I think Chris Barco, where is Chris? Was saying we're one of a very few in-person annual general meetings left in the city. I think maybe that's one of the—actually, there are a lot of silver linings that came out of our quarantine period during COVID. I think one of the not-so-silver linings is the fact that you, our share owners, our suppliers, our customers, media associates, and great friends do not have an opportunity to come and actually engage with all of us. It is a very special time for everyone here to be able to see you all. This is our 58th Annual General Meeting. There are so many familiar faces that I had the opportunity to see today, which was wonderful.
I'm just going to put in a little plug here because we look forward to seeing you all throughout the summer series for the 50th Anniversary of Spruce Meadows this year. Before we begin, I will just take a safety moment. If an emergency occurs, we'll exit through the foyer doors that we came in and take a left to the front entrance, take a right. Our mustering point is over on 9th Avenue at the Marriott Hotel. The great staff of the Fairmont Palliser will assist us and direct us if something occurs. As we commence today's meeting, I do want to honor the traditional territories and the homelands upon which many of our operations and facilities are located.
Our team, all of the members of the ATCO family, have tremendous respect for elders past and present and the diverse history, languages, and culture that they represent. The ceremonies, for any of you who have had the opportunity and the privilege to participate, are really extraordinary. I know that if you do get a chance to go to a powwow, you really should take up the opportunity because the passion, the spirit flows throughout the people. Today we are gathered on the ancestral lands of Treaty Seven signatories, and that includes the Blackfoot Confederacy, which is composed of the Siksika, Piikani, Kainai Nations. Also, the Stoney Nakoda, including the Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Wesley Nations, and the Tsuut'ina. The City of Calgary is also home to the Métis Nation of Alberta Districts Five and Six.
I would like to welcome, and it is such an honor to have you here, Chief. Chief Ouray Crowfoot, thank you. Lovely to have you. I have to tell you a funny little story about last year when Chief Ouray is from the Siksika Nation, and our Lead Director, Rob Routs, asked him a question about his land claims and resolution with the federal government. Dr. Routs said, "How long has this been taking you?" and I think Chief Ouray said, "170 years." All done. I would also like to welcome Her Worship, Mayor Jyoti Gondek, for coming today. Thank you so much for taking the time to come. It is a rare occasion that the mayor of our city, of any city, would actually take the time and have the interest in one of the head companies founded here in Calgary in our enterprise.
Thank you very much for coming. And for your great leadership, in particular, attainable housing. I'd also like to welcome my family. My mom, Marg Southern, is here. And while maybe a little compromised on mobility right now, oh my goodness, you should hear her lecture still. And there's always clippings coming out of the paper. Did you know this? Maybe you should think about this. I'd also like to welcome my husband, Jonathan, and say thank you for all of your support. My children, Kelly, Kyle, Ben, thank you for being here. My sister, Linda, and her husband, Tom, and her son, Charlie, and Ron's not able to join us, but they are my greatest supporters, and I cherish every moment with all of you.
David Dodge is here, former director of ATCO, but much more impressive on his resume is former governor of the Bank of Canada and incredible advisor to many and a great friend of our company. He's here with his lovely wife, Chris. Miss Ann and Terry and Dan French are here. Sorry that Bass couldn't be with us. Bass is a director emeritus for ATCO. Siegfried Kiefer, many of you know Siegfried. He's sitting right next to Doug Graham, who used to have Jason Sharpe's job and ran our natural gas utilities. Jeff Wood. Jeff is here representing the Wood family. He's a longtime shareholder, and our families go way back. Jeff's father was our corporate secretary. His uncle was our CEO of Canadian Utilities. His cousin, Donna, is my cousin from our twin sister mums. Kim Sturgis. Thank you, Kim.
Kim is the most incredibly passionate person in Alberta with regards to how precious and dear our water is, how we can do a much better job of conserving it. I have no doubt within the next decade it will be the gold of the future, so we must look after it. Kim, you've done such a wonderful job in Alberta and throughout the nation. Thank you. She's sitting beside Eddie Goldberg, and Eddie's been on the news quite a bit recently with our new parliament and his great advisory to many prime ministers, including this one. And longtime shareholders. Ed McCullough's back. Where's Ed? There you are. We missed you last year, but nice to see you back again. Bill is here. Bill Mannix. Bill rode his bike here this morning. Cold hands, warm heart. Norman and Sharon King.
It's always great to see you, Norman and Sharon. Emile, wonderful to have you back. Andrew, you are such an interesting attendee. He told me that he only could afford a couple of shares, but he really likes to hear about what we have to say on the economy, our company, and the nation. Thank you for joining us, Andrew. Joy Halverson is here as well. Joy's shareholdings go way back, and she told me way back to you, mum and dad, starting ATCO. Thank you very, very much, everyone, for being here. There's Joy over there. I'd like to introduce you to my wonderful colleagues that are on the dais here with me today. Katie Patrick is your Chief Financial Officer and Investment Officer. What an incredible woman Katie is.
She's seated next to Adam Beattie, the President of ATCO Structures, who you'll hear lots from with regards to attainable housing, modular housing, and of course, our founding business, ATCO Structures. Next to Adam is the newly appointed CEO of Canadian Utilities, Bob Miles. I couldn't be more confident, more thrilled to have Bob. He is the most terrific executive leading the ship for Canadian Utilities. Now, I'm staying on as Executive Chair. On behalf of share owners, we will be watching him. Next to Bob is our Corporate Secretary and General Counsel, Kyle Brunner, who keeps us all in line and out of trouble. Thank you, Kyle. There are many officers and people of our corporation also here with us today. I would like to once again express my deepest appreciation to all of our share owners.
I know many of you are share owners, our dear friends, our customers, and suppliers. Thank you for your ongoing commitment, which is invaluable to our organization. As we stand at a pretty critical juncture in our country's province and company's future, and as we navigate through these very turbulent times, the uncertainty that we faced in recent years is likely to persist and potentially intensify. Trade tensions, supply chain, inflationary pressures, geopolitical conflict, and the accelerating pace of technological change are all converging to create a stubbornly complex and unpredictable environment. In these times, it seems that, excuse me, the only thing we can be sure of is that nothing stays the same. Despite these challenges, we have reasons for great optimism. For example, the government of Alberta has recently announced key policy changes within the province's utility landscape.
This is a really good thing. It includes hydrogen blending in the natural gas distribution system. It includes refining the design of the electricity market and aligning the province's transmission policy with the realities of today's electric grid. While there is still a great deal of work to do on the details for each of these fronts, they represent important first steps toward a more modern legislative framework for economic development, especially in the utility investments here in Alberta. I also take heart that our newly elected prime minister has committed to take bold and decisive action in order to build a stronger Canada. From doubling our national housing output and forging new trade corridors to establishing Canada as a global energy superpower. He did include conventional as well as new energy. Dramatically increasing our defense spending in order to achieve our NATO commitments.
These aren't merely aspirations. They are imperatives of the highest order. Now is the time for unity, resolve, and unwavering execution because the future of our nation demands nothing less. The courageous people of ATCO share this conviction. Already, we are building critical infrastructure that will unlock Canada's full potential, from housing and pipelines to power grids, hydrogen hubs, carbon capture, and defense systems. For years, ATCO has advocated for the development of energy corridors, not just east to west, but north-south as well. We actually started on this journey north-south from Inuvik all the way to the 49th parallel with the implementation of our Alberta Power Line. The Alberta Power Line today is 40% owned by seven Indigenous communities along the right of way and close to the right of way.
This is a very, very important aspect of what we need to consider and do in the future with future infrastructure projects. We do need to reach more global markets. We do need to have greater access to tide water. Our vision to create this north-south corridor has been in the back of our minds for, dear gosh, I think we started talking about this at least 20 years ago with our Indigenous partners in the Northwest Territories. While political will has long been the stumbling block, the benefits of these corridors have never been clearer, and the support has never been greater. Canada may be on the verge of a historic investment boom from ports and rail to West Coast LNG and ammonia exports, but each of these projects have a common foundational need: Indigenous partnerships.
In fact, of the more than 500 major resource and energy projects planned or underway here in Canada, 73% run through or near Indigenous territories. The value of these projects is estimated at nearly CAD 100 billion. Can you imagine the extraordinary prosperity we could co-create for these communities by enabling them to participate fully in such projects? We've been advancing this kind of model for decades. Naka Power is our enduring alliance with the Dene in Denendeh Investments, and it is close to four decades old. In fact, I'm not aware of any Indigenous equity partnership in the energy and utilities sector anywhere in Canada that is older or stronger than this partnership. As Canadians, our ability to move quickly and at scale to unlock the value of Indigenous equity partnerships depends on our ability to move collectively as true equitable partners.
Without question, recent geopolitical tensions with our closest ally and our largest trading partner have revealed the fault lines in Canada's economic landscape. To bridge these gaps, we must pursue genuine Indigenous economic reconciliation. Quite frankly, I do not see that there is any other path. However, we must also have fair and equitable regulation for these projects. They are all-encompassing infrastructure assets, particularly for wires and pipes. The Alberta Utilities Commission has been very forward-thinking with its performance-based regulation that it implemented in Alberta several years ago. The performance-based framework incentivizes utilities in Alberta to strive for greater operational efficiencies and then be able to share those efficiency gains with the ratepayers, the customers, and with share owners alike. I am very proud of the innovative approach that our teams in ATCO Energy Systems have taken.
I'm very proud that the regulator is forward-thinking in this performance-based regulation. Unfortunately, I must say, and I wanted to make you all aware of this, that we have recently realized that we, ATCO and its utilities, and the AUC have a major difference of opinion. Now, that's not always unusual. In this case, it is in regard to how the application of the performance-based regulation is applied. Therefore, we are challenging the AUC's approach in the Alberta Court of Appeal on the basis that we were operating, we believe we were operating within the regulatory framework as it was outlined by the AUC. Our case will be heard later in the fall of this year. I just wanted you to be aware of that because there may be some noise about it, but you've heard it from me. We believe we've delivered.
You'll hear more from Bob about how much we've delivered in efficiencies to the Alberta utilities later. That is some of the context and the complexity that makes up our business environment of today. Overall, I can assure you that we are extremely excited about the future. We look forward to sharing our journey with you. You'll hear more from my esteemed colleagues after the next item of business. We do have to get to the formal part, and you're probably tired of listening to me. We will go to the formal part of our AGM right now. I will open the meeting for questions from all of you. Kyle Brunner will act as Secretary for this year's meeting. Jennifer Villareal and Chantelle Rondeau of TSX Trust, our registrar and transfer agent, will act as scrutineer.
The scrutineers have confirmed that there is a quorum present, and this meeting is duly and properly constituted for the transaction of business. Only the share owners of Class II voting shares and the holders of valid proxies of those shares are entitled to vote on the business in the meeting today. If you are a shareholder or duly appointed proxy holder who submitted voting instructions in advance of the meeting, your vote has already been registered with the transfer agent and will be included in the final count. Did anybody not get a proper voting ballot ahead of time? If you did not, please raise your hand, and the ballots are available for you in the meeting today. Anybody not get a chance to vote? Okay. We will move on. Oh.
In order to expedite matters, employee share owners or duly appointed proxy holders will move and second the motions. When the report of the scrutineers is complete, we will announce the results. The first item of business is the presentation of the annual consolidated statement with your auditor's report in there. The next item is the election of directors, the corporation's nominees as proposed in the management information circular. Having a hard time with my throat here, Katie.
Standing for election today are Don Ferrill, Jason Kenney, Kelly Koss-Brix, Dr. Rob Routs, our lead director, Linda Southern-Heathcott, myself, Nancy Southern, Norm Steinberg, Dr. Roger Urwin, and Susan Werth. Are there any other nominations from the floor?
I therefore declare the nominations closed. May I have a motion to elect the directors?
I'm Becky Penrice, the share owner.
I move that the nine persons nominated to be elected as directors serve until the end of the annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed.
Thank you, Mrs. Penrice. May I have a seconder, please?
I'm Colin Jackson, a share owner, and I second the motion.
Thank you, Colin. Colin heads up our treasury, and Ms. Penrice is our Chief Administration Officer. The last item of business is to appoint the auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers, as the corporation's auditors for the ensuing year. May I have a motion to adopt the auditors?
Good morning. Glad to see everybody out here. I'm Rob Routs. I'm a proud share owner. I move that PricewaterhouseCoopers, chartered accountants, be appointed auditor of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until a successor is appointed.
Thank you very much, Dr. Routs. And a seconder, please.
Yes, thank you very much. I'm Norm Steinberg, a proud share owner, and I also second the motion.
Thank you. Norm is the Chair of our Audit Committee. Thank you very much, gentlemen. I will now ask the scrutineer to provide the scrutineer's report so that we may declare the voting results. Now, while that is happening, I want to take the opportunity to recognize a director who is sadly retiring from the ATCO board this year, Bob Booth, a distinguished lawyer, an astute advisor, and an absolutely wonderful human being. He's retiring after nearly three decades of service to the ATCO group of companies. Bob was a longtime partner at Bennett Jones, and through his counsel and expertise, he helped countless projects and initiatives succeed while at ATCO. He has positively shaped ATCO's history.
Through his mentorship and coaching, he added much value to the deliberations that faced both my father and me, helping us both succeed as well. On behalf of the boards of both ATCO and Canadian Utilities and our share owners, I wish to express my deepest appreciation to Bob for his commitment, his loyalty, his friendship, and to his family for supporting him for these past three decades. Thank you, Bob. I will ask Kyle to read the voting results.
The scrutineer's report indicates that shareholders voted in favor of the election of each nominee director and the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, as the corporation's auditor for the ensuing year.
I therefore declare the motions passed. Congratulations to all of our directors. I know on behalf of shareholders, they all thank you for your wise counsel and great advice.
Thank you so much for your commitment and the contributions that you continue to make throughout the community. I'd also like to introduce Courtney Kolla and Susanna Colburn from PricewaterhouseCoopers. Courtney is right there in front of me with Susanna. Thank you very much for your tremendous, diligent, and robust work on our financial statements. This concludes the formal part of our meeting. May I have a motion to terminate?
Good morning. I'm Derek Cook, and I'm a share owner, and I move that this meeting be terminated.
Thank you very much, Mr. Cook, and a seconder.
I'm Christie Simpson. I'm a share owner, and I second the motion.
Thank you very much, Christie, Ms. Simpson. The meeting is closed, and now I'll turn it over to Katie Patrick so she can give you some exciting news on our financial results. Technical difficulties. One second.
Thank you, Nancy, and good morning, everyone. I truly enjoy connecting with share owners and the investment community, and I am also very pleased to be with you today. I will be updating you on ATCO's financial health and future outlook in concert with the remarks from Nancy, Adam, and Bob. Specifically, I'd like to provide an overview of our financial results for 2024 and share how 2025 is unfolding from a financial perspective. Finally, I will touch on how the numbers come together from the growth Adam and Bob will speak about and how we will pay for it. While my story may sound very similar to prior years, I hope you as investors see the value in that consistency. The same messages of growth and resiliency demonstrate that we are on the right path.
Now, at a glance, here are some key stats that give you an instant read of the size, scope, and scale of the ATCO group of companies. We have a strong base of assets to build from, but let me point out what is far and away our most valuable asset, our exceptional people. Including affiliates and subsidiaries, there are more than 20,000 energetic, enthusiastic, and expert team members working to deliver value to ATCO and our share owners. Now, let's dive into the results for 2024. 2024 was a great year for ATCO and the companies we operate and invest in. Those team members I mentioned, they demonstrated continued excellence in operational, financial, and strategic execution. This helped us achieve adjusted earnings of CAD 481 million, up from CAD 432 million in 2023.
You can see in this chart that the CAD 49 million of growth in earnings was evenly split between our Canadian Utilities business at CAD 25 million and our other businesses at CAD 24 million. This year-over-year growth was driven by a few factors. In our utilities, there were three main drivers of growth. Firstly, we saw growth of our rate base. Secondly, there was an increase in the allowable return on equity from 8.5% to 9.28% in 2024. Finally, we had the benefit of the efficiency carryover mechanism, which provided an additional 50 basis points of equity return in our distribution utilities. In Structures, as you'll hear from Adam, their base business continues to grow steadily and successfully in Canada, Australia, and the U.S.
We are also seeing strong contributions from Neltume Ports investment, as well as some of our other investments, which I'll talk about in that segment in a moment. These results have been very well received by our investors in the market. Continuing this trend while delivering on the growth we have promised is our key focus. Just last week, we released our Q1 results for ATCO, as well as Canadian Utilities, of which ATCO owns 52.5%. ATCO had a very strong first quarter and achieved adjusted earnings of CAD 160 million, up from CAD 148 million during the same period in 2024. We are very happy with this result. This strong start to the year was thanks in part to another quarter of increased results from Structures.
I'll leave it to Adam to tell you just how many quarters in a row his team has delivered increased earnings. Our first quarter was also up due to very healthy performance from the natural gas storage business in ATCO EnPower. Last year, this area of our business had adjusted earnings of CAD 38 million, which was 23% higher than 2023. As we look to the rest of 2025, we expect our storage business to have a similar earnings profile to last year, thanks to securing favorable long-term contracts. Looking ahead, I will point out that we do expect some headwinds in our utility business that will moderate some of the earnings growth we saw last year for ATCO Energy Systems. Specifically, our allowable return on equity of 9.28% has been reset by the AUC to 8.97% for 2025 across our Alberta utilities.
Overall, though, we will combat that with having rate-based growth across our utilities and finding continued efficiencies throughout our business, which will translate to high-quality earnings for 2025 and beyond. Now, keen readers of our financial statements, whoever that may be, would have seen a renamed reporting entity called ATCO Investments. ATCO Investments is not so much a new venture, but rather a streamlined way to manage and report on a number of businesses and investments that we have at ATCO. Within this segment, I just want to highlight two investments that had a strong start to the year this quarter with Neltume and ATCO Energy, which is our newest acquisition, both delivering significant strong earnings for ATCO this quarter. Ultimately, we need to translate our earnings growth from across the businesses and investment into concrete value for investors.
You can see the share price appreciation and dividends, also known as total shareholder return. Over the past year or so, we've really seen the recovery of our share price, both on a relative and absolute basis. This is attributable to our clear growth path and the trust and stability we offer investors. Here you can see ATCO's total shareholder return for 2024 shown against the S&P Composite Index. I was almost tempted to drop in the data for Berkshire Hathaway, which delivered 25% last year versus our 29%. I'm not saying that ATCO will beat Berkshire Hathaway every year, but in the years that we do, you can sure bet that I'm going to mention it. In all seriousness, we are very happy that we can show this story this year, and we remain extremely focused on keeping this trend going.
Bob will speak to some of the growth projects and initiatives for Canadian Utilities, which can be quite capital-intensive. The analysts and institutional investors who follow us are very keen to know our financing plans for these investments. As we look at some of the large upcoming projects, the size of our capital spend will require us to pull multiple levers of funding in addition to our own internally generated cash flow. We continue to have a very strong credit rating above many of our peers in terms of our A-minus rating at Canadian Utilities. We certainly have opportunity for some funding to come from a leverage to fund a portion of that growth. We're also open to and pursuing other forms of equity funding. This includes Indigenous equity, as we've done many times in the past, including most recently with our Deerfoot and Barlow solar facility.
It includes partner equity, as Bob will mention with respect to the Heartland Hydrogen Project. It could also include some private capital and some form of asset recycling. You can be assured that the decisions on how we will fund our growth will be about maximizing shareholder value. With that, I will conclude and invite Adam to talk about his exciting business.
Thank you, Katie, and thank you, ATCO. Good morning, everyone. I'm very glad to be with you all here today. At last year's annual general meeting, I told attendees I look forward to standing on this stage a year later and sharing exciting growth and accomplishments that ATCO Structures would achieve. I'm really thrilled to deliver on that promise. 2024 saw ATCO Structures continue to carry out our strategic growth plan and achieve our highest-ever adjusted earnings result in the history of the company.
Now, we have a brief but impactful video I want to share with you as an overview of our exciting growth opportunities and strategies before I get into further details. This is how we build, baby, build. Our markets, products, and competitive advantages provide a significant opportunity for the future. We believe the global market for modular construction will be more than CAD200 billion by the end of 2034, and ATCO is poised to be the leader and innovator in this space. Structures' growth plan is really levered around building a strong foundation in our core space rentals trailer business with a large geographically located fleet and then also capitalizing on our expertise in modular manufacturing and site installation and construction to deliver a wide variety of modular products. We have opened five new branch locations across North America in the last year.
We have expanded our manufacturing capacity and commercial footprint in Australia with a new state-of-the-art operation in South Australia. We have grown our base business, increasing our rental fleet to over 25,000 units globally, doubling our fleet in under seven years and maintaining our occupancy levels, creating hundreds of new customers. Our ambition is to expand this fleet to over 40,000 units by the end of 2030. We are also driving new growth in the United States. We are significantly increasing brand awareness, expanding physical operating locations, and increasing our fleet assets and competitive models. We view this market as a substantial opportunity, and the pace of growth realized is exciting. Last September, we acquired NRB Modular Solutions, the largest permanent modular construction company within Canada.
We instantly increased our market share and capabilities, and we are leveraging NRB's expertise and our combined synergies to become the only Pan-Canadian modular company with new production locations in Ontario and British Columbia. Thanks to the NRB acquisition and our previous acquisition, ATCO Structures now offers a full suite of modular products across Canada, including commercial, residential, and education. We've strategically positioned our business. We have multiple levers to adjust and capitalize on market changes, and we've got a talented global team driving industry-leading outcomes. I'm very lucky I get to have a lot of fun with my job. Our strategic vision is based on the conviction that modular building is evolving as a crucial part of the future for shelter and building solutions. Our strategy is focused on four main areas of business. Firstly, the continued expansion and operation of a world-class fleet of assets.
I'm largely talking about the yellow-banded trailers we know and love. Having a larger and well-utilized fleet creates more predictable, sustainable income streams for us and was a primary driver of last year's excellent results. The backbone of our success is this stable and steadily growing rental fleet business. It's consistently in demand for a few reasons. It's flexibility of applications for temporary and permanent building space. It's quick to deploy and operate and is a very cost-competitive solution. The second area of our focus is building our brand and consumer awareness of modular and its advantages and opportunities. We are partnering with government and housing agencies to accelerate and scale the adoption of modular affordable housing solutions where traditional building methods cannot achieve the pace required. This is just one example of how we value our clients' needs.
Just two weeks ago, we took part in a media event in Midtown Toronto, craning in the modules for another new supportive housing facility going into Ontario. Last week, just down here, we broke ground to construct and install a new apartment project in downtown Calgary with our partners, Attainable Homes Calgary. This will see an 84-unit complex of six-story apartments occupied in under 19 months. A similar non-modular build across the road is planned to take 48 months to deliver. Our units for our project will be manufactured in under 70 days. Another area of strategic focus is expanding and tailoring our modular building solutions to the needs of the education, healthcare infrastructure, and commercial sectors. It is not just homes and workforce housing that can enjoy modular construction benefits like speed, quality, certainty, and flexibility.
Finally, our fourth main strategic driver is innovating our products and processes to produce affordable modular residential housing that meets the growing need for homes. That is here in Western Canada, where we already have a leadership position and also within other markets across Canada, the U.S., Latin America, and Australia. Evolving innovations and growing acceptance of modular means this building method is gaining traction throughout the world. How did we do in delivering our strategy in 2024? We grew our base business by increasing our rental fleet to over 25,000 units globally. We are on track to reach our target of 40,000 units by 2030. Not only did we grow the volume of products, we also grew the average rental rate by 9%, all this while keeping our average utilization rate at a target of around 75%. We announced more than CAD 375 million in new contracts in 2024.
These contracts included two significant resource infrastructure projects in Australia, showing we are still the prominent workforce housing provider. We grew our brand and awareness with our customers, creating more than 500 new customers in the U.S. alone last year. Last year, we doubled our market share in the U.S. While this is still an emerging market for us, the U.S. has significant runway for expansion in our business. We opened a new manufacturing facility in South Australia, bringing us to four locations in Australia and 12 best-in-industry manufacturing facilities worldwide. Thanks to all of these achievements by a tremendously talented and committed team, we are able to successfully deliver thousands of modular projects throughout all our locations to the satisfaction of our valued clients. As you have likely seen with our most recent result in Q1, we marked 11 consecutive quarters of delivering year-over-year adjusted earnings growth.
With this, we are on a good trajectory to continue our path for growth well into the future. I have another number, and it's very small from 2024, but incredibly important to our team. At our Calgary manufacturing operation this year, and Wald is here, I see him hiding down there, there were zero recordable injuries in our operation. Now, for those of you that don't know, a total recordable injury frequency, also called the TRIF of zero, is a world-class safety accomplishment and demonstrates our organization's proven commitment to safety as a value. This extends beyond just this manufacturing operation. Our global TRIF was 0.9, which is a fantastic reflection of the importance our culture places on safety within our workplaces. Our standards and safety leadership are world-class and a testament to our employees' commitment and values. I thank our team for their resolve.
I've got nice pictures here as well, so you'll enjoy them. Finally, I'd like to discuss how two important and recent acquisitions are positioning us for growth. Last year, we acquired NRB Modular Solutions. NRB are the leading permanent modular building company within Canada. With this acquisition, our Canadian manufacturing locations have expanded from two facilities to five, increasing our manufacturing capacity, product and skills capabilities, and access to new markets for all of our product offerings. With our integrated modular operations, we are well positioned to be a solution for Canada's housing plan. Our division, which we acquired in 2023, is helping to cement our standing as the largest single-family modular home builder in the region.
The NRB acquisition, along with our collaboration with Viva Homes by ATCO, Kristy's down there, positions ATCO to offer a full suite of commercial, residential, educational, and all forms of modular products across Canada. We believe these additions significantly enhance our business in the coming years and create new opportunities for our people to also grow their careers. In closing, we have multiple levers to adjust our strategy in response to market changes and a talented global team driving industry-leading outcomes. We see ourselves prepared for the future challenges and opportunities as they arise. I'd be happy at the end of, after all the speeches, to take some questions if anyone would like, as we love talking about modular. Now I'd like to invite my distinguished colleague, Bob Miles, to the podium, please.
Thank you, Adam. Thank you, Katie.
Wow, thank you, Nancy, firstly for the vote of confidence in me and our team. I definitely look forward to working with you. As I said last week in Edmonton at the Canadian Utilities AGM, I've always enjoyed working with you, and I'm going to continue to enjoy working with you, even in your role as Executive Chair. With that, I'm very happy to be with all of you today. Importantly, it is my distinct honor to represent the great people of Canadian Utilities who have brought us to where we are today.
With Katie capturing the overall financial update and how the business performed in 2024, I would like to make some comments about Canadian Utilities' team and the achievements they made, the significant contributions to earnings of CAD 340 million in 2024, and also comment that we've had a very significant growth in the first quarter of 2025. I am very proud of the team at Canadian Utilities. We believe there is a bright and bold future for our customers, our communities, and our investors. Our team at Canadian Utilities is committed to growth and in delivering on our strategy. Canadian Utilities is a diversified energy company with a solid foundation of high performance focused on long-term growth. We optimize capital investments across the energy value chain, and we operate safely and efficiently to deliver lasting value to customers, communities, and shareholders.
We will get to this bright future by focusing on a few key imperatives. Everything that we do in Canadian Utilities will fall into these three pillars. The first pillar is growth and prosperity. This involves pursuing growth projects like the Yellowhead Pipeline, and it involves developing new relationships and mechanisms with our partners, our regulators, and our customers to create an industry built on mutual trust. We have developed a very healthy pipeline of opportunities across Canadian Utilities. Second is operational excellence. This involves creating the most efficient, reliable, and simple operating model. It is about streamlining and realigning our business for maximum effect and impact. It definitely involves being a leader in our safety performance. Thirdly, we are very focused on financial leadership. This includes being able to effectively finance our growth plans in new and innovative ways, as Katie has already mentioned.
It's also about identifying partnership opportunities and streamlining operations to drive efficiencies and create financial capacity to support our growth ambitions. It includes the results we deliver to our shareholders, including Canadian Utilities' largest shareholder, ATCO. Despite the ongoing political, trade, and policy uncertainty, I want to assure you that our strategy is resilient and opportunistic. The stable utility business of ATCO Energy Systems and the growth and yield prospects of ATCO EnPower provide us the optionality and diversification opportunities. We continue to be bullish on the energy prospects for Alberta. We have a growing province and continued growth in the demand from the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. Getting to a green light on new energy infrastructure in Canada is not for the faint of heart. Thanks. It is more than getting infrastructure built.
It's also about making sure our energy offerings are equitable and affordable for customers and that our regulatory framework enables us to do this. I want to thank ATCO employees who have worked hard to deliver safe and reliable energy service to our customers. They have prioritized making our operations more efficient and have put the customer at the center of our business. As Nancy mentioned, and I'm very proud of this, we heard a lot of numbers today, but in the 2023 to 2028 performance-based regulation period, we are delivering more than $500,000,000 of savings directly to customers through lower rates, which is an 8% reduction in distribution fees. These are the charges for the pipes and wires that deliver both gas and electricity to each of our homes and businesses. I think that's a huge accomplishment for our company.
Now, ATCO is proud that we are the only utility that was able to reduce distribution rates for Albertans by driving efficiencies as we safely build and operate our utilities. Now, let me shift to providing you an update on some key projects. Progress on each of these projects that I will discuss involves collaborative efforts with government, regulators, and partners and customers, as well as many local communities. Last June, together with our partner Shell, we made the final investment decision, or FID, to proceed with the first phase of the Atlas Carbon Storage Hub. The first phase of Atlas will provide permanent underground storage for CO2 captured from Shell's Polaris project. We have already drilled two wells and are in the process of constructing the associated pipelines that will allow us to inject CO2 into an underground reservoir.
The next phase of Atlas will be aimed at meeting both ATCO EnPower's and Shell's carbon storage needs, with the remaining capacity being available for third-party emitters through an open access process. Katie already mentioned the strong results we're seeing from our natural gas liquids and natural gas storage business. Unlike some of our other businesses, these assets are largely out of mind and out of sight for most folks, but they are incredibly stable and dependable earnings drivers. They play a key role in the energy transition by insulating against periods of supply and demand volatility. We're already seeing growth in the gas storage area through the development and soon-to-be-operating LNG Canada facility. We do believe that gas storage is a great opportunity for our company as LNG continues to grow in Canada, which we believe it will.
I'd also like to give you an update on our Heartland Hydrogen Hub. Last year, we partnered with Linde Canada, who will be both an operator and an equity partner in this project. This partnership provides the quickest path to reach a final investment decision, as Linde's global project expertise will help improve the overall process, cost, and timing of this project. The establishment of a stable federal and provincial political environment will have a big impact on the timing and development of this initiative, and in particular, our ammonia export project. The ability to develop rail access to Tidewater will be the key driver to allowing us to provide a competitive pricing to our customers in Asia. Finally, I'd like to provide a more detailed update on the Yellowhead Pipeline project. This is a great example of infrastructure that enables Alberta prosperity and drives rate-based growth expectations.
We have a brief video that will provide some color on the Yellowhead project.
The Yellowhead Mainline is a significant initiative for ATCO and for Alberta. It aims to add capacity to our province's critical energy infrastructure and provide a new and more direct path for natural gas to reach the Edmonton area and the Alberta industrial heartland. With construction scheduled to start in 2026, our teams have been active in consulting and engaging with community members. The preferred route for the pipeline has been selected, balancing feedback from the community with construction and environmental considerations. We've held several open house sessions in local communities, giving us the opportunity to hear from stakeholders and for residents and business owners to learn more about the project.
We continue our work to assess environmental impacts and hold firm to the belief that responsible project development honors environmental stewardship and respects communities and landowners. Yellowhead is expected to enable significant economic benefits, more than CAD 20 billion in investment across the province, nearly 24,000 jobs by 2028 when these projects are fully operational and contributing CAD 3.9 billion annually to Alberta's GDP. We believe in the future of natural gas as a foundational fuel. A healthy and competitive natural gas sector is vital to growing industry within our province. The Yellowhead Mainline is a transformative project for ATCO and Alberta and an important example of how we can get critical energy infrastructure built in our country.
At a time when the need for Canadian energy infrastructure is in the spotlight, the Yellowhead Pipeline remains a critical infrastructure project needed to support a broad range of customers and industries to meet Alberta's energy needs. The Yellowhead Pipeline project, which is already 90% contracted, is on schedule and adhering to all regulatory processes. We are enabling the province's competitive advantage while addressing the energy needs of our growing population and industries. As Nancy indicated, Indigenous equity partnerships are crucial to the mutual advancement of Canada and Indigenous communities. I am very pleased to announce that the ATCO Energy Systems team is working diligently to secure a meaningful Indigenous ownership position on this project. We aim to have that finalized within the next 12 months. I truly appreciate being able to update you on Canadian Utilities.
I look forward to any questions you may have during our Q&A period. In closing, we're always taking a long-term view as to how we drive growth for our organization. We have a great balance of stability and optionality and a tremendous team working day in and day out to provide our customers, our communities, with the energy and products they need. That team is also there when climate events like fires and frosts and freeze-ups create operational challenges that impact the community. As I turn it back to our Chair and CEO, I'll leave you with a video that demonstrates our team's commitment to the community and the response we delivered during Jasper Fire last year.
In the summer of 2024, Jasper National Park faced a devastating wildfire, forcing 25,000 people to evacuate, destroying over 350 structures, including severe damage to more than 800 ATCO gas and electric assets. As the wildfire spread, ATCO's team worked to isolate the natural gas system and maintain electricity until evacuation was necessary. I think when I look back on our response in Jasper, the first thing I think about is how the people of ATCO came together from all corners of the province to support our efforts. The teams faced a variety of unique challenges on the ground with the daily bears and wildlife interactions, along with a number of active fires in the area. The one thing that stands out for me is that we all did it safely. Despite extreme smoke and harsh conditions, our teams quickly assessed damage and prioritized restoring power to critical facilities.
Our team's efforts were commendable. Within just 16 construction days, 100% of undamaged homes were reconnected to electricity. We are gearing up for the next wildfire season by being proactive. We have got solid business continuity plans and incident management teams to make sure we can respond quickly and effectively. Everything we do is rooted in that commitment. ATCO has supported Jasper since 1942, providing reliable energy and engaging the community beyond providing essential services. ATCO has lived, worked, and volunteered here, sponsoring events like our Jasper in January. This year, the Oilers Hockey Clinic, presented by ATCO, was held in Jasper at the beginning of May. ATCO employees from across the province answered Jasper's call for help. More than 400 incident management team members in Hinton and Jasper, along with remote staff, demonstrated unwavering commitment. As Jasper rebuilds, ATCO remains committed to supporting recovery and growth.
Proud of our teams. I hope you will agree with me that this is a terrific cadre of executives leading the businesses of your company. I want to thank them so much for the tremendous work ethic they represent, the transparency, the camaraderie, and the willingness to challenge each other, including me. They do not worry about challenging me, that is for sure. I am so proud of you all. Thank you very, very much. I will just make a few comments, actually, because we did not cover off the defense sector, which is important to your company. The opportunities in Canada are really quite astounding, especially as Canada moves to modernize the NORAD system and strengthen our northern defense.
Just last month, our joint venture between ATCO Frontech and the Inuvialuit were awarded a two-year contract, which is really exciting, by the government of Canada to design, build, install, and operate a new Polar Over-the-Horizon Radar system in the Northwest Territories. The radar will use technology that can detect targets at very long ranges, and this is very needed in today's north. The long range actually goes from hundreds to thousands of kilometers, well beyond our typical radar system today in the North Warning System. It is just one of the examples of our strong linkages and our commitment to our military armed forces in Canada. Primarily, we do that through ATCO Structures and ATCO Frontech. It is this strong connection, combined with the passion of ATCO Frontech's President, Jim Landon, that prompted us to start supporting the Invictus Games.
Any of you familiar with the Invictus Games for veterans? If you're not, it is such a healing event and such an inspirational event. We deepened our support with our role as the overall co-presenting sponsor of the 2025 Games in Vancouver and Whistler. To capture the spirit of these games, I'd like to show you a little video.
ATCO is incredibly proud to be the co-presenting sponsor of the Invictus Games Vancouver Whistler 2025, an event that goes beyond competition to honor wounded and injured service members and veterans. Everybody who's part of the Invictus community, can I hear some noise? To fully acknowledge the people and lands where the games take place, this year's events began with the Invictus Games Flag Expedition.
This powerful trek brought together First Nations representatives and veterans from around the world, carrying the flag through the territories of the four host First Nations through to the opening ceremonies. To be included in the Invictus Games is a true honor to see us come together. It's not us and them, it's really us. A symbol of unity, resilience, and a shared commitment to reconciliation and recovery. Thank you very much for making us all feel so welcome. The Invictus Games is all about, obviously, competition, but it's, again, it's a sense of teamwork, a sense of camaraderie, and being part of a team to achieve a mission or an outcome. Invictus has been life-changing. We come together with the same struggles, the same battles, and the same goals that we want to achieve.
These types of games and events that help us to inspire the next generation that we're in this together. It means a lot to see veterans being able to show their courage and have a way to heal through sport. From the airfields of Afghanistan to our work with NATO, National Defense, and the North Warning System, ATCO has always stood by the military community, whether through critical infrastructure, partnerships, or celebrations here in Canada. ATCO's commitment to the military has never wavered. Being part of the Invictus Games is such an amazing opportunity. It's been amazing just walking around this morning and interacting with people from all different countries. The Invictus Games embody the same spirit of resilience, service, and community that defines ATCO, making this partnership a natural and meaningful fit. Every veteran has a journey once you hang up the uniform.
For me, this is very special to be amongst these veterans, to support them, which is why I love working for ATCO. It is their commitment to veterans.
We look forward to continuing our partnership with the Invictus Games as a co-sponsor in England 2027, and of course, supporting our great Canadian team for the next many, many years. In closing, I would like to once again thank my executive team, our executive team, for your terrific commitment and dedication, and all of the people of ATCO. Thank you all so very much. I want to thank our directors for your terrific wisdom, your guidance, your counsel, your challenges in your challenging all of us as executives, and most importantly, advising us on how to best succeed. Again, thank you to Bob Booth for your terrific commitment to this enterprise. It has been a wonderful journey.
Lots of ups, but mostly ups, very few downs. To our shareholders, our friends, our suppliers, and customers, thank you all for your commitment, your belief in ATCO. It is such a great honor to be with all of you here today. Now I would like to open it up for any questions or comments. I know we've gone well over the time allowed because the gift of the gab is standing right up here. You know, RD, when he was standing up here, actually would ask his assistant to have the shepherd's hook out, take him off the stage. I do not do that. Any questions? Yes.
Nancy. Carl Roode here, long, long time ATCO share owner and proud. I do not need to tell everybody here how great a company is in any name.
The can of worms I'd like to ask about is what's your thoughts on AI and the potential overload of the systems? Is that a big opportunity for us moving forward? I mean, AI, for those who may not know, is artificial intelligence, and the demand for electricity is extreme, theoretically anyway. That's my question.
It's a really good question, Carl, and it's certainly one that we've been considering because the housing of the machines that actually help AI work is these data centers, and they require a ton of electricity, and it has to be reliable. It has to be 24/7, 365 days a year. It is a great opportunity. It's a great opportunity for Alberta.
I mentioned earlier on that Alberta is making forward steps in trying to address how the grid will operate under more strain and the requirements of large power generators to address the data centers. We aren't quite there yet. It's not quite decided as to how a new center, a new power generating station for a data center will interplay with the transmission grid. We are waiting, and we believe the Alberta government will have some pretty certain rules coming down pretty soon. It is critical we get it right. We, unlike many jurisdictions in North America or around the world, do not have the same integrated utility operations.
When you look at Texas or you look at Duke Energy, the grand dam of utilities in the United States, they have the ability to offer the generation and the transmission and the redundancy required for those data centers. We do not have that in Alberta because of our deregulated systems. The generation operates separately, our transmission grid operates separately. Hopefully, the two shall meet in an economic way that will allow us to capture the opportunities. Right now, we are in a wait-and-see mode. Andrew.
Hi. This year, I would like to ask a question to Adam Beattie. I am just wondering, the approach to tariffs that the U.S. is taking and whatever negotiations go on between the Canadian and U.S. governments on that issue, how do those tariffs affect your part of ATCO?
What can you and also our Canadian provincial and federal governments do to alleviate whatever difficulties those tariffs may cause? Thanks.
Excellent question.
Thank you, Andrew. I think that's working. Firstly, we operate our Canadian and our U.S. businesses quite distinctly. We have capacities for manufacturing, construction, fleets, independent. Cross-border issues really come back to raw material supply. If we look at what we manufacture in Canada, about 75% of the materials that go into our products are locally sourced or sourced within Australia. There is a minimal impact. You can see the majority of the tariffs at the moment as hitting steel and aluminum or aluminum, depending on where you are. Sorry, still working on that. That's primary. Things like kitchen appliances going into our homes, we've seen some pricing increases on those items.
The majority of our products are built from timber. We have not seen any significant impact at this point in terms of tariffs that have directly caused a problem with our production and our raw material supply or logistics supply. We have actually seen some other benefits as well, where the cost of fuel has decreased and logistics is a big part of what we do. There are offsets. To get into the detail, I probably need a couple of hours, but that is it. I think the governments have worked reasonably. Opinion here. Governments have worked reasonably well to combat response to tariffs and the concerns. The focus really has not, I think the U.S. government has realized, if you look at the construction industry in the U.S., about 84% of their raw materials come from outside of the U.S. in their own construction industry. That is an industry statistic.
I don't know the exact quote, but don't quote me on it. That's a big portion of dependability within their economy. I think hopefully rationality comes through. I think the trade relationships and partnerships between the two countries unite back again, and they see that there's a cohesion between the supply and the movement of materials and products back and forth between those countries. For us personally, we are a manufacturer. We have local manufacturing, and we're designed that way because we have a logistics radius of transport by trucks. Cross-border transport isn't a major impact for us other than material inputs. Sorry, a bit long.
There are. It's fine. Emil.
I'd like to commend ATCO for their performance with the Jasper Fire. My question, I think, is addressed to Bob. Could you elaborate on the status of the Puerto Rico contract?
Very good question.
Yeah.
That sounds like it was planted. Yeah. To be totally transparent, it's a challenge in Puerto Rico. It's a challenge because there's two components of funding to rebuild the Puerto Rican system. One is from Washington. With the funding from Washington, that funding is only required or only available to actually replace what a hurricane destroyed. The second problem, though, in Puerto Rico is that the system hasn't been maintained for many years. So the funding for that part of the rebuilding of Puerto Rico electric distribution transmission system needs to come from the island of Puerto Rico. There's a lot of challenges with funding down there. There's a new government that has been put in place. We're spending a lot of time trying to identify the path forward with the government in Puerto Rico. I'm an optimistic person.
I'm optimistic that we'll find a way through this whole thing. It is a day-to-day challenge in how we go about operating in Puerto Rico. It's unfortunate if you follow the news on December 31 of last year, on the two days before Good Friday at Easter this year, the whole island was out of power. I think we take that for granted many times sitting in Canada here. When you're in Puerto Rico and you have no power, it's pretty tough. Of course, we're the company that's providing the transmission distribution for the island. We're definitely front and center with that. If I had a positive comment, the only difference about Puerto Rico losing power versus losing power here in Alberta, if it had happened here on New Year's Eve, it would have been pretty cold.
That is one positive thing for Puerto Rico. It is not an excuse, and it is not acceptable. We are working really hard. I wish I had a definitive answer as to a timeline as to when we will have it all resolved. It is a 15-year contract, so it is going to take some time to rebuild the island. Are we losing money? Nope. Nope. Nope. They are still paying their bills for us. Yeah. Bob, it might be worthwhile, though, when the Easter outage occurred, the blackout occurred, how long did it take to get the island back up? Yeah, good point, Nancy. We were back up and running for what we could control in about 30 hours. That sounds really good. It is actually kind of somewhat embarrassing that we have gotten really, really good at restarting the island. That means you have had a lot of chances to actually do that.
It was really our team down there worked around the clock. I know the island recognizes that for them. Again, we shouldn't be losing power is the point.
That's the point. Yeah. Much work to do on that, Emil. Anybody else? Norm, did you say you had a question?
Carl sort of stole my thing on AI, but my question to AI, and there's a fairly good technical market in Canada or in Calgary, especially, just subtly working behind the scenes. We don't see much of it. On AI, is there any way that ATCO's looking at taking the legalities and segregating the AI thing out based on the Saudi stuff here the other day to make it sort of like an independent company where we aren't having to follow just electric regulations?
Maybe. Maybe in our grandchildren's time.
I think that the Premier believes that you can actually have standalone, self-generating, redundant, 24/7 reliable power for the data centers, not attached to the grid. We have seen that in Saudi. They have done that. It is subsidized. If you wanted to do it without subsidies, the economic path to being a standalone and building your own redundancy, your own generation, your own connection is far, the cost far outweighs what you could go to Texas or Arizona or Florida or the Eastern States to be able to replicate. I think that is an economic impediment to be a standalone. We really have to find a way to integrate, use the grid, deliver the reliability, the redundancy that they need through the grid with some excess power. I think that is key to all of us as users of electricity in this province.
It is key to our businesses that we have enough electricity that there are not shortages and shooting the price sky high. We have all felt the strains of affordability of our utilities. All the people in ATCO are customers just like everyone else. We need to get this right. I really believe natural gas is the most abundant fuel we have in this province. It is the lowest cost. What is it? Where is Jason? A buck and a half or Bob? A buck and a half,
CAD 1.11 yesterday.
CAD 1.11 for natural gas. Practically free, Jason Kenney said. Why are we not using that more in our province to really bolster economic development using our natural gas? That is where I really do believe and hope the new federal government, I believe the Prime Minister means what he said, that we want to be an energy superpower.
The only way we get to be an energy superpower is to make sure we not only use domestic natural gas and oil for our industries done in the cleanest way from anywhere around the world and also use it as an export. The key is using it ourselves, hence the corridor conversations. I do think the AI opportunities are, they're vast, they're large, they're exciting. We have to get the details of the regulation and the legislation right. The government's working on it earnestly. Anything else? Once again, if I may, my mom, Linda, and our families would love to see you throughout the year at Spruce Meadows for the 50th anniversary. Thank you all very much for joining us this morning.