather with January and February ranking among the warmest winter months on record across our service territories. In fact, DEP had its warmest January and February in the last 32 years.
In response, we've already taken action activating agility measures across the enterprise which Brian will walk through with you in just a moment. With three quarters remaining, including our strongest quarter still ahead, we are reaffirming our 2023 guidance range of $5.55 to $5.75 with a midpoint of $5.65. We're also on track to deliver our long-term EPS growth rate of 5% to 7% through 2027 off the midpoint of the '23 range.
Before I turn to our regulated utilities, I'd like to provide an update on the sale of our commercial renewables business. As you know, we have separate sales processes underway for the utility scale business and the distributed energy business. We are in the late stage of the process for both transactions, and we'll look to update you in the near future. We continue to anticipate proceeds in the second half of the year.
Moving to Slide 5. We're making meaningful progress on our strategic initiatives in each of our jurisdictions. In North Carolina, we recently reached a partial settlement with Public Staff and Sigfor [Phonetic], who represents DEP's industrial customers, in the Duke Energy Progress rate case. With agreements on approximately $3.5 billion of forward-looking capital investments in the multiyear rate plan, the settlement represents a significant milestone on our journey to modernize recovery mechanisms in North Carolina.
It positions us well to continue delivering value to customers while supporting the cash flows of the company. The settlement also provides clarity on retail rate base of approximately $12.2 billion for the historic base case and depreciation rates that largely aligned with DEP's proposal. Further, we reached agreement on performance incentive metrics and residential decoupling. We were pleased to be able to work with public staff and Sigfor to narrow the open items in the case. These settlements are subject to approval by the North Carolina Utilities Commission.
Evidentiary hearings began May 4 and are expected to conclude later this month. Interim rates will be implemented in June, subject to refund and we expect permanent rates to be effective October 1. The Duke Energy Carolinas rate case is about three months behind the DEP case and hearings scheduled to begin on August 21.
Moving to South Carolina. The commission approved a comprehensive settlement in our Duke Energy Progress rate case in February. Revised rates went into effect in April. We also recently received commission approval to securitize approximately $170 million of past storm costs at Duke Energy Progress.
In Florida, the commission approved our fuel, capacity and storm cost request in March. Rates were updated in April and reflect recovery of deferred fuel costs over 21 months with a debt return, will recover storm costs associated with hurricanes Ian and Nicole as well as replenish the storm reserve over 12 months. We also continue to expand our renewables fleet in a steady and responsible manner, adding four solar projects in March and April, totaling 300 megawatts. With these additions, we now operate 1,200 megawatts of solar in Florida, with plans to continue adding approximately 300 megawatts a year going forward.
In Indiana, we've had an active legislative session, the legislature passed several energy bills, including House Bill 1421, which was signed into law and allows equipped and rate base for natural gas generation. These bills support our ability to execute our energy transition in Indiana, while maintaining reliable and affordable power for customers.
We're in the process of finalizing CPCN, which we expect to begin filing with the Indiana Commission later this quarter. In Ohio, we reached a comprehensive settlement with the PUCO staff and multiple other parties in our natural gas rate case. The settlement, which is subject to commission approval includes agreement on expanded revenue caps for the capital expenditure program rider. An evidentiary hearing is scheduled to begin on May 23.
And in Kentucky, the commission is conducting an evidentiary hearing today on the electric rate case filed in December. If approved, new rates are anticipated to go into effect in July. We're making great progress on our strategy across our entire service territory, meeting our commitments and advancing investments in a balanced way to better serve our customers.
Our strong track record is reflected in our impact report, Duke Energy's 17th annual disclosure on sustainability topics. This comprehensive report was published in April and includes our goals and progress on a broad range of topics, including the energy transition. It also outlines our corporate citizenship and the value we're creating for employees, customers and communities from economic development to environmental justice and to rescaling and redeploying workers.
Before I turn the call over to Brian, let me take a moment to talk about our grid investment plan, which is $36 billion accounts for over half of our five-year capital plan. The grid is a critical part of our energy transition and with more than 320,000 line miles, we operate the largest transmission and distribution system in the nation. The foundation of our grid plan is focused on improving reliability and resiliency, preparing the grid for renewables and enabling electrification.
Our reliability and resiliency investments are centered on strengthening the grid against storms and security trusts and improving the ability to rapidly restore power when there's an outage. We're making targeted investments across a variety of programs, including self-optimize and growth technologies targeted undergrounding, physical and cybersecurity upgrades and upgrading lines and substations. Our investments are already making a difference as evidenced by our response to Hurricane Ian last fall, where we restored power in less than half the time of our Hurricane Irma restoration efforts in 2017.
As highlighted on the slide, we've made great progress in establishing constructive recovery mechanisms across our jurisdictions. These mechanisms will also assist in recovering growth [Phonetic] investments in a timely manner, mitigating lag and supporting balance sheet strength while delivering benefits to our customers.
From grid improvements to installing renewables to advancing policy, we're taking collective action to transform and ready the system for the future. We have a clear path forward and are confident our investment plan will deliver sustainable value and 5% to 7% earnings growth.
With that, let me turn the call over to Brian.
