Good morning and welcome to Avista Corporation's 2025 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. It's my pleasure to introduce Heather Rosentrater, President and CEO of Avista. Heather, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. I'm Heather Rosentrater, President and CEO of Avista. Welcome to Avista's 2025 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, and thank you for joining us. We're holding this year's annual meeting in an all-virtual format again. 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 the 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 the meeting, I'll turn to our business update and review some of our business and operating highlights from 2024. After my remarks, Kevin Christie, our Senior Vice President, CFO, Treasurer, and Regulatory Affairs Officer, will provide some of our financial highlights from 2024 and the first quarter of 2025. As always, we will take time at the end to answer your questions. If you have a question, please feel free to submit it at any time by typing it in the text box found at the lower left corner of the screen.
We look forward to answering questions submitted in connection with today's meeting, but if we are unable to answer a question during the meeting, please check our website or reach out to our Investor Relations team. 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 February 26, 2025, and Form 10-Q, which was filed on May 6, 2025, 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.
I feel very fortunate to have board members with such strong and relevant knowledge, experience, and expertise that supports Avista's continued success. Thank you, board members, for your time this morning, and thank you for your dedication, insights, and commitment to Avista. Our board members are Julie Benz, John Burke, Kevin Jacobson, Becky Kline, Seneca Wabu, Scott Ma, Scott Morris, Jeff Phillips, Heidi Stanley, and Janet Widman. Now for our officers. You'll note 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 Kevin Christie, Brian Cox, Josh DeLuciano, Greg Hessler, Letitia Hill, Scott Kinney, Ryan Krasselt, Wayne Manuel, David Meyer, Jason Baxton, and Alec Mezdegh. 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 of the close of business on March 7, 2025, 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 2025. The board recommends a vote for this proposal. I'd like to note that representatives from Deloitte & Touche are attending this virtual meeting.
The third matter to be considered is a proposal to amend the company's long-term incentive plan to increase the number of shares reserved for issuance under the plan. The purpose and reasons for this proposal were addressed extensively in the company's proxy statement. The board recommends a vote for this proposal. The fourth 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. The preliminary voting results as of this morning show that all the proposals have passed. That concludes the business portion of our meeting. As I've stepped into the President and CEO role at Avista, I've been reflecting on our incredible history.
It encourages me to know that over our 136-year history, our company and people have demonstrated resilience, tenacity, and a commitment to our communities over and over again, both through times of opportunity and times of uncertainty. I am honored, humbled, and excited to serve alongside an incredible team of people who continue to demonstrate these attributes. We take to heart our mission of enabling vibrant communities through energy as we serve our customers and communities every day. I have a lot of optimism for the future and feel incredibly fortunate to work at a company that provides essential services to the communities that I grew up in. Now let's turn to our business update. I want to start by saying how proud I am of our performance and what we accomplished in 2024.
Although the trends, opportunities, and risks that impact us continue to evolve, we approach these opportunities and challenges with flexibility and adaptability. Even with the headwinds we experienced from higher costs, including purchase power costs in 2024, our utility earnings were near the midpoint of our original expectations and improved nearly 5% from 2023. We started 2024 with an extreme cold weather event that stressed our region's gas and electric systems, reminding us of the importance of holistic energy planning and timely infrastructure investment. Avista invested a record $510 million in capital, all to ensure robust energy supply and delivery for our customers and to ensure we are prepared for future weather extremes and demand uncertainty. We entered a memorandum of understanding for the North Plains Connector, an approximately 420-mile high-voltage direct current transmission line.
This project provides a new transmission pathway that connects us to markets we have not been able to access previously and benefits our customers by supporting resource adequacy and further strengthening the grid. The preferred resource plan covered in our 2025 Electric Integrated Resource Plan, or IRP, identifies several investment opportunities, including adding new renewable resources through contract or ownership by the end of the decade. The plan also identifies the need for dispatchable generation resources, including either new natural gas generation or energy storage. To support the resources needs identified in the IRP, we expect to issue an all-source request for proposal calling for bids for up to 400 MW of generation targeted to be online in 2029. We're optimistic about considering ownership options as part of the IRP process through bill transfer agreement options and through our own self-billed options.
During 2024, we also took further steps towards our clean energy goals by signing our fourth renewable natural gas contract, and we started receiving power from our portion of the Clearwater Wind Project. In addition to ensuring robust energy supply and delivery systems, our strategic areas of focus are to partner in the shared clean energy economy, to inspire engaged and thriving employees, and to continue to increase our financial strength. These objectives are just some of the ways we are delivering upon our mission of enabling vibrant communities through energy. In this spirit, we launched our 2025 to 2035 strategy playbook. This playbook is more than a document. It demonstrates our readiness to act upon opportunities and tackle our most pressing challenges. Energy that transforms is the theme of this year's annual report. That theme highlights our ability to adapt, innovate, and show resiliency even during challenging times.
We know that to thrive as a company, we must always be innovating and growing. Our legacy of innovation continues to inspire how we look at our business today and helps us anticipate where we need to be decades into the future. The cover of our annual report this year pays tribute to a few of the sources in our energy mix, from our beginnings in hydropower to clean energy sources like wind today. Just as we continue to invest in our infrastructure for the benefit of our customers, we continue to pursue constructive regulatory outcomes. The constructive outcomes of our Washington general rate cases provided a strong foundation as we started 2025. We plan to build on the constructive Washington outcomes the rest of the year as we work through the regulatory processes in our general rate cases in Oregon and Idaho.
Kevin will provide more details on the regulatory front in a moment. We continue to prioritize mitigating the risk of wildfire as well. Since January, two bills have passed in the Washington legislature. The first bill relates to the approval of wildfire mitigation plans, and the second bill enables securitization of the costs associated with large disasters such as catastrophic wildfires. In Idaho, the legislature passed the Wildfire Standard of Care Act, which creates a legal presumption that a utility was not negligent if it adhered to the Idaho Public Utility Commission-approved wildfire mitigation plan. Avista supported this legislation, and Governor Little signed the bill into law on April 1st. We will continue to work with stakeholders on education around this critical topic in future legislative sessions. Aside from these important legislative efforts, we made great progress in 2024 with our wildfire mitigation plan.
We met or exceeded all targets for 2024 for distribution grid hardening, transmission hardening, vegetation management, and continued automation of fire safety mode. We also deployed 10 artificial intelligence-enabled panoramic fire detection cameras throughout our service territory as part of our wildfire resiliency planning. This AI camera technology represents one more way we are transforming our business to address the risk of wildfire. These are just some of our recent accomplishments. Through this work and so much more that our employees advance every day, Avista is well-positioned to adapt to the uncertainty and challenges that surround us. I am excited for our 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. It's great to be here with you today.
Turning to our financial and operating highlights, in 2024, we had earnings of $180 million, or $2.29 per diluted share. Our consolidated results for 2024 demonstrate the strength of our utility operations. Even with the headwinds we experienced from higher costs, including purchased power costs, Avista Utilities contributed $2.28 per diluted share in 2024, near the midpoint of our original guidance range for the segment. AEL&P results were right on target in 2024, and we continue to be pleased with their performance. We recognized a $0.09 loss per diluted share in our other businesses in 2024 as a result of periodic market valuations within our portfolio of investments, losses from early-stage joint venture investments, and borrowing costs. Yesterday, we confirmed our consolidated earnings guidance for 2025. We are off to a solid start this year with first-quarter earnings of $78 million, or $0.98 per diluted share.
Once again, strong results at Avista Utilities drove year-over-year growth in our consolidated diluted earnings per share for the first quarter. The constructive outcomes from our 2024 Washington general rate cases provided a crucial foundation for 2025. In March, we reached an all-party, all-issue settlement in our Oregon general rate case. If approved, new rates would take effect September 1. We filed general rate cases in Idaho earlier this year. We will meet for our first settlement discussions in Idaho on May 22nd. New rates from the Idaho proceeding will also go into effect on September 1. We continue to be committed to investing the necessary capital in our utility infrastructure. We estimate Avista Utilities' capital expenditures will be $525 million in 2025. From 2025 through 2029, we expect capital expenditures of nearly $3 billion, resulting in an annual growth rate of between 5% and 6%.
These estimates do not include any incremental capital that could result from our IRP process or the opportunity that might arise from transmission projects like the North Plains Connector or new large load customers. We expect AEL&P's capital expenditures to total about $15 million in 2025. In addition, we expect to invest about $10 million at our other businesses in 2025, primarily related to non-regulated investment opportunities and economic development projects in our service territory. In February, the board increased our annual dividend to $1.96 per share. We target a competitive dividend payout range of 65%-75%. Over the last few years, we've been a bit above our target payout.
As we are committed both to the financial strength of our company and the importance of returns for our shareholders, we expect that our dividend growth rate will be less than the growth in our earnings per share until we reach our target payout range. Regarding liquidity and capital resources, as of March 31st, we had $221 million of available liquidity under our committed line of credit and $40 million available under our letter of credit facility. We expect to issue $120 million of long-term debt and up to $80 million of common stock in 2025. That includes $16 million issued thus far in the first quarter of the year. That concludes our financial and operating highlights I plan to share this morning. I would like to turn it over to Heather so we can answer any questions you may have.
Thank you, Kevin.
At this point, I'd like to open it up for questions. As a reminder, if you have a question, please enter it into the text box at the lower left corner of the screen of this meeting site.
Heather, our first question is for you. Congratulations on becoming CEO for the company. What are you most excited about for the company?
Great. Thanks, Stacey. I know I've said it maybe a couple of times that I am really excited about where things are at in the energy area. I think it is a really exciting time, truly, to be in this role and in the energy industry. Yes, there's always challenges as there are today, but we have more tools than ever to be able to support the operations.
It's exciting because we are seeing increased demand and interest in our services, and we have tools to support energy efficiency. We have additional tools to support meeting that demand in innovative and creative ways. Advancing technology is going to help us support that increasing demand in new ways with AI, robotics, drones. I'm really excited as I go around and meet with all of our employees across the company just how engaged and committed our employees are to our mission of service to our customers and community. Yeah, it's a really exciting time, I think, to be in the energy industry.
Another question for you, Heather. What opportunities does the company have related to data centers?
Yeah. Yeah, great question. We do have discussions going on with potential new large load customers, and we see this as opportunities, providing opportunities for potential incremental investment.
We also see these as opportunities to provide a net benefit to our existing Avista customers. This can be done through enhancements to the regional grid infrastructure to support these large loads, additional employment opportunities, future rate relief for existing customers with the addition of these new large customers, and can be a significant boost to sales tax revenue for the communities that they locate in. We are seeing these discussions as opportunities.
Kevin, maybe one for you here. How is the company balancing federal and state regulation, and how is regulation impacting the inflation we experience?
Thanks for the question, Stacey. Appreciate that one. We have seen over the last couple of years some headwinds and pressure on our financial results due to inflation, and that is largely driven off of the timing of the inflation versus our regulatory and rate case activity.
From a timing perspective, it was just a little bit off for us. With this last rate case in Washington, I believe we caught up to current inflationary pressures and have those costs now appropriately in rates in the state of Washington. I also think that with our Oregon settlement, we are going to be caught up there. In Idaho, I am quite optimistic about that case also catching us up. We should be caught up from those inflationary pressures that are driven off a number of factors, including things like changes in regulation at both the state and the federal level. The one item I would highlight is tariffs that we continue to monitor closely.
At this point in time, we do not see a material impact from tariffs due to some of our mitigating measures that we have put in place for 2025, but we will keep a close eye on that and continue to mitigate to the best of our ability.
Now, Heather, can you comment on how our renewable strategy is advancing?
Yeah. Great. I know I touched on it a little bit. Over the last several years, we have added several new contracts in support of our renewable strategies, some hydro contracts, one of them including a Columbia Basin hydro project contract that we have added just recently. As I mentioned, we have just entered into our fourth renewable natural gas contract, and this last year in 2024 started receiving power for our portion of the Clearwater Wind Project. We have been advancing it significantly over the last couple of years.
And then, also as I noted with the integrated resource plan and what's identified in our preferred resource plan, it does highlight additional renewable resources that we'll be looking to add through the RFP process that we're going into in the next few months. Exciting things ahead for our renewable energy strategy. Thank you.
Yeah. At this time, I see no other questions in the queue.
Great. If there are no further questions, I'd like to close by saying thank you for attending today's annual meeting and have a great day.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.