Good morning and welcome to Avista Corporation's 2024 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. It's my pleasure to introduce Dennis Vermillion, CEO of Avista. Dennis, go ahead.
Well, good morning. I'm Dennis Vermillion, CEO of Avista. Welcome to Avista's 2024 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Thank you for joining us. We're again holding this year's annual meeting in an all-virtual format. As we did last year, we are using this format with audio only. We've strived to make this meeting as inclusive as possible by offering our shareholders an even more accessible way to participate as compared to our past in-person meetings. Let's look at today's agenda for what we'll cover during our time together. First, we'll conduct the business portion of our meeting. If there are any shareholders who have not yet voted, you may vote during this virtual meeting by clicking on the vote button on your screen. The polls will close after this business meeting concludes. Those who are voting this morning can be assured that their vote will be included in the final results.
After the business portion of our meeting, I'll turn to our business update and review some of our business and operating highlights from 2023. After my remarks, Heather Rosentrater, our President and COO, will talk about the advancements we continue to make in our wildfire mitigation efforts. She will also go over a few of the highlights regarding our legacy of innovation and our continuing focus on advancing clean energy. Following Heather, Kevin Christie, our Senior Vice President, CFO, Treasurer, and Regulatory Affairs Officer, will provide some of our financial highlights from 2023 and the first quarter of 2024. As always, there will be time at the end for you to ask questions. If you do have a question, please feel free to submit your question at any time by typing it in the text box found at the lower left corner of the screen.
We'll try to answer all questions submitted in connection with today's meeting. Unanswered questions will be addressed on our Investor Relations website after the meeting. As we begin this morning's meeting, I will caution you that we will be making forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, which are subject to change. I direct you to Avista's Form 10-K, which was filed with the SEC on March 21, 2024, and Form 10-Q, which was filed on April 30th, 2024, for reference to the various factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed today. You can find those documents on our website. Before I start the business portion of the meeting, I'd like to introduce our board members who are all participating in this virtual meeting.
Our board members are Julie Bentz, Don Burke, Kevin Jacobsen, Rebecca Klein, Sena Kwawu, Scott Maw, Scott Morris, Jeffrey Philipps, Heidi Stanley, and Janet Widmann. Now, for our officers, you'll note that the various areas for which the officers are responsible appeared in the annual report, so I'll introduce them by name only. Our officers are Heather Rosentrater, Kevin Christie, Bryan Cox, Josh DiLuciano, Greg Hesler, Latisha Hill, Scott Kinney, Ryan Krasselt, Wayne Manuel, David Meyer, Jason Thackston, and Alec Mesdag. At this time, we'll convene the business portion of the meeting. The Inspector of Elections has informed us that a majority of outstanding shares held of record and entitled to vote as the close of business on March 21, 2024, the record date of this meeting, are represented at this meeting. The first matter to be considered at this meeting is the election of directors.
11 directors are standing for election for a one year term. The board recommends a vote for each director. There are no other nominations. The second matter to be considered at this meeting is the proposal by the Board of Directors that the shareholders ratify the board's appointment of the firm of Deloitte & Touche LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm for 2024. The board recommends a vote for this proposal. I'd like to note that representatives from Deloitte & Touche LLP are attending this virtual meeting. The third matter to be considered is an advisory, non-binding vote on the company's executive compensation. The board recommends a vote for this proposal. As you know, most of our shareholders voted before this meeting, and the preliminary voting results as of this morning show that all the proposals have passed. That concludes the business portion of our meeting.
Now, before I begin our business update, I'd like to take just a minute to formally acknowledge that since our last meeting, we've named Heather Rosentrater as our President and Chief Operating Officer. This makes her the first female president in our company's 135-year history. Heather's leadership positions us at the forefront of innovation. She has a reputation as an established thought leader who constantly challenges Avista and our partners to strategically anticipate what's next, a necessity for leadership during this unique transformational time in the utility industry. Congratulations again, Heather. We know you've had a busy eight months in the role so far. Heather started her career with Avista back in 1996 as a student engineering technician for Avista Labs, a fuel cell subsidiary business that was later sold and became ReliOn.
In 1999, she joined Avista Corp as an electrical engineer and was quickly promoted to leadership roles that have built her experience across both Avista's electric and natural gas businesses. She's managed departments and projects in the electric transmission and distribution, system operations, natural gas supply, business process improvement, before being named Vice President of Energy Delivery in 2015. By 2019, Heather was named Senior Vice President of Energy Delivery and Shared Services, and in September of 2022, her responsibilities expanded to Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. As part of Avista's ongoing commitment to succession planning and strategic workforce planning, Heather's vision for innovation is a real asset to our leadership team. She has been instrumental in building a solid foundation for the utility of the future.
We're looking forward to the future of energy with you in your new role, Heather, and we'll all be hearing more from Heather in just a moment. I would also like to quickly acknowledge Kevin Christie. It was about this time last year that he was named Senior Vice President, CFO, Treasurer, and Regulatory Affairs Officer, so this is his first annual meeting in his new role. Kevin's promotion to CFO comes after serving as Senior Vice President, External Affairs, and Chief Customer Officer for Avista. Kevin joined Avista in 2005 and has held various leadership roles in Avista's natural gas business. He was appointed the Senior Director of Finance in 2012 and named Vice President of Customer Solutions in 2015. His responsibilities expanded to Vice President, External Affairs, and Chief Customer Officer.
Under Kevin's leadership, we've successfully worked with regulators to secure approval and implementation of multi-year rate cases, which contribute to Avista's long-term financial success and stability. His strategic thinking and proven track record of building credibility and trust are valuable qualities in his role as CFO. So, Kevin, congratulations once more. Now let's turn to our business update. I'm proud of what we accomplished in 2023. We had a good year. We delivered on our commitments to our customers by investing capital across our service territory, upgrading infrastructure to improve reliability, and maintaining our facilities to ensure their safe operation. Our work in 2023 strengthened our ability to deliver the energy our customers rely on and enhanced our customers' experience. Avista's earnings in 2023 also showed significant improvement from 2022.
This reflects the benefits of improved cost recovery resulting from our general rate cases and our success in managing our costs, despite increased interest rates and higher power supply costs, all to boot. We've remained committed on our commitments to both our customers and our shareholders. I would be remiss if I didn't also highlight that Avista just celebrated 135 years of service, a demonstration of our staying power. Throughout our history, we've supported our communities by providing the safe and reliable energy our customers count on to improve their lives and run their businesses. We look forward to continuing this legacy into the future. Staying power means the strength to weather challenging conditions while delivering on our commitments. We believe in the core of our business to provide affordable, reliable, and safe energy.
We believe in our people and in our ability to plan for the future, and we've proven that we have the staying power to meet the needs of today and tomorrow. Perseverance like this requires staying power, and that is the theme of this year's annual report. The cover of our annual report embodies our characteristic optimism and illustrates staying power and what staying power looks like at Avista. Tricia Matthews, Apprentice Electrical Mechanic, is pictured working at the Lolo substation in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley, south of Lewiston, Idaho. Part of her work that day involved installing one of two large auto transformers at the Lolo substation. In 2023, the facility received a complete upgrade and rebuild to improve transmission performance and reliability for Avista customers.
Just as we continue to invest in our infrastructure for the benefit of our customers, we continue to pursue constructive regulatory outcomes, moving us closer to the rate relief we're striving to achieve. Last year, we completed cases in Idaho and Oregon, and we filed a multi-year rate plan in Washington in January of 2024. Transforming how we work contributes to our overall performance. I would like to share just one example of our staying power through adaptation. In 2023, Avista used special equipment called a Spider to install transmission line poles, our first time using this equipment. The Spider reduces the environmental impact of this work by eliminating the need for access roads and construction pads on steep terrain. Subsequently, the need for restoration of the area to its original state after the work is completed is also eliminated.
Big win for us and a really neat piece of equipment. So with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Heather, and Heather's going to talk a little bit more about what staying power means to us.
Thank you, Dennis. Good morning. It's great to be here with you all today. One of the qualities that defines our work in the past year is our ability to demonstrate staying power under pressure. In November, we faced the largest natural gas outage in our company's history. Nearly 37,000 natural gas customers were impacted when a gas pipeline that transports natural gas to Avista's system was damaged by a third-party dig-in. Over 800 of our amazing Avista employees, along with mutual aid workers from eight utilities spanning eight states and contract employees, worked to safely restore service to the vast majority of impacted customers in less than one week.
That we were able to achieve restoration of service in such a short time frame is a testament to the determination and drive of our people and the people who came alongside us to help. I'm thankful for each one and for the resilience and understanding of our customers. We show our staying power through our wildfire prevention efforts. The risk of wildfire affects how we deliver energy safely and reliably. These prevention efforts include grid hardening and other resiliency undertakings. Our Fire Safety Mode enhances customer safety through the monitoring of and proactive response to changing wildfire conditions. We've made considerable progress in implementing our Wildfire Resiliency Plan. In 2023, we invested $28 million of capital under our plan. In addition to grid hardening, the plan includes enhanced vegetation management, smart grid intelligence, and augmented operations and emergency response capability.
Mitigating our wildfire risk supports electric service reliability and safety for Avista's most highly impacted customers and communities. We also launched the Safe Tree Program, which allows residents to easily report vegetation that could pose a threat to utility lines. Avista contracts with local arborists to assess and remove problematic vegetation and even will replant the area with utility-friendly species. We continue to build on our vision of energy innovation with the Catalyst Building and Eco District. It is here that we prove the staying power of our innovative spirit. This spirit sparks many opportunities for collaboration and partnership, adding value to our company. We are positioned well for future growth and transformation. Avista, along with our subsidiary Edo, recently hosted a Department of Energy Connected Communities Regional Summit at the Scott Morris Center for Energy Innovation.
Connected Communities grant recipients from the Western Region gathered to share information, introduce their projects, meet with DOE representatives and partners, and seek project synergies. Avista's collaborative nature extends to our partnership with General Electric to implement an Advanced Distribution Management System, or ADMS. This replaces our existing outage management tool. Design and data modeling work is already underway, and the new ADMS will help address business needs, including enabling shorter windows for estimated restoration times for customers during power outages. Equally important is how we work to improve our ability to anticipate future needs. We received Chartwell's Bronze Best Practices Award in outage operations for our weather and incident forecasting tool. This innovative tool uses a variety of data to generate outage predictions, allowing us to proactively plan and prepare for potential weather events. It significantly extends our planning horizon and improves response times.
From our founding on clean hydropower to today, collaborating toward a clean energy future has been part of our company values. Avista has the staying power to advance clean energy. This past year marked the 40th anniversary of our Kettle Falls Generating Station. This biomass plant was the first utility-owned electric generating station of its kind in the United States. Its sole purpose is to produce electricity from wood waste. Then and now, biomass is an important part of our diverse energy portfolio. The renewable energy generated at Kettle Falls helps us continue to provide reliable, responsible energy while meeting environmental mandates and being good stewards of both our customers' energy dollars and our environment. Avista continues to make progress on our clean energy goals. We completed a 30-year agreement for 100 MW of clean wind energy in Montana.
That agreement and the addition of Avista's recent hydroelectric agreements with Chelan County PUD and Columbia Basin Hydro results in more than 70% of our peak generating capability coming from non-emitting resources by 2026. These agreements move us closer to achieving our clean energy goals as well as meeting our customers' needs now and into the future. And finally, Avista was honored to be recently recognized by Ethisphere as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies for 2024. It's the fifth consecutive year Avista was selected as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies, one of only eight honorees in the energy and utilities industry. This honor is a tribute to our employees who work daily with the highest level of integrity and in a manner that is trustworthy, innovative, and collaborative. These are just some of our recent accomplishments.
Avista is well positioned to adapt to the challenges that surround us. We have the staying power to deliver on our commitments to all our stakeholders. Our staying power will continue to service well now and into the future. At this time, I'll turn the program over to Kevin Christie, who will provide the highlights of our financial performance.
Thank you, Heather, and good morning, everyone. Before I get into the financial highlights, I want to say how happy I am to be here with you this morning. My first year as Chief Financial Officer of Avista has been both challenging and rewarding, and I've enjoyed getting to meet so many of our investors. Turning to our financial and operating highlights, in 2023, we had earnings of $171.2 million or $2.24 per diluted share. On a consolidated basis, our earnings were slightly below our expectation.
This was the result of losses in our other businesses, which were driven by changes in certain investments. For 2023, Avista Utilities contributed $2.18 per diluted share, a significant improvement from Avista Utilities' earnings in 2022. Our core utility operations are strong and demonstrate significant earnings growth of over 35% in 2023 when compared to 2022. This increase is largely the result of improved cost recovery, successful cost management in an inflationary environment, and lower net power supply costs. AEL&P had another strong year and contributed $0.12 per diluted share. Earlier this morning, we confirmed our consolidated earnings guidance for 2024. We are off to a solid start this year with first-quarter earnings of $71.5 million or $0.91 per diluted share, which is right in line with our expectations for the quarter.
Compared to the first quarter of 2023, Avista Utilities' earnings have increased, which is largely the result of the effects of our general rate cases. We filed general rate cases in Washington earlier this year, and we are working through the regulatory process. We expect resolution late in the year for new rates to be effective in December of 2024. We continue to be committed investing the necessary capital in our utility infrastructure. We estimate Avista Utilities' capital expenditures to be about $500 million in 2024. We expect AEL&P's capital expenditures to total about $21 million for the year. In addition, we expect to invest about $11 million at our other businesses, primarily related to non-regulated investment opportunities. In February, the board increased our annual dividend to $1.90 per share. We are committed to maximizing value and delivering returns for our shareholders.
Regarding liquidity and capital resources, as of March 31st, we had $198 million of available liquidity under our committed line of credit and $36 million available under our letter of credit facility. In April, we completed a remarketing opportunity for $83.7 million of tax-exempt bonds. We expect to issue approximately $70 million of equity in 2024, which will occur throughout the remainder of the year. That concludes the financial and operating highlights I planned to share this morning. I'll turn it over to Dennis so we can answer any questions you may have.
Thank you, Kevin and Heather. At this point, I'd like to open it up for questions. If you have a question, please enter it into the text box at the lower left corner of the screen of this meeting site.
Dennis, I think our first question is for you. Has the company received any federal or state money? And if so, is there an effect on customer rates or ROE?
Yeah, that's a good question. We have received money. A couple of examples are with the infrastructure bills, the federal infrastructure bills that have been passed over the last couple of years. We've been able to receive some money from the federal government to support our capital plan and our innovation work. A good example is our Post Falls hydroelectric facility redevelopment project. We received a $5 million grant in support of that work. It's a $225 million project, so it's a big investment. Of course, having some additional monies from the federal government allows us to stretch our capital dollars even further than what we otherwise might be able to do. Of course, that has an impact on rates too.
Just rates would be lower than they otherwise would be had we not had that $5 million grant. Another great example is kind of on the low-income portion. There's a number of our customers in our community who are lower-income and less fortunate, and we work very hard to meet their needs. A good example is funding for bill relief and support. Those funds obviously flow through to where it's needed most in our communities. In addition to all the efforts that we do around energy efficiency and trying to lower bills, those monies help lower customer bills too, especially for those that need it most. So those are a couple of good examples. There's no impact really on the return on equity on any monies that we would receive from state or federal.
Our next question, Kevin. How has the company approached funding in this period of high interest rates?
Thanks for the question, Stacey. As we continue to support customer growth and maintain our system to provide our safe, reliable energy to our customers, we're planning capital expenditures at $500 million in 2024, as I had mentioned. The way we're looking at funding for our ongoing business and operations is a combination of funds from operations, long-term debt in which we issued, as I mentioned, $84 million of long-term debt, and we expect to issue for the remainder of the year about $70 million of equity in order to keep a balanced capital structure in place for our customers and for the utility.
Will the continuation of inflation cause a certain percentage of rate increases each year or period?
Thanks, Stacey. We continue to prudently manage our costs during this inflationary environment. Either inflationary costs that we've experienced, they have been put in rates or will be put in rates with some exceptions due to the timing of those inflationary costs and when we were filing our general rate cases. On a go-forward basis, we will continue to consider inflationary costs and impacts and how that might impact rates in those future rate cases. We do have an eye, as most of the market does, towards inflation. And as interest rates moderate, we think inflation, that's tied hand in hand, and we should see the inflationary impacts moderate.
Thank you. Is there a difference in how regulatory authorities look at private versus public utility companies?
Thanks again, Stacey. The way I think about it is we, as an investor-owned utility, are regulated by utility commissions in each of our states. Those utility commissions have very clear mandates on how to regulate and the regulatory process around ratemaking and how utilities are treated there. On the public side, where utilities are owned by consumers or they're part of a municipality, they're typically regulated by either their board in the case of a consumer-owned or a municipal government in the case of a municipal utility. So it's pretty apples and oranges. We have firm regulation, though, on our end around the UTC and clear guidelines on how that should work.
Great. Thank you. And one final question here. Is the Energy Recovery Mechanism working and helping the company?
Well, I think the Energy Recovery Mechanism has been useful for a number of years, up until the last two or three, where we think we've seen a fundamental shift in energy markets. Because of the fact that we've seen that fundamental shift in energy markets, in this last General Rate Case in the State of Washington, we filed to make adjustments, or at least we proposed to make adjustments to the Energy Recovery Mechanism. That case will play out over the year or so here we're in, and we expect to have a final answer on how the Energy Recovery Mechanism will be treated on a go-forward basis by the time we get through our case.
Wonderful. I see no further questions.
All right. Well, thank you. I'd like to close by saying thank you for attending today's annual meeting. We send you all our best wishes. Have a great day. Thanks again.
The meeting has now concluded. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.