Okay. All right, here we go. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us this morning, and welcome to PSEG's 2023 investor conference. It's so good to see everyone in person here and welcome to everyone on the webcast. We have a full morning planned for you today with the executive management of Public Service Enterprise Group. I'm gonna briefly go through the agenda. Many of you have met our new Chair, President, and CEO, Ralph LaRossa. Ralph's gonna provide us with an update and an overview of the company. Next, we'll bring up Kim Hanemann, President of PSE&G and our Chief Operating Officer. Joining Kim this morning is Dave Johnson, our VP of Customer Care and our Chief Customer Officer. Also joining Kim will be Scott Jennings, our Senior Vice President, Finance, Planning, and Strategy.
After the PSEG presentations, Kim is gonna conduct a utility-specific Q&A session for our in-room audience. Then we'll take a 15-minute conference break. Following the break, we are gonna have Eric Carr, our President and Chief Nuclear Officer, join us for an update and overview of PSEG Power and Other. Joining Eric will be Charles McFeaters, our SVP of Nuclear Operations, as well as Lathrop Craig, our Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer. Batting cleanup this morning is Dan Cregg. He's our Executive VP and Chief Financial Officer. After Dan's remarks, Ralph, Kim, and Eric will join Dan on stage, and they will do a general Q&A, and that'll be our final Q&A for the morning.
Just a reminder, all of the materials today are posted on our website at investor.pseg.com. I know that you have come to hear us make forward-looking statements this morning, so I'm going to refer you to our safe harbor language as well as to our GAAP disclaimer that you can see on the screen behind me. It's in your materials, and it's also on our website. Let's start today. I'm gonna share with you a short video, and at the conclusion of that video, Ralph is gonna join us on stage and start the conference. If we can dim the lights, here we go.
Less of the same. More new possibilities. Less blah, blah. More straight talk. We're not throwing up our hands. We're rolling up our sleeves because greener energy, resilience, and climate change need further action. More of the same ain't gonna cut it. That's why we're evolving. In how we think, how we work, and how we act. That means cutting greenhouse emissions and introducing more alternatives like clean energy in all its forms, and climate-proofing the grid to make it more efficient and reliable. It's about doing less harm and more good. It's why it's more than just keeping the power on. It's remembering why we do it: for our communities, our families, our homes. It's what we've always done, from our founding 120 years ago right up to this moment. It's more than public service. It's about taking care of our people and our planet. Let's do this.
All right. Thank you, Carlotta, for kicking us off. Appreciate that. What you just saw was a video that's part of our brand refresh that we're going through. You'll see it in a number of places around here. It's more than a video about our brand refresh. What we really wanted to talk to you about was some of the key themes that come out of that. I'll tell you, the first one that strikes me when I look at that video is straight talk. We're gonna kick off with some straight talk right out of the box here. That's about our strategic clarity.
You know, we, I guess a couple months ago, we came out. We talked to you a little bit about our exit from offshore wind generation. That was one of the strategic questions that were out there that you all had. We answered that straight on with some straight talk. I'm also here today to tell you that we're answering you straight on. We intend to keep our Nuclear business. Straight up, there's no question about that in our minds at this point. We'll talk about it a little bit more, I'm sure, as we get into the Q&A. We wanted to hit that straight up. The other thing we wanted to do is talk to you a little bit about four real key themes that we want you to take away from today's presentation. One is predictability. The second is growth.
We think we have a great growth story. We've talked about predictability quite a bit. We think we got a great financial base. It's been set for us over the years. We'll talk to you a little bit about that, and we'll talk to you about the team that we have. The team that you see up here, they will be talking to you later today, but also the team that we have out in the field every single day. We're very proud of that group, and we'll talk to you a little bit about that. Four key themes for you to take away as we go forward. We also, in that video, talk about our vision of the future. We know as a utility, we have to continue to evolve. I was cracking up as I looked at the video.
It's 120 years we've been as a company, and I thought that was pretty daunting until I realized that I've been there for about a third of it. 40, almost 40 years, not quite, but it's pretty telling. We have to change, and we have to continue to move on. We introduced a few years back our Powering Progress vision, and we think it's a simple vision of what a utility needs to be going forward. It's a utility that provides less energy to customers, has the ability to do that in a manner that provides a safer, more reliable, and with access to clean energy than ever before. That's our vision. That's who we're gonna be going forward. We haven't forgotten about what got us here.
What got us here are these three focus areas that are in front of you. Our operational excellence, we put ourselves up against anyone. Our financial strength, again, the work that was done over those 120 years to put us in the position that we're in today, and a disciplined investment. Disciplined investment that has gone on over time and will continue as we go forward. Let me take a little moment to talk about each one of those single areas, the four areas that I want you to take away. Let's start with predictability. If you look at our Merchant business over time, the first thing we did to add predictability was we exited our Fossil Generation business. We exited that Fossil Generation business because we reduced our commodity risk. It's a very straightforward play that we made.
The second thing that we did was we exited the Offshore Wind Generation business. The reason we left the offshore Wind Generation business was to reduce our project risk. We'll talk a little bit more about that as we go forward. The last thing is, we brought what we believe is a lot of stability to the nuclear industry. Not because of the PTCs, but I would argue that the work that we did in New Jersey, partnering with the New Jersey administration to set the ZEC process up, set the stage that the nation then followed. We take a lot of pride in that work that we did, and I think that that's gonna play benefits for not just us, but for the nation as we go forward. We had a blip last year from a pension standpoint.
Some great work done by our regulatory team to address that in partnership with the New Jersey BPU to again, bring predictability to our earnings. One area that we don't talk about a lot is our utility predictability. We are a single state utility. That is unique. What's also unique is that we have two regulators that we answer to. Our FERC regulator, where our transmission rates are covered. About 50% of our rate base is covered by that, by that formula rate that we go in every year to the FERC for. The other 50% is covered by New Jersey BPU, but it's decoupled. As a result of the CIP program that we put in place a few years back, that decoupling is there, and it really reduces the usage and economic risk that we have.
Again, more predictable earnings. We'll talk about our robust capital program, very predictable. We've delivered on that year- after- year. We'll show you a great pathway to what we see as a large growth rate in our utility, and that great balance sheet that we have. You put that all together, that's a very compelling story for a utility in this day and age. Let's talk about the growth plans that we have. As I've been up here before and talked to you in the past. 2003, the lights go out in the Northeast. We stepped up and worked with policymakers to build out our transmission system. We did that as a result of federal initiatives, but also initiatives that came out of the Corzine administration.
We answered the call to action. 2013, we had Superstorm Sandy, once again, we answered the call to action, that time from the Christie administration. Now we're answering the call to action by the Murphy administration to be ready for clean energy and electrification of the homes throughout New Jersey. Great opportunity for us to grow and to really invest in that last mile. You know, any of you customers here? Few. Don't tell your neighbors, but we wait for the poles to fall down. did not have a replacement program in the past, right? Now we're gonna be out there proactively doing that because if you're gonna electrify your home, if you're gonna count on us for your vehicles, you need that reliability.
This alignment with the policy of the state will enable us to grow the business. We talk about some assets that we have, and we talk a lot about the utility. 85%-90% of our non-GAAP earnings is gonna come from that utility. We've talked about that for a great time. We think it's a great utility. We're a very solid asset there. Our Nuclear business, another very solid asset. Why are we keeping our Nuclear business? It's pretty simple. It provides cash to fund that utility operation. We believe those assets with us are better used in that manner, plain and simple, providing that cash to the utility. It also has some growth opportunities. You're gonna hear that from Eric and his team as they come up, and we're very excited about that as well.
They now also have great operations, and you're gonna see that from Eric in his presentation as we go forward. The part that I really want to hit on on this slide is our people. It starts with the team that I have in front of me here today. You know, you know Dan. I wanna introduce Dan. You're gonna hear from Kim Hanemann, who runs our utility. I have to say one thing about Kim. We've been together since 1985. Maybe not 40 years, but she's getting close as well to being one-third of the time with the company. Eric Carr runs our Nuclear business . You're gonna hear from him. He's another one of the members of our team, my team, my direct reports. Zeeshan, if you could just stand up and say hello. He's our CIO.
He makes sure that our computers stay on every once in a while, not every day. Rodney Dickens, who I've worked with for over 30 years, is a special advisor to me, and is keeping an eye on Long Island. Rick Thigpen is our Head of Governmental Affairs, External Affairs. He does a lot of things. He makes sure everybody's happy on the outside. My right hand, Sheila Rostiac, who's our Chief Human Resources Officer, makes sure everybody's happy on the inside of the company. We have a fantastic team, and that translates into a fantastic organization, all the way down through the people that serve you, the customers that we have. The financial strength, we summarized it three ways for you here. We have a long-term growth plan. It's pretty straightforward. We're proud of it. We've got a robust capital plan.
Tim's actually gonna give you some visibility into 10 years, not just five. That's new for us, but something to show our confidence in what we can deliver. We got that solid balance sheet that has been put in place for time-a nd- time again. I also want to take one split second to stop and talk about our dividend. Some people have conversations about that. We are very confident in our dividend, and we're even confident that over the planning horizon, there'll be an ability for us to grow that going forward. Now, let me just show you a little bit about how we show up for a customer. This is one of our how we show up for an electric customer. This is 1 of the measures that we have, which is our reliability, our SAIDI measure.
That's basically how long the lights go out for an average customer in a year. We do very well on this measure. We not only do well from a measure of how long the lights go out, but if you look to the bottom part of the chart, it shows you the cost that it takes on an O&M basis for us to deliver that high-quality service. There is not a peer that we have when you weigh up those two measures. Our gas customers, we show up for the gas customers, again, very cheap. We'll see some numbers that Dave Johnson and a few others are gonna show you later that we're very proud of the rates that we have. This chart also shows you there's a need for our GSMP program. We do have a lot of leaks.
Once again, our team manages that cast iron system, those low-pressure leaks, not high pressure, those low-pressure leaks, better than anybody. I'd put them up against any group in the country. They do a great job of managing those leaks, and Kim will show you that because our open leak totals continue to remain low. Our customers believe us. They believe in us. I know there's a few folks that keep a look on J.D. Power scores every year. This chart projects our J.D. Power scores against those costs that I laid out. I'll tee this up a little bit. Dave is gonna talk to you about our results of our J.D. Power scores. We've won the East Region for both the electric and the gas side this year.
Just great performance by our teams, and again, at a low cost. What our customers don't see is what happens behind the scenes, and that's our A&G costs. If you look at us against our peers in the same type of labor market that we're in, we perform better than anyone else. That's how we show up for customers, but we have more than our customer base that we have to be worried about. It's also the communities that we serve as a whole. We show up in those communities multiple ways. Let's talk a little bit about our spend in those communities. We focus on the businesses that are our customer base. We spend in those communities that we serve.
We not only spend in those communities we serve, but we also make sure that we do so in a way that supports the diverse enterprises that exist within our service territories. We show up in a philanthropic way. Our foundation deploys about $8 million a year to different charity organizations throughout our service territory. We show up as volunteers. We show up for different organizations that we participate in. The one that I'll talk to you about just for a second, it's one that I'm very proud of. I chair the New Jersey Choose New Jersey organization, which is the governor's economic development group. We work together with them to place the wind port down in South Jersey.
Leased some land from our Nuclear business , wound up building a wind port that we think is gonna create a tremendous amount of jobs in an underserved part of ours, of New Jersey, the south, the southwest corner. That doesn't happen without our participation, our volunteerism, and our engagement within the economic development community. About our people. We've heard a lot over the last number of years about people, the silent quitters, the folks that are departing, the turnover rates. Over the last three years, our turnover rate, voluntary turnover rate, has been less than 3%. I'll let that sink in for a second. Our employees like to work for us. They like the work they do. 3% voluntary turnover rate in this environment. Very, very proud about that.
Again, it starts with the team that we have in front of you. That team is turning over, though. We have some retirements. It's not because people are leaving just to leave, because we do have some retirements taking place, and we're starting to backfill that organization. We're backfilling that organization in a very thoughtful way. We're hiring people that look, act, feel and think the way our customer base does. As a result of that, you can see all of the awards that we've been able to receive from a DEI standpoint and the great work that Sheila and her team... This slide is all about the work that our human resource team does. Lot of talk over the years, the last year about ESG. Let me just address a little bit about our view from an ESG standpoint.
We have done a lot for the environment. We will continue to do a lot for the environment. We show up in this space by putting our money where our mouth is. Over half of our capital deployment is in the area of environmental to improve the environment. Things that you've heard about in the past, our carbon-free commitments, our energy efficiency programs. The one area that I don't think gets enough credit is the work that we've done on our gas modernization program. Back in 2016 when I chaired the American Gas Association, we made a commitment.
We stepped up and worked with the EPA to say, "We'll accept the Methane Challenge." As a result of that, and the work that we've done, and Tim's team and a number of folks in our organization have done, we have been able to reduce methane emissions from our system by 22%. We're not talking about what we're gonna do for the environment. Those are things that we've actually done. From the rest of the ESG standpoint, again, I'm not gonna get into a discussion about this, that or the other thing. We think it's part of showing up. It's who we are. We hold our bargaining unit employees to a very high safety standard, and we hold ourselves as a management team to a very high standard.
I'm not gonna argue about whether or not we make more money, less money because we're an ESG company or not. We believe that this is fundamental to who we are and who we have to be as a utility in the service territories that we serve. It's that plain and simple. You look at the recognition that we've gotten, and it shows up exactly there. We are who we say we're gonna be. I'm gonna bring this together, wrap it up for you with this. A very secure, very predictable earnings growth rate of 5%-7%.
We've talked about that. We'll continue to produce that, and you'll get even more confidence as you hear from others in the organization. You combine that 5%-7% growth rate with a dividend yield of 3%-4%, and it'll imply for you a shareholder return of 8%-11%, considerably de-risked from who we were just 12 months ago. That valuation that you see at the top, we'll continue to improve on that. You'll continue to see that gap close to both our average peers as well as to the premium peers in the organization.
We will deliver on what we have in front of us. I'm gonna invite Kim and her team up. As I do that, I wanna thank you for coming out. I know it's easy to go on a webcast or not. I really appreciate you all showing up in the room today. I really look forward to the question and answer session that we're gonna have going forward. Thanks for listening.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Nice to be here, see you in person today.
Mm-hmm.
I'm gonna give you a quick overview of the utility section of the presentation. Dave Johnson, our Chief Customer Officer, he's gonna go through our strong operational performance, talk to you about our focus on affordability, and then what our customers think about us. Next, I'll get back up here and talk about our capital plan and some opportunities we see for future investment. Lastly, Scott Jennings is gonna talk to you about our rate base growth and our regulatory framework. To reinforce what Ralph highlighted earlier, we continue to have a very predictable business mix. This year, we will be executing almost a $3.5 billion capital program.
Just like we've done for the past 15 years that I have been in charge of capital program execution for this company, we have the team with the skills, the capabilities to deliver this program on time and on budget, as well as the ability to flex up to do more. We also see some additional opportunities that are aligned with the state and federal energy policy. Just a reminder, our transmission formula rate, it provides contemporaneous recovery of those investments. For distribution with our CIP program, our clause programs like GSMP and Energy Strong, as well as our transmission investments, about 95% of our margins are not dependent on sales volume. Just a quick reminder of who we are. We are the state's largest utility. We have 2.3 million electric customers, 1.9 million gas customers.
The map on the right shows our service territory. We run from Philadelphia to New York. We hug each side of New Jersey Turnpike. We serve the state's largest cities. As Ralph has said over the years, we power the pizzerias, the nail salons, and the diners you saw in the video, but we also power the data centers that run the financial district, the state's largest universities, and the Statue of Liberty. The pie chart in the middle represents our rate base. At the end of 2022, we had a little over $26 billion in rate base. Little less than half is transmission.
Remember, that's regulated by FERC. Little more than half is distribution, electric and gas. The remaining piece of the pie there are clean energy investments. Next, I would like to turn it over to Dave Johnson, our Chief Customer Officer. I am really excited to have Dave join my team last year. He brings great experience and expertise, and he continues to be the voice of the customer in everything we do.
Thank you, Kim. I really appreciate it, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a member of your senior leadership team. Ralph, to you as well, thank you for that. I tell you what, since I've been here, it hasn't taken me long to realize that I've joined a top-notch senior leadership team, which is absolutely outstanding. One of the observations that I've made since I've been on board is that everything starts and stops with safety here at this organization, which is a beautiful thing. If you look at the chart above to your left, you can see we're performing in a top decile safety manner, which is outstanding. Additional things that I've noticed since I've been on board over the last nine months is that there's this extreme focus on operational excellence.
In addition to operational excellence, there's a focus on affordability for our customers. As you look at the slide in up above me and look at our SAIDI results, you can see we continuously perform at an extremely high level, at a top decile level in the area of reliability. As Ralph mentioned earlier, we measure reliability based upon the number of minutes that our customers are out annually, and we're at below, actually 50 minutes per year. When you compare ourselves against our national peers, we perform exceptionally well in this space. One of the unique challenges that we have at PSE&G is in the area of our gas leaks. We have more cast iron main. Our levels of cast iron is higher than most in the country.
Even with that challenge, we perform very, very well in terms of managing our gas infrastructure and our gas system. We've made significant progress over the last several years with our GSMP program since 2017, there's a tremendous amount of work that we still have yet to do. One of the things that our customers continue to tell us over and over and over again is the importance of keeping their bills down, keeping the bills affordable. We recognize, based upon the region that we're in in the country, that we may not have the lowest bills. When we compare ourselves to our regional peers, we're extremely competitive. As you look here on the chart on the left-hand side, our monthly electric bills are below the regional average, which we're extremely proud of.
More importantly, we're exceptionally proud of the fact that our gas bills are the lowest in our region. Not only are they the lowest in the region, they're $65 below the median average within our peer group within the region. Some of the things that we do and that we'll continue to do to help our customers keep their bills low, we'll continue to connect them to energy efficiency solutions, and you'll hear Kim talk more about that in a little bit. Secondly, we are successfully deploying AMI throughout our service territory, and we're gonna be able to leverage that tool in partnership with our customers to help them to manage their monthly bills.
We are exceptionally conscious, and that's one of the things that I'm really pleased about being on this team about, is our consciousness about our customers' affordability and the percentage of wallet share that we have of our customers. As you can see over the past 13 to 14 years, we've seen a 40% improvement in affordability for our customers. Some of the things that we've done even during this period of time, we've continued to strategically invest in our infrastructure. Number 2, as you heard Ralph talk about, we continue with extreme cost control measures to make sure that we're operating as efficiently as possible. Our customers during this same timeframe have benefited and enjoyed lower gas prices.
Another factor here as you look at this chart that we have to be mindful in our service territory is the fact that we have some vulnerable customers, those that are low income or moderate income customers. We continue to be advocates, we continue to support that part of our population. One of the things that we're extremely proud of is over the last couple of years, the eligibility requirements for customers that are low and moderate income to participate in energy assistance programs, those eligibility requirements have been expanded. That's due to our advocacy as well as others, with the state and federal government to open up those requirements. By doing that, more of our customers are eligible now to participate in those programs to help them with their bills.
Finally, Ralph said he was gonna tee it up for me, I think he stole my thunder. One of the things that we're exceptionally proud of here at our company is in 2022, we were awarded the J.D. Power Award for highest in customer satisfaction for the East Large region. Not only did we win it for the residential Electric Sector, we also won it for Residential Gas. Let me tell you why that's so important, because we're coming out off the heels of the pandemic and COVID, and you know the challenges that it put forth for our customers there. To have won this award, two of them coming out of the pandemic is something exceptionally special. The other thing that's special about this is that there's only a few companies since the inception of J.D. Power that have won both of these awards in the same year.
Now Public Services is a member of that very distinct group. Another customer satisfaction award that we've received is from Escalent, it's a representation of our residential and business customers. They've told us that we're one of the most trusted brands in our region. The third award that you see here on the far right-hand side is an award that we've received from PA Consulting. Not only did we receive it in 2022, we've received it for the past 21 years. We have a high level of success with reliability. You heard me mention on my initial slide that we have top decile performance there, we'll continue with our strategic investments and keep our foot on the accelerator to provide great reliability to our customers.
The final award, last but not least, that I'd like to share with this group today is the Edison EEI award. Or excuse me, the EEI Edison Award. Let me say it a little bit differently. We received that award in 2022, and we are the only utility that received it last year. There's one distinct utility that receives that each and every year. Why did we receive that? It was based upon our significant effort that we put in to rebuild, strengthen, and protect our infrastructure from extreme weather. Many of you are familiar, as Ralph mentioned, in 2013, Hurricane Sandy created a lot of devastation in this region.
Post Sandy, we really stepped it up, and we continued to invest and rebuild our infrastructure to a point whereas when Hurricane Ida came through just recently, our infrastructure stood up and performed exceptionally well. We're really proud of that. EEI has acknowledged that we set the new benchmark within the industry for modernizing utility infrastructure. We're exceptionally excited about that. It puts us in a very, very small club, and we'll continue to work hard to, you know, keep the lights on, continue to work hard to keep the heat on, and do it in a safe and reliable manner. At this particular point, I'm going to hand it back over to Kim, so that she can talk more about how we're gonna achieve our strategic initiatives.
Excellent. Thank you, Dave. Here's the chart that all of you are familiar with. It's our five-year capital plan. Ranges from $15.5 billion up until $18 billion. The low end of the plan is having our GSMP EE programs at the current run rate plus inflation. The high-end plan includes additional investments in EE and last mile, as well as acceleration of our GSMP program. All of these investments are aligned with our energy policy. Next, let's take a quick look at the capital plan. This is the first time we're showing you the 10-year plan. This plan ranges between $34 billion-$40 billion. Once again, the ranges are framed the same way as our five-year plan, but taken out over the 10 years.
It's broken out about a third electric, a third gas distribution, and the remaining third is split between transmission and clean energy investments. This is clearly not our entire universe of investments. We also see an opportunity for additional investments that are aligned with the governor's energy policy that he and the four executive orders he introduced last month. Now I'll dive into each one of the areas, the capital areas, in a bit more detail. First up is transmission. We'll be investing about $6 billion over the 10-year plan. At the bottom, you see the box that breaks out the capital investment in each category by first five years and second five years. Our portfolio of transmission investments have now transitioned from those big end-of-life projects that we had been talking about in the past.
It is now focused on our sub-transmission to transmission expansion program with the associated substations. Great part about that program, it allows us to replace aging infrastructure and provide additional capacity into the future for electrification. We also see that generation retirements and interconnection of renewables will provide additional opportunities in the future for transmission. We'll keep an eye on the DOE study, the PJM fast-track process, to see if that will also produce any additional opportunities. Second area is electric distribution. We anticipate between $12 billion and $14 billion over the 10-year plan. This is the area with the greatest opportunity for continued investment growth. As Ralph mentioned, in the past, we've typically run these assets to failure. That was our replacement strategy. Now people expect and demand that same level of reliability in their neighborhoods, at their homes, that they enjoy in their business centers.
We are gonna continue the work we started with the IAP program. On our last mile upgrades, we're gonna be modernizing the wires, the poles, the transformers, the underground cables that run through the neighborhoods. Over the 10-year plan, we will be upgrading about 70 substations. Just like we've done with transmission and Energy Strong, we know how to site and build these substations in our communities. The picture in the bottom left there, that is actually one of our new substations in Hudson County. Our substations are not the eyesore of neighborhoods, and in this case, it's actually a focal point of the community. As we modernize our system, we will incorporate new technologies that'll give us better information to control and monitor our system as well. Third area of our capital investment program is gas distribution.
We'll invest between $12 billion and $13 billion over the 10 years. These investments are focused on replacing cast iron and unprotected steel mains, thereby reducing methane emissions. We currently have over 3,000 mi of cast iron still in our inventory. We are actually the largest cast iron operator, single operator in the entire United States. Cast iron only represents about 20% of our main inventory, but 70% of our leaks. Last week, we filed our GSMP II, actually GSMP III program. It's the next step in continuing to improve our system integrity and reduce methane emissions. It includes about 1,100 mi of cast iron and unprotected steel replacements, the services and about 200 regulators, district regulators. It also allows for the continuation of those jobs that were created under GSMP II, as well as some additional jobs into the future.
We've also incorporated two pilot projects into that filing: a hydrogen project and a renewable natural gas project that will blend low carbon fuel into our distribution system. The graph on the left just shows the great progress we've made in reducing methane emissions as we've reduced our cast iron inventory. Whoop. Okay. Fourth and final area of our capital program is our clean energy program. It's a lot on the slide because there's a lot going on in this area. We expect between $4 billion and $7 billion in investments over the 10-year plan. Just a reminder, in New Jersey, an investment in EE is like an investment in pipes and wires. It becomes part of our rate base. These investments are really focused on delivering benefits to our customers in terms of reduced energy usage and reduced costs on their bills.
The picture at the bottom is the smart house. If you see on the right-hand side of the house, you see the AMI meter. It's really foundational, the customers being able to get that granular information of their energy usage. If you look up above, we are well into deployment of our smart meters, our $700 million AMI program to deploy the smart meters. We have about 650,000 meters installed to date. We're on track for on time, on budget delivery and completion of the program by the end of 2024. On the left, you see our billion-dollar award-winning energy efficiency program. Once again, the program is on track, actually a little ahead of plan in terms of investments and our energy savings targets.
We right now have a nine-month filing in front of the BPU for an extension, and that'll align us with the other utilities in the state, and we'll all be going in for a EE 2 filing at the end of this year. On the right is our electric vehicle program. This is focused on the make-ready charger work, about 1,500 fast chargers. This program is now picking up momentum with enrollment, especially with the supply chain improvements. We also expect later this year, we will be filing a medium heavy-duty vehicle program that really aligns to the governor's executive order on acceleration of transportation electrification. As Ralph mentioned earlier, four executive orders that the governor introduced last month, they're listed there on the left.
We see these orders as actually opportunities for us to make additional investments in our system. We see in the area it's very early. We're early in our analysis, in the range of $3 billion-$7 billion more in the plan. They're clean energy investments, additional last mile investments, acceleration of transportation and what they will require in terms of our system and even our own fleet. Next, I would like to introduce Scott Jennings. He has been my key partner in crime over the past many years as we continue to develop and implement our business plan. Scott.
Thanks, Kim. Good morning, everyone. Great to see everyone today. Kim talked about our investment program. I just wanna emphasize how broad it is touching each part of the utility and how long a runway it is for all those investments that we really see for years to come, and you saw it in the 10-year and beyond plan there. Whether it's accelerating our Gas System Modernization Program, a lot of work to do there to replace pipes to reduce methane emissions, EV make ready infrastructure work to support the electrification of transportation, and then all the work on the transmission side and the last mile reliability side to continue improved reliability when, as Kim talked about, customers need it, depend on it now more than ever, especially as they electrify transportation and think of other sources.
Lastly, on the clean energy side to help decarbonize the economy. We have, whether it's the solar programs we're doing or energy efficiency to help customers use less and have less emissions and help lower their bills. All of those things together, that's gonna help continue to help us deliver best-in-class reliability and customer service that Dave talked about, All of those are aligned with state policies. We're excited to get after it. Those investments, they translate into the rate-based growth, which drives the earnings growth that we're talking about today. The first thing I note on this slide is we are reaffirming our five-year rate base growth rate of 6%-7.5%. We're very confident in delivering on that.
What I'd also show is building off of the 10-year capital plan and the opportunities from the governor's executive orders that Kim talked about, we're providing a projection for 2032 as well. We think that that pipeline of opportunities will enable us to continue that pace of growth over this full period. While we're investing in the system, we're also very conscious in managing our O&M costs. Earlier this morning, Ralph showed a few charts that compared us to peers that we compare very favorably to, but we just continuously work at this. You see over the last five years, we've maintained about a 1% compound annual growth rate of our O&M costs, even in this inflationary environment. We do that for two reasons, or achieve two things for us. One, it helps preserve our returns, and second, it helps keep customer bills low.
As Dave mentioned, that we're very focused on affordability and very mindful of as we have some of these substantial capital investment programs in front of us. Also looking ahead, we have a number of productivity initiatives that we have planned that will help us continue to manage these O&M costs going forward, such as implementing AMI, which will help reduce certain costs as we try to mitigate inflationary impacts across the entire business. Last, I'll turn to our cost recovery. As Ralph and Kim mentioned, just a reminder that while we're a single state utility, we have two jurisdictions. FERC regulates our transmission Business and of course, New Jersey for our D istribution business.
On the transmission side, we have a formula rate that provides contemporaneous recovery for our, for our capital investments and our costs on a forward-looking basis that we true up each and every year. It's a highly predictable mechanism, and you see on the chart we talked about that covers almost half of our rate base. On the New Jersey side, we have several different recovery mechanisms. First, we note for our clean energy programs, EE and solar, they too have contemporaneous recovery mechanisms. Our large infrastructure investment programs such as GSMP, Energy Strong, the Infrastructure Advancement Program that we do for last mile reliability, all of those have periodic rate roll-ins for the majority of their capital, roughly every six to 12 months or so.
The last category for investments that are beyond our current levels covered by depreciation or beyond new business, those are recovered through a rate case. The rate case front, those programs, GSMP II and Energy Strong, they require us to file a rate case within five years of those programs. We have a check-in then. That time is at the end of this year. The main event of that rate case will be recovering that incremental capital, whether it's the portion of those infrastructure programs that were approved by the BPU, but aren't already in rates. GSMP, Energy Strong, a portion of AMI and EV, those programs that were previously approved by the BPU will be recovered, as well as other traditional electric and gas investments. We feel very comfortable with those.
When you think about other factors that could be in the rate case, we talked about O&M earlier. That's been controlled very well. Whether it's that, our pension and overhead costs we project for that time, our cost of debt or the costs that we've deferred, they're all roughly comparable to what they were in the last rate case. We do not expect any significant rate impact from those matters. Putting that together with the main purpose of the rate case, to recover that capital, we feel very comfortable with this prudency and just feel good about going into the rate case for those recoveries. That's it. I'll turn it back to Kim.
Okay, thanks, Scott. Just like Ralph had four key takeaways, I have four key takeaways I'd like you to have for the utility. We continue to deliver that top-tier operational results. We are keenly focused on our cost control and our customer affordability. We have proven track record to deliver, execute that capital program on time and on budget with the ability to flex up and do more. Lastly, we see additional investment opportunities that aligns with the governor's executive order. I think w e're gonna open it up for the utility focus Q&A, right?
That's right. Kim, Dave, and Scott are gonna be available to take your utility-related questions. Brian and I are gonna be in the aisles. If you have a question, please raise your hand. We'll bring the microphone to you. If you could, please, say your name and your affiliation before your question. Thank you.
Thanks for all the information today. I was just wondering about the 10-year plan. If you could provide a little bit more detail, I guess, with what type of electrification assumptions are kind of built in or any way to kind of frame that and how that, I guess, informs the plan developing over time and what could be the drivers of the high end versus the low end of that plan?
I'll start off, and then Scott, if you wanna jump in too. If you look at we have assumptions in the plan, looking at various studies like Brattle on electrification of vehicles. As I said, our low end of the plan incorporates the current run rate of our GSMP program and our energy efficiency program. The high end considers additional investments to support electrification. Remember I talked about 70 substations. We've done projections around what things will look like and what areas we need to upgrade if things happen faster, or there's more incentives for additional medium heavy-duty vehicles as a prime example, then there are more upside opportunities. I don't know if you have anything else to add.
Sure. Just more broadly about the range that you mentioned the low to high ranges. For GSMP, as an example, the run rate of our last program was $375 million a year. We've concluded that program early, actually.
Yeah.
This past month in terms of the work that was under it. Kim's team has just done a great job of managing, demonstrating that they can manage a larger program cost effectively. They've got a great cost per mile that they've maintained with a bigger program. Right now we're running it in this plan in the appendix there is closer to $500 million. The filing that we made last week comes out to about $800 million a year pace. That spread would be one of the factors of the low-high range. On the electrification, the other thing that I would add is, we do assume some EV penetration that-
Yeah.
grows over time. That is included in that 10-year plan. Anything on the electrification for the home side is really largely beyond the plan included in the incremental capital associated with the governor's executive orders.
That's very helpful. Thanks. Then, pivoting to the natural gas side, just wondering if you could provide a little bit more color on the RNG. I guess, you know, the timeline of when that, you know, could actually be implemented, come in service, and what could the scope of that look like over the 10-year period?
It's actually working with one of the county utility associations on that, and the project is actually taking renewable natural gas, going through the processes of cleaning that up in order to make it pipeline ready and blend it into our system then. We've come to a memorandum of agreement with that, and we will be working jointly. Our part of the work will be around cleaning up that gas and making it pipeline ready.
Yeah.
Is the scope of the project, so?
What type of timeline, I guess, could this start to come?
I'm trying to remember. It's within the 10 years.
Yeah.
Absolutely. It's, I can't remember the top of my head what year it is.
It's in the next-.
It's small. It's like $120 million, so.
Great. Thank you.
Great. Paul Fremont with Ladenburg. I guess my first question is, you give a growth rate on rate base through 2027. Can you talk a little bit about the expected growth rate in rate base for the, for that second five-year period?
You wanna do that one?
Sure. Yeah. What we included in the rate base slide that we had up there showed a projection in 2032, which include our 10-year plan, as well as a portion of the investment opportunities that we see from the Governor executive order. We expect that that will stay a pace in that range for this full 10-year period. We think that that is can be sustained.
On the GSMP and Energy Strong, I assume whatever you're recovering under riders will reset with this upcoming rate case so that the contemporaneous return would only apply to whatever is approved beyond the rate case period.
Let me make sure I get your question right, and Scott, jump in. We have roll-ins for both Energy Strong and GSMP, and each of those programs have a portion of stipulated base, as we call, and that stipulated base we will recover as part of our rate case.
Yeah.
That will continue on. We're on track for all of our roll-ins and achieving our roll-ins.
Right. I'm just looking at the contemporaneous return component of it.
Yeah.
In other words, once it rolls into your regular rate base, it's no longer the historical program numbers are not recovered under a rider, right?
That's correct.
Yeah. It'll all be part of base rates.
Right.
Okay. Finally, my last question. I guess my understanding is that the historical costs are gonna be an issue in the upcoming rate filing. What would be the book value of sort of the legacy meters?
Do you know?
Yeah, it's...
Come on.
One thing I'll point out, we had our AMI program, or Energy Cloud program, approved by the BPU about two years ago. As part of that agreement, there was a recognition of stranded costs associated with those meters there, as well as the recovery of it. That program was authorized, including the stranded cost recovery under it.
I thought that the stranded cost recovery was gonna be determined as part of the rate case. Is that incorrect? In other words, you're actually collecting a rate to recover stranded costs right now?
No, it is not in rates today. The way that that program, the agreement that we worked on, is the cost of that program, as well as stranded costs associated, will be recovered as part of this rate case. There was an agreement reached two years ago where we're able to defer all the costs associated with the program, that'll be rolled into rates as part of this upcoming rate case.
Great. Thank you.
Hi. Thanks. David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. You know, looking at the transmission side of the business, it's a big piece of the rate base now. It's got attractive ROEs, higher equity ratio, but it does, get less of the capital allocation over time. I'm just wondering, is that a structural just characteristic of that now going forward, or is there any opportunity for a resurgence or refocusing on accelerating transmission rate base growth from here?
Kind of go back to what Ralph highlighted is post-2003 blackout, we made tremendous investment in our transmission system. I talked about those large end-of-life projects that actually I had the ability to run for the business. We have completed those for the most part, and I talked about the change in the portfolio going from sub-transmission to transmission. I think the other part that our future opportunities is as additional generation retires, fossil generation retires in this state, as additional renewables are interconnected to the grid, that will produce additional transmission investment opportunities. What we've showed you right now is clearly what we see right now, especially focused on that sub-transmission to transmission conversion.
Got it. That's helpful. I was curious on the gas side of the business, just with the future of natural gas stakeholder process, could you speak to how your plan, you know, might consider the targets for the state and what you think the key initiatives and focus areas are gonna be, how you weave that into the plan for rate-based growth and emissions?
So-
Lowering over time.
You know, we will participate as well as the other LDCs in that process. We have 1.9 million gas customers in the state who depend on us for safe and reliable service and for their gas heat. Our program is focused on getting that cast iron and bare steel out of the system to be able to continue to provide that safe and reliable service and reduce methane emissions. We think it's absolutely aligned. We think our EE programs around energy efficiency and gas appliances is also aligned as well. We just, we think it's a key part of the solution in the longer term, so.
Great. Thank you.
Hi, Ryan Levine with Citi. A couple of follow-on questions. On terms of the GSMP III, as the commentary seems to be focused more on absolute methane reduction, can you speak more broadly around the impact to the community as you continue to replace existing lines in terms of the customer and overall impact to the community from a risk reduction standpoint?
As we've talked about a couple of times here is, you know, we showed the short, the charts that show our number of leaks in it going down. We say we manage those leaks well, the impact to the communities was, you know, that's safe and reliable. As we get that cast iron and bare steel, we improve our system integrity as well as improving the methane emissions as well. W e've done this for quite a long time and the impact in the community in terms of working with communities on our installation practices and our notification, I think we've got that down pretty well. I don't know, anything else?
I'm trying to get a sense of if you're targeting individual, maybe higher impact lines.
Okay. I'm sorry. Yes. Our actually our program is we do a risk profile regarding our segments that we do for replacement. It looks at a grid segment in terms of its history and leaks, its age and things like that, and we target replacements, and then that is prioritized. We've been working down that inventory, and that's how we prioritize what we do. The highest risk areas are done the earliest, but that's how we're doing it across our state and across our service territory.
Thank you.
There's also a note, a number of those communities are in overburdened communities, which is also another aspect there. The priority is, as Kim just described, of course, on the risk hazard. The way that that works out is there is also a focus on the number of cities that are, have, recognized as overburdened communities.
Yeah.
Thank you. Outside of the EV penetration question from earlier, can you provide some color around the biggest buckets around upside to your capital program, as you go into the next GRC?
Yes. Many of them are intertwined, well, especially when we talk about those last mile upgrades. We think about as homes move to electrification, as people get more EVs, that grid, that local grid has to be upgraded to support that. There's multiple drivers that do that. As I said, we've looked out too and looking at the loads on our substation and once again, that sub-transmission to transmission conversion as well. We're also looking at our own facilities for you know, electrification of our headquarters and our district sites and the electrification of our own fleet as well and what that will require. The medium heavy-duty vehicles, those are by far the biggest loads in terms of in specific areas. Those are the big buckets.
Okay. We'll take one last question for the utility group, hand the mic over to Paul.
Hi, good morning. Thank you. Paul Zimbardo, Bank of America. Following up a little on the future of gas proceeding, do you view that as a net opportunity as you electrify more, even if gas capital moderates a bit, do you view that as net positive for potential capital needs, or do you think that could ultimately lead to a moderation out in the future?
Let Scott jump in on top of what I say. You know, being a combination utility, we see our Natural Gas business being very important in at least, I don't know how many years. Also the opportunities on our electric side Ooo. We view it as net positive for us. We have an obligation to serve and safe and reliable, and then we see net positive upside absolutely in the electrification area in our system.
Yeah. I would just add the main focus of our gas program now is on accelerating the replacement.
Replacement.
Of our gas mains. We just see that as a real priority for ourselves, for the state, for the communities, and a reduction there. We're optimistic that that's this proceeding. We understand it, that's not gonna get in the way of that important work. Now I don't wanna front-run this study too much. It's gonna be an 18-month, I'm sure a healthy dialogue there. Like Kim said, we're both electric and gas and see a lot of opportunity on that front, whether it's the last mile or work within the home. We've a significant and growing EE program. We think that'll present opportunities in the home to the extent that there are conversions in the future. We do see significant opportunities with the overall direction.
Yeah. Just one other point you made me think about is we have an Appliance S ervice business as well.
Mm-hmm.
They do HVAC installation. As people make that conversion, that is also a growth opportunity for us as well.
Okay, great.
That part of our business.
Okay. Thank you. Last one for me. I know you got the accounting order for the pension, and you talk about opportunities to further reduce volatility. Is that via the regulatory avenue? Is that about the lift out? Is that just asset allocation? If you could just comment what you mean by reduce the volatility.
Sure. Dan may address some of this later from an overall enterprise perspective, but for the utility itself, I think the order that we have, I'm not gonna take people through pension accounting, but there's a number of different cost components to pension. This order that we got addresses one of them. Which is the loss between what we project and what actually or the gain or loss that we project and what actually occurs. That is being deferred and amortized over a longer period of time to help smooth out and have less volatility, which we think is good for both customers and us. It addressed that one and only one component. We will look as part of this rate case, Rob, coming things to do that more broadly. The same theme covering other aspects of the pension costs.
Thank you.
Dan will hit the lift out later on.
Okay, great. We are gonna wrap up our utility session and take a 15-minute conference break, and we will be back. We invite you to come and speak with us in the other room, and thank you.
Okay, everyone. You can turn the handheld mic on. If everyone can find their seats, we're going to kick off the second half of our conference this morning. Okay, we are going to start the second half of the conference. I know. All right. Thank you. Welcome back, everyone. Thanks again for joining us this morning. We're going to kick off the second half of the conference with Eric Carr, who's our President and Chief Nuclear Officer. Before Eric and his team take the stage, we're gonna show you another quick video, and then when we're done, Eric will come back on stage.
In a world where people's energy needs are continually evolving, PSEG also is evolving to meet those needs and to ensure we maintain a sustainable future for not just our company but for our planet. We are Powering Progress where our vision is to power a future in which people use less energy, and the energy used is cleaner and more reliable than ever. Our mission is to be a positive force in a changing world, not just by providing access to safe, reliable, and clean energy, but by empowering and enhancing the lives of our customers, our communities, our workforce, and all stakeholders. By embracing diversity and promoting equitable and ethical behavior in all we do. We are PSEG, and we are proud to be Powering Progress.
Okay. Good morning.
Good morning.
Let my guys get seated here. I'm Eric Carr. I'm the Chief Nuclear Officer and President of PSEG Nuclear. Happy to be here today to talk to you a little bit about our nuclear operations. I'm joined by Lathrop Craig, who's our Chief Commercial Officer. When you say power and other with a big O, other, Lathrop runs most of those businesses, so he'll give us an overview of the other section. Charles McFeaters is the Senior Vice President of Nuclear Operations, so he works directly for me, and he's responsible for the day-to-day operations of the facilities. He's gonna give you some information as well. We're gonna structure the discussion around primarily on nuclear today because that's the biggest part of power and other. I'll give you an overview of our operations, how we're performing.
We have an excellent team down there. We're doing great things. Charles is gonna talk about our opportunities to grow our business with a couple specific projects. There's a few behind that are smaller. Lathrop's gonna talk about our gas operations and our other business, including some investment opportunities that are now afforded to us as well. Again, how we fit in the big picture. Ralph talked about it at the beginning. We generate significant free cash flow for the business to fund a lot of the projects that Kim discussed earlier. More predictability, well-positioned for the future. We've made three strategic decisions in the last 12 to 18 months that have really set our business up to be positioned in the future for Power and Other. Exited merchant generation, significant risk reduction for market exposure.
Exited offshore wind, significant risk reduction for large project exposure. Lastly, the decision to retain our nuclear assets. Ralph started with that as one of the key decisions we wanted to make sure was very clear today. The PTC has provided excellent downside protection for us and positioned us to have this business well into the future now with a much more predictable timeline. The decision to retain the assets all underpinned by the IRA. The PTC is a game changer for us, so it provides us excellent opportunities. We have an excellent facility down there with a unique asset class. These plants run 24/7, 365, providing clean energy to the state of New Jersey, and we are a big part of New Jersey's energy master plan.
I'll talk about that a little bit later, but very much well-positioned with the state and great operations. For financial drivers, PTC gives us downside protection. It allows us an opportunity to capture anything on the upside if the market is performing that way. It enables some investment opportunities that we'll talk about that also have additional incentives for new energy created by green energy, called technology neutral in the build. It provides us an opportunity to potentially get more megawatts out of our plants and be rewarded for that. This is all underpinned by excellent operations. We have an excellent leadership team down there that has a strong safety focus and an excellent track record.
I'll show you some indications that show you how we perform and rank with the rest of the industry, and you'll see that's very impressive. An overview of our fleet. PSEG Nuclear has all or partial ownership of five reactors. We operate the ones on the left. Hope Creek is a BWR, boiling water reactor. The Salem units are both pressurized water reactors. They're all co-located in South Jersey and Salem County. On the right-hand side, you'll see Peach Bottom unit two and two. Those are large boiling water reactors operated by Constellation. We're 50% owners of those reactors. As a footnote, in a previous life, I was actually licensed to operate the Peach Bottom units, so I can tell you they're very good machines and very well run.
For some key facts on this slide, you'll see 92.2% capacity factor last year. That's a very strong number in the industry. If you did the simple math and just backed out refueling outages, you would see that there's not much besides a refueling outage in that number. These plants run 24/7 through 65 with very few exceptions. The other thing I'd mention, two other points on this is they're all big reactors. If you look at the industry, there are basically three, in my terminology, size reactors around 600-650 for some of the earlier generations, around 900-950 for some of the ones after that, and anything over 1,100 basically deemed like a large reactor. All five of these are large reactors above 1,100 MW reactors.
It really helps with the economics of them. Last thing I'll note on this slide, the Peach Bottom units are on two-year cycles. All of our units are on 18-month cycles. We have some opportunities to move that capacity factor even further up by potentially moving those refueling cycles out to 18 months. Charles is gonna talk about that as well. A few minutes on performance. If you've been to, I wanna talk about the two indicators, why I'm showing you these two indicators. On the left-hand side, you'll see the INPO Performance Indicator Index. If you've been to one of these with another nuclear operator, they probably showed you this indicator. This is kind of a gold standard for indicators in the industry. It's an indicator that's made up of 10 different sub-indicators.
It's revised and updated every two years, and it's aligned upon by all the chief nuclear officers, which are my peers, the other 20 peers that do my job in the industry, as well as INPO, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations. Those 10 indicators that feed into this all range from safety all the way through production and output. It really is a comprehensive look at how are the plants running, how is the fleet running. You'll see our score for PSEG Nuclear is at 100. This is not a snapshot score that we had a good month in December. Every indicator that feeds into this is a rolling 18 or 36 month indicator. This is an indication of sustained performance. We are among the top three.
We didn't highlight exactly what it was because they're just in alphabetical order, basically. We would have been third when we're actually tied for first. We figured it was better to show it that way. Just really strong performance. On the right-hand side, the INPO Equipment Performance Index. This is a similar indicator, but it just focuses on equipment reliability. If you look across the industry, equipment reliability, it really is the major deviation across the industry. When you see how this factors into the left-hand side, equipment performance is the biggest factor of that.
On the right-hand side, this Equipment Performance Index is made up of multiple indicators that look at, you know, issues with equipment that can cause output issues and also how is your safety systems performing 'cause safety systems don't make megawatts, but you can't make megawatts without. Those are very important as well, to the public and to production. You can see here that we are top quartile for equipment reliability, and we have been consistently top quartile on equipment reliability for a few years now. That didn't happen on accident. We have made major investments in the plant to make sure that they run reliably. We have de-risked the plant, all of the plants. We have done studies to look at vulnerabilities in the plant, and we have made them more robust and hardened the systems so that they're more reliable.
I wanna talk a minute about how critical nuclear is to the energy transition. You hear a lot about clean energy. It's a priority for us. Ralph, it's one of the first things Ralph talked about as well. It's a priority for the state of New Jersey, and these plants are very important to the state of New Jersey. We generate 40% of New Jersey's energy and 85% of the clean energy in New Jersey. We are very much aligned with the state of New Jersey's energy master plan. Their energy master plan in the state of New Jersey has these plants in existence through 2050 as they transition to more clean sources. You know, between now and then, a lot of that natural gas part of 49% or about half the generation, you'll see that replaced with wind.
You will always see in the energy master plan about 40% coming from us because that's the plan for New Jersey, and we're aligned with that. We're also very important. The other key point from a Jersey standpoint, we are vital to South Jersey's economy. We are the economic engine for pretty much most of South Jersey. We're the biggest employer in Salem County and Southern New Jersey. We employ about 1,600 full-time people and about 70% of those live in New Jersey. We bring in about 1,000 contractors every six months to help us with our refueling outages, supplement the workforce, so we can keep those outages as short as possible, keep our capacity factor as high as possible. Lastly, before I turn it over to Charles, I wanna talk a little bit about fuel costs.
You've seen things about fuel costs and about supply chain issues and threats because of potential instability with Russia. We wanna take a minute to talk about this. You'll see our fuel costs have been consistent for the last five years, still under $6. Including this year, we expect to be less than $6. We're able to do that because we have long-term contracts in place, and we have, for instance, 100% coverage through 2027. We have long-term contracts for all of our fuel, and all that fuel is not sourced from Russia.
There's four different supply chains that kind of happen in series to get fuel out of the ground and then ultimately put it in your reactor to use. None of those for us are coming from Russia, so we have a lower risk profile there, and we've had very stable prices. We expect those prices to escalate less than $1 through the 2027 period that we're talking about today. With that, I'm gonna turn it over to Charles, who's gonna talk about some opportunities for us to grow the business.
I do wanna make one footnote is that he's gonna talk about two or three of the bigger projects that are in front of us. We've had a number of other smaller projects that are kind of sitting on the shelf because our future was not assured. You know, this PTC has really assured that up for us. We pulled these projects off the shelf. We're going after them aggressively. We have other ones that were smaller that just had a little bit longer payback period that we couldn't justify at the time, which now the PTC enables us to do. Charles .
Thanks, Eric. Eric mentioned, we think we have significant growth opportunities in nuclear. I'm gonna talk about operating our Salem stations, increasing the fuel cycle duration at Hope Creek, and then second license extensions for all three of our nuclear plants. Our first opportunity is to increase the generating capacity of the Salem stations. As you can see from our slide, we have the opportunity to use the existing operating margin in the reactor plant to generate more thermal power. What that means is we generate more steam and more electrical power for the unit. Changes in the reactor plant will pretty much be in the analysis space. We do anticipate in the secondary plant, though, we will have to change some equipment out to accommodate the increased steam flow and power generation.
This will require some initial capital investment, but it won't increase our incremental operating costs for the units. What that means is we'll be able to reduce our overall megawatt production cost for the life of the plant. We also anticipate that this operate will qualify for the incremental $27 per megawatt production credit. As Eric mentioned, most PWRs in the industry operate on 24 month cycles. This creates a very clear path for us to take Hope Creek from 18 months to 24 months. What that means to us is we can reduce the number of outages and the associated costs over the life of the plant. More generating days, lower cost. It's another great opportunity for us to reduce our overall megawatt production cost at Hope Creek. Now, for the Salem stations and similar PWRs, we're currently restrained by fuel limitations.
There are some vendors looking at new fuel designs, and we're looking at that closely and following that to see if that's a future opportunity to operate the, sorry, to increase the Salem fuel cycles. That's something for the future. We're also looking at second license extensions for all three of the units. What that means is we'll be able to generate nuclear power through 2066. This will require some initial investment to start the process, and eventually, we will probably need to replace some aging equipment as we get closer to that extension period.
The real takeaway here is, for relatively low capital investment, we can generate power for 20 more years. We have scoping studies underway right now to look at the feasibility of these projects, determine the final cost and what type of implementation schedule. The big takeaway for us is when we look at this, we see tremendous growth opportunities for nuclear power, and we are very excited about that. Next, I ask Lathrop to talk about some generation opportunities and nuclear hydrogen production. Lathrop.
Thanks, Charles, good morning, everyone. As Charles said, I'm gonna cover two things. First of all, some opportunities in clean hydrogen production that we're very excited about, as sort of a complement to the growth opportunities Charles has covered. This is another way for us to enhance and grow the value, we believe, of our nuclear output. I'll also talk a little bit about some of those other businesses that we've kind of clustered under these, this Power and Other categories, so just to give a little peek under the hood there. Starting with hydrogen, you've heard Ralph earlier this morning and Eric just now talk about the value of the production tax credit for nuclear.
Out of that same legislation, came a number of tax credits that are available for clean hydrogen production, which as I said, is we're very excited about that as an opportunity to supply with the clean nuclear power that we have. In addition to that legislation, there's legislation that has enabled the Department of Energy to make matching grants for matching funding available for hydrogen projects participating in a number of regional clean hydrogen hubs. These are particularly interesting opportunities that are really designed to sort of kickstart the clean hydrogen economy by creating these relatively coherent regional hydrogen ecosystems that will span everything from production of clean hydrogen, distribution, and storage of that hydrogen, and then ultimately end-use consumption of the hydrogen.
That's something that we believe we're very well positioned to participate in, both because we think we have opportunities across that value chain, by supplying our clean carbon-free nuclear energy to production facilities that will generate clean hydrogen, potentially, investing in owning and operating some of those clean hydrogen production facilities ourselves. Finally, as a distributor and end user of clean hydrogen by blending that hydrogen into the utilities, PSEG's natural gas distribution system as a way to decarbonize that delivered natural gas product over time. Something that that, you know, we think we can play a number of different roles in.
We're also believe, very well-positioned, to participate in this DOE funding opportunity because we have assets, and particularly site locations that are available for development of clean hydrogen infrastructure, both in the northern part of New Jersey, which is very well-situated to participate in the Northeast hydrogen grid. In the southern part of New Jersey, additional assets that are available, and again, very geographically well located to participate in one of the two, Mid-Atlantic hydrogen grids. A number of different ways that we believe we can participate in that development of the clean hydrogen economy, you know, all to really tied back to the use of our clean nuclear power output. With that, I will turn to discussing what do we mean by power and other. What's the other part?
Well, that's a number of different businesses that we've been in for quite a while. I'll start with the largest of those, what we call gas operations. Gas operations in the way we describe it is separate and distinct from the utilities' natural gas distribution system. What it is at its core is a portfolio of contracts that PSEG Power has entered into that give us access to natural gas pipeline capacity and storage capacity, which in turn gives us access to very low-cost natural gas coming from outside the state. We use that portfolio of contracts to serve the basic gas supply service or BGSS default customers that the PSEG utility has.
Because we have to size the capacity of those pipeline contracts to serve all of PSEG's customers on a peak winter day, but that only happens, you know, once or twice a year, or this year, never. We have a lot of time where a lot of that capacity is available to be resold to other participants in the market. We've been very successful over the years at extracting value through what we call those off-system sales, to create a lot of additional revenue, and most of that is credited back to the customers, and that is a big part of what helps us be the low-cost gas supplier, as you saw earlier in the presentation. In addition to the gas operations business, we have a series of contracts with the Long Island Power Authority.
The probably best-known, most visible of those is a operating service agreement that we have for operating the electric transmission and distribution systems that LIPA owns on Long Island. A little less well-known, but we also serve as the fuel and energy manager for about 5,000 MW of contracted electric generation supply on the island, where we purchase and deliver all the fuel to those stations and then manage the energy output on LIPA's behalf. I'll close up just on offshore wind.
As you heard, a couple of times, Ralph and then Eric just now has mentioned that we announced earlier this year that we are going to be selling back the 25% interest that we had in the Ocean Wind 1 project, which is New Jersey's first offshore wind project, to our partner, Ørsted. We will additionally be exploring opportunities to sell the remaining interest that we have in what would have been offshore wind generation projects, which is an interest in the Garden State Offshore Energy lease area, to fully exit the offshore wind generation space.
I do wanna make clear, we do remain, as a company, committed to New Jersey's ambitions to grow offshore wind into a significant clean energy supply for the state of New Jersey. In particular, we are continuing to explore options to develop and ultimately build an offshore transmission backbone network that would allow for the most reliable delivery of that critical offshore wind generation resource to the customers onshore. With that, I'll turn it back over to Eric.
All right. That pretty much wraps it up for our section. Key takeaways, again, de-risk the business by exiting offshore wind, by exiting fossil merchant generation. A lot of risk gets pulled out of the business there. PTC provides a lot of stability and assurance for prices and a lot of opportunities. You know, a lot of these opportunities, we're gonna be driving those in the most efficient manner possible to get those into production. Lastly, that's all underpinned by just a really excellent record for operations. You know, we're doing a great job managing those plants and the statistics show it. With that, I will turn it over to batting cleanup, Dan Cregg, our Chief Financial Officer. Come on, Cregg. Thanks.
Thank you. All right, Carr. All right. Good morning, everybody. I am batting cleanup. All right. You know, great to see everybody here, great to see everybody in person, and thanks everybody for coming. Thanks everybody that's on the line. A lot of what we're telling you today. There's some new elements that we're providing, a little bit of a longer-term view on capital, a little bit more detail about some of the growth opportunities that we have on nuclear.
I think the story basically is still intact and is reinforced, and frankly, I think more than anything else, is probably strengthened. I think if you take a look at the business and piece together some of the things that you've heard today and pull them all together, I think you can look at us a little bit in a new light. The sale of PSEG Fossil, reducing that merchant risk, that was not news this week or last week, but had a big impact on bringing the risk of the business down.
I think exiting offshore wind generation, similarly, we've talked about the big project risk coming out of the business and an opportunity to monetize some of the acreage that we hold through GSOE, off the coast of New Jersey and Maryland. Then we've talked a lot today about the PTC. We've talked a lot leading up to it about needing a longer-term solution, longer-term certainty for nuclear. That PTC does provide that visibility, and it runs out to 2032, so into the next decade, a long look. Frankly, is a big part of us moving into our decision to retain nuclear. So Scott got a question earlier about that and what that does, and we can talk some more about that in Q&A.
We're continuing to explore other things that we can do to help mitigate that volatility. Certainly, that's helped on the utility side, we've talked a little bit about a lift-out. We've talked about some more potential things that we could do in a rate case, I think moderating that volatility overall, is a good answer for us, is a good answer for customers, a good answer for investors. The transmission formula rate, you know, it's always a good reminder to remember that we do still have a dual jurisdictional company, even though we're a single state utility. That's a significant part, almost half of our rate base. Importantly, the EE investments. When we got a large energy efficiency investment, about $1 billion that, as we invest, goes to rate base.
One of the key elements there was to not provide a disincentive to the company to invest in EE by virtue of those volumes coming down. That's when the Conservation Incentive Program came into play. Our revenues at the distribution company are delinked from the volumes that we sell. A pretty important element for the EE program, but a pretty important element. It's not just about that program, it's for the company as a whole. I think that also takes some volatility out of the business. The capital program, Kim gave you a lot of details about that. I just, I feel super comfortable with what the team has done and will continue to do and what still lies ahead from a growth potential standpoint. We will fund that five-year capital program without equity. That financial strength is super important.
Ralph said right up front, you know all that, I totally agree. I really think about that as a compelling risk-adjusted return opportunity. He talked about the total shareholder return. Take your 5%- 7% earnings growth, take your dividend. I think a pretty attractive position for a company that has seen all these things come through over time to bring some of that risk down. I think as much as anything else from today, if you think about some of the things we're talking about, I think just aggregating these things, seeing them together, can let you see us a little bit in a new light. A lot of those strategic issues that we've had have come off the table, and we've provided some clarity.
With respect to the 5%-7% growth that we talked about, that's really underpinning some of that value, this is the same slide that Ralph showed from the standpoint of the numbers. One thing I will point out, our 2023 guidance we gave in November, and we had a $0.20 range around it. We said we would narrow that as we came into this year. We've turned that $0.20 range into a $0.10 range, gotten beyond the variability that comes at 12/31 with the pension. I also think that's an element of confidence in the business about some of the risk that we have taken out. Bringing that down to a $0.10 range, I think is reflective of what I just talked about on the last slide.
This growth clearly driven by the utilities capital program, but also supplemented by Nuclear. Inherent within this growth rate is Eric's business that he's gonna continue to operate among the best in the country, only receiving the PTC threshold, right? Any market increases that are above and beyond that would be above and beyond this. We have only counted on that threshold amount with respect to getting to that 5%- 7%. Continued cost control that you heard from all the folks, that really is part of the drumbeat every single day, that we work with, and we feel good about where we'll be on that front. The contribution from the utility really comes from that capital program, and it's visible, and it's growing.
Our objective today was to try to provide a little bit more detail with respect to what underlies all of those different areas, all of those components within that capital program of $15.5 billion-$18 billion. Importantly, it is aligned with policy. I think Ralph had a slide right up front that talked about what's driving those investments. I think the electrification aspect that the governor recently talked about will drive more investment. I think the gas system, having the largest cast iron system in the country, will continue to drive investment there and more and more on the clean energy side.
I think that alignment with policy and the recovery mechanisms that we have, and the execution that Kim's gonna do, 15 years of knocking it out of the park on time, on budget with some pretty daunting tasks. I remember Kim telling a story once that I think we wouldn't have thought. What is the snake? Snake handler. Every snake handler in New Jersey we had to hire for one of our projects and some of those more complicated projects we worked our way through. I didn't even know there were snake people in New Jersey. Moving on to power and other. We wanted to provide a little bit more color on these components. What we've done here is broken down into a couple of pieces starting on top, illustrative drivers for those results. All right.
If you take a look at nuclear, we generate about 31 TWh a year. Starting in 2024, which is when the PTC comes into play, what we try to do is just take that volume, apply it by that PTC threshold amount, back out some O&M, and derive what an illustrative EBITDA number is gonna look like for nuclear. We've also assumed inherent within the legislation that that PTC will escalate through time. We've taken a 3% escalation over time. Based on those elements, we'll derive a $500 million EBITDA that'll grow to $600 million by 2027. Just trying to frame out what that block looks like from the standpoint of ultimate EBITDA coming off of those facilities, $500 million growing to $600 million.
Lathrop also talked about some of the other elements, the gas operations, Long Island, and then there's some other very, very small components within the business. Those aggregate to about $225 million of EBITDA. We net against that, the depreciation predominantly at nuclear and also interest expense. Interest has gotten a lot of attention of late. Interest rates have gone up, as everybody knows. We've tried to just forecast what our interest expense is gonna look like as we run out through that same 2024 to 2027 period. These numbers obviously will move as the interest rate environment moves. Just looking at forward interest prices, interest rates, I should say, refinancing our existing maturities at a higher rate and financing the balance of the business, and I'll talk a little bit about that on the next slide.
We have interest expense that we see about $250 growing to about $325 over that same period. Again, just trying to give you a framework of what some of the components look like, and that nuclear piece at that PTC threshold, that stability really is a driver in the decision to retain the nuclear facilities. If I take those inputs and I look at them from a sources and uses component, and I run across the five years, I layer in the nuclear, I layer in the gas ops and the other. We also will see within this period, cash coming back to us for two other reasons. Lathrop talked a little bit about disposing of Ocean Wind 1. We are disposing that in exchange for the capital we have put into that to date.
We also have the lease acreage that we will monetize. If we're not gonna be in the offshore Wind Generation business , those assets are going to be monetized. Some of that will come back to us during this period. We have also seen a heightened amount of collateral. All right? Energy prices have come up. We had historical hedges that were on. As those prices go up, we post collateral. At year-end, we were about $1.5 billion. Most of that will come back to us. We will have some run rate collateral, $200 million, as we step through time. Most of that will come back during this period as we deliver on those hedges, and the speed of that could be impacted by as prices move. That will come back.
From a use perspective, we'll invest about $150 million of capital per year in the business, and then the interest, taxes, other items, will leave us with significant free cash flow coming off of that business. Understanding full well that some of that is one time. The return of collateral is not gonna happen every year, the offshore wind proceeds, but it will still leave us significant free cash flow coming off of that business. If I take that and incorporate into a broader sources and uses view, you have what you see in front of you here. On the far left-hand side, those two columns are sources and uses for the utility. As much as we talk about nuclear and the cash flow, the utility remains the largest cash flow generator within Enterprise.
That's shown within the orange bar on the far left-hand side. It is still the robust capital program will still be in excess of the utility's own cash flow. Utility will continue to raise debt. We'll continue to manage its cap structure based upon its regulatory cap structure, 54%-55% equity, and we'll provide some dividend to the parent, which will move me to the center of the page, which is power and other, inclusive of the parent. You see that dividend coming up from PSE&G. Just above that, I spoke to the free cash flow from power and other. You have some funding on both sides that you see. We will take in that collateral, and a use of cash will be to pay down the short-term debt we took in to fund the collateral.
As we step through time, we will put on some incremental debt at the parent to enable the utility to retain cash, to retain its own cap structure. The far right side really is just the accumulation of all that you saw in those first two areas. If I take all of that and I push it through what it means from the standpoint of FFO to debt, the left-hand side shows we will remain in the mid-teens. We have a threshold 13%, 14% FFO to debt. Even at our existing levels, and I believe we have a much more, a better business mix, a less risky business mix.
At our existing levels of 13%- 14%, we have excess debt capacity, you can see on the right-hand side, around $2 billion. Deployed within a regulated business, we can match that with debt using that as equity, which can derive about $4 billion of investment. The balance sheet remains strong. Lastly, our dividends. This gives a good indication of the history of where we have been over the last decade from a dividend perspective. You can see in the front end of the slide, increasing $0.08 per share per year, and then there's a kink.
A couple years ago, as we made the decision to sell PSEG Fossil, as we saw some of these other elements coming around, as we saw that risk reducing in the business, it gave us the confidence to lift that amount to an increase of $0.12 per share per year. I think on the earlier side of this slide, our payout ratio was lower. I think that was probably appropriate when you saw the riskier side of the business still being in the business. As we've stepped through time, that payout ratio being higher, I think also is sensible for where we are right now as a business. Ralph said earlier, we will continue to have consistent, sustainable growth in the dividend. That takes us to a key takeaway slide. I guess maybe I'll just finish here where Ralph started.
I think hopefully you'll take away from this a more predictable business, good growth opportunities, financial strength to be able to finance that with a strong balance sheet, with no equity for the five-year plan, and a management team, as you saw today, that's gonna get it all done. I would agree with Ralph, second to none, in my view. I'm gonna ask some of them to come up and join for some Q&A, and we'll take the broader Q&A now.
Hi there. I'm gonna be passing around the mic. Again, please raise your hand if you have a question, and, state your name and affiliation.
Do you want me over here?
Hey, everyone. Thank you. Andrew Weisel from Scotiabank. My first question is on O&M. You've done a great job in the last several years, and I see the slides you kinda show flat, maybe down a little in 2023. What's embedded in your longer term assumptions now? It's obviously a very moving target, but how do you think about the utility O&M as well as the overall company?
Yeah.
Yeah. Andrew, I think we've exhibited some real good cost control throughout time, and I think we expect to see that going forward. I know there's been a lot of conversations about, especially in the power side of the business, hey, you know, there might be some incremental. Well, we use union workers everywhere throughout our workforce, we're not faced with some of the challenges that others are from a, "Hey, are you gonna qualify for the PTC? Are you paying prevailing wages?" On and so forth.
We do pay a union workforce, and we always have. We don't see that as a challenge that's out there. In Kim's shop, they have continuous improvement activities that are going on on an ongoing basis. While we don't really talk about what those numbers are incrementally as we go forward, you can figure that we always are 1%-2% less than what inflation rates are. I think we've proven that, and I think you'll see that going forward.
I think technology is gonna be a part of that too, Andrew. We don't have AMI right now. We are doing that now, and that's gonna be able to help moderate. A good example of technology helping us.
Makes sense. Thank you. Second question is the utility ROE. Obviously, with the rate case coming up, that'll be discussed, debated, whatever. Given the protections you have primarily from CIP and the pension, what might be some drivers to the earned ROE, relative to the allowed? In other words, is there any reason there should be much of a deviation, either positive or negative?
Yeah, we don't expect a big deviation. If you think about over time, as interest rates came down, the ROEs were a little bit behind that. You know, usually there's that correlation that exists. We, it didn't quite. As interest rates are going up, I don't quite expect the ROEs to shoot up at the same level. I think it'll moderate over time, but we don't expect any big dramatic changes there.
Say that again.
We don't talk about the current ROE versus our-
Yeah. I mean, I think you can think about that pretty confidently. I think one of the things that Scott talked about is he laid out a couple things embedded within the numbers where we were last rate case, where we are going into this rate case. To your point within your question, I do think that the CIP is helpful to maintain that as well.
Next question? Mm-hmm.
Just a quick question on your nuclear assets. Does it make sense to combine your nuclear plants with others, in terms of both efficiencies and also in terms of potentially trading value?
Look, Paul, we always look at strategic options that are out there. We always don't discuss those strategic options that are out there. That won't change. I think what you did see today and what you see from a cost control standpoint would lead you to believe, though, that we are about as good an operator as there is and about as good a cost control operator as there is.
Thanks. Paul Zimbardo, Bank of America again. Thanks for everything. First on the upper end of the rate base CAGR, I think 7.5%. If you're able to get to that level, can you confirm you still would not need equity at that elevated CapEx?
Correct.
Okay, great. Easy. The second, I think using the 2023 guidance, you said that utility is about 85%-90% of the consolidated earnings. Is that a good way to think about towards the later end of the plan in, like, the 2027 at that PTC you embed?
Yeah. Again, some of those PTC rules are going to come out. We'll learn more about that. You can make assumptions about where the market's going to be from a power standpoint. Just based upon where the PTC floor is, that's a good assumption, a fair way to think about it.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Okay. Any other questions?
Jeremy.
Okay.
Jeremy, just update your thoughts on the
Yeah. For those that might be on the webcast, Jeremy was asking about the pension lift-out and how we can think about that.
Yep. I'll take that, Jeremy. I appreciate the question. I think that how we think about it is maybe the place to start. If in the aggregate, we have seen some volatility coming from the pension in full, a smaller pension is gonna have less variability. That's how we are thinking about it, and that's one of the drivers to it. I think mechanically it's most simply thought about as taking a piece of the obligation, taking a piece of the assets, packaging them, and lifting them out, and ultimately being left with a smaller pension. There have been a series of those transactions that have happened. This isn't one of breaking any ground by this thought process, but we're still pursuing that.
There was a question, I think, on the fourth quarter call about timing, and I would think about it as this calendar year is the way to think about it. We're still just doing our diligence on that. I think at its core it's something that could make some sense for us. Work continues on that.
That's helpful. Thanks. Then just as it relates to hydrogen, just wondering if you could walk us through, I guess, the timeline of when this could be real, when there could be actual, you know, dollars spent or, you know, any other color you could provide there.
Dan, go ahead, yeah.
Not tomorrow. It's gonna depend a little bit on how quickly the government makes some of those determinations, and then how quickly companies on the other side can move. I think that it will probably start small. If you think about. You know, there was a question earlier on RNG as well. Embedded within our Gas System Modernization Program, there is very small pilot-type dollars involved.
I think second half of this decade is when you can start to see some real impacts, but there's a lot of daylight between now and then that needs to be worked through. Establishing the hubs, trying to figure out exactly what infrastructure is gonna make the most sense and how to work this. It's a newer area. It's not something that is all that front of mind from coming into results quickly. I think over the longer term, there is some promise that's there.
I would just add to that, Jeremy, I think, we maybe won't be the best positioned, but we're gonna be up there when you look at New Jersey, for an opportunity, not only because of where Eric's plants are located, the need for some additional industry down there, but some industries that need the product on a back end that are co-located geographically, off the South Jersey, Delaware area and Philadelphia. Up north, as we bring clean energy in from the water, we'll have that opportunity as well to create hydrogen, use it in our system.
Also there's a lot of off-takers there as well if you look at the refineries that are in the north. I also, I can't help myself, I gotta talk about RNG. You know, this is something I'm amazed at this conversation to some aspects. We did this for 30 years. We used to take gas. If any of you fly into Newark Airport, the landfills that you see in the Meadowlands there, we took gas from those facilities for decades.
Mm-hmm.
We actually stopped it because there was a push to use gas for vehicles. The quality of the gas needed to be at a certain level. We wound up passing that up, and now we're back doing it again, just following policy back to how we grow our business. RNG is not really anything new for us.
Mm-hmm.
It's something that's been out there and something that we did for years and years.
Great. Thank you very much. All right.
Over here. Hi, it's Raymond Leung, Scotiabank. Maybe more questions. Thanks for the comprehensive update today. Question is probably more for Dan. You mentioned you were looking at taking on HoldCo debt. Can you talk a little bit about what your parameters are there? Then talk a little bit about, as you recapitalize PSEG Power, what's sort of the right metrics that you're looking at to fill out the other side of the financial equation, given the strong free cash, you have a lot of flexibility, it sounds like?
Yep. Yeah. Right now at PSEG Power, there's a billion and a quarter of debt there. I think that, you know, as you step up into a PTC threshold world, there would be some incremental capacity there and so you could see some incremental debt there, but I don't imagine there's going to be a sizable increase there. I think, you know, overall, we'll continue to monitor our FFO to debt. Obviously, we'll continue to monitor the percentage of parent debt that we have in total, obviously, and stay within bounds that make sense against those metrics. I think that, you'll probably, as the sources and uses show, we'll see a decline coming off as that collateral comes in, those short-term loans get paid down.
A modest amount, I think at the parent, you could see incremental come through as your FFO to debt comes up across the business as well. All those investments that Kim is making continues to grow that part of the business. I think there'll be some incremental debt, which will kind of mirror about where we are now, understanding now we have a little bit of a hump from collateral. Bring that off and see that come back up.
Okay, thanks.
Sure.
My first question, I don't know if you can help us. I'm trying to a little bit get understanding on the rate case. Can you just remind us of how much of kind of a rate base will you be there when you file the rate case? What is that compared to the last rate case filing? I'm just trying to think about some way to calculate the revenue requirement that will be filed at the end of the year.
There's a lot of moving parts there. Let me just I don't remember what it was last time, but we've talked a lot, and it's been in a lot of our materials about $3 billion worth of stipulated base that we'll be rolling in in this rate case. There's some COVID deferrals that we'll be looking to put in, but there's also some offsetting. We always remind everybody about Superstorm Sandy in 2013. We are still collecting on the recovery of Superstorm Sandy because we deferred some of that recovery. There's a lot of moving parts in there for you to make that calculation, and we have not given that level of detail.
No, the only thing I'd give you, though, qualitatively, Shar, is that think about a lot of the investments that we've made that have been through clauses. That's not an amount of dollars that are gonna need to see recovery. In this case, those are dollars that have rolled in as we've stepped through time. That sets some gradualization to rates, which I think from a regulatory standpoint, makes a lot of sense.
Okay. Just going back to what Ralph said, there is an incremental $3 billion, right, of rate base that you're going to be asking for.
Well-
Which is not earning, right? Is that correct?
That's correct. That's what will be stipulated base that we have already agreed with the regulator was required as part of the programs that we, that we've submitted previously.
Okay. Okay. Can I just go back to that illustrative slide that you had on the PTC? The numbers are pretty there. That is just giving us, right, we can use that to come up with Power's, and others', earnings per share for that year? I mean, they should be from reality because it's based on the PTC, right? The PTC, you know the number, right? That should be the Power's earning base for 2024, from a modeling point of view.
Yeah. What I would repeat what I said earlier, that the
Okay.
The math is pretty simple as to what it is.
Okay. I didn't understand, if you can just help me. You said that it increases from 500 to 600 over three years, that's nearly like an increase of 20%. That can't be inflation, right? Unless you're talking about a 6% inflation rate, you said you're using a 3% inflation rate, if I'm correct.
Yeah.
I just wanted to understand how it goes to like, you know, a 20% increase over three years. Could you just explain that?
Very simply, if you take a look at the PTC begins in 2024, and it begins at a stated number of $43.75. That's essentially when the phase out of the PTC at the price at which it phases out. If you go through the process and you go through and you do it's just a 3% escalation every year, using the way that they do the calculation is a little bit quirky. It has step functions. It's not perfectly linear, and so until you hit a certain amount, you won't see an increase. Then when you do see amount, you will see an increase. If you do that math and you run your way through three years, in 2027, you would have a PTC threshold of $48.88.
Okay.
That's what was used within that calculation.
Okay. Okay. Thank you so much.
Sure.
Anyone have any additional questions? Sure, Andrew.
Andrew gets two.
Hi. Andrew Weisel again. I know you've been asked this a few times over the years, but I'll try again. You have rate-based growth of 6%-7.5%, no equity needs, strong ROEs, and growth at Power and Other. What's the delta between that and the 5%-7% EPS CAGR? I know it's conservatism, but is there anything more specific you can point to?
No. I mean, I think think about what Ralph said about what's rolling into the rate case. There will be some imperfection within the contemporaneous returns, right? There'll be some lag that we'll go through there. Between rate cases, to the extent that you have any O&M growth, as moderate as it is, you can see those kind of things come through. Those are the things that I would point you to.
Yeah. The lag is the biggest piece that you have in there. I wouldn't say it's conservatism as much as it's certainty. If there's... Sorry. Oh, we got one more? Okay.
Yeah. Shelby Tucker with RBC.
Hey, Shelby.
A couple questions. One, you mentioned in one of the slides that your fuel requirements were contracted to 2027. What happens after 2027? Can you maybe describe where you stand there for the nuclear fuel?
Sure.
The second question is on the nuclear PTC, how does that change your hedging strategy going forward for PSEG Power?
Eric will answer the fuel piece, Dan has the hedging group.
For fuel pieces, we have contracts in place beyond 2027, so it doesn't go to zero, but it goes to some number less than zero. Since we were focused on 2027 for this discussion, we wanted to make a point to say now through then, it's 100% covered. That drops off moderately as you go out in time, and every year, we continue to extend those. That's about as far out as we stay 100% covered. As I mentioned, there's four different pieces to that, and each of those are covered kind of differently. We have good coverage out through 2027, and it comes down a little bit after that.
Shelby, on the hedging piece, it's a great question, and it's probably ideally answered soon, but not today. I mean by that is that embedded within the PTC calculation, there's a definition of gross revenue. Essentially, what are you getting from the market? Then what comes in as a PTC above and beyond that. That definition of from the market is one of the things that the Treasury regs will address. I'll give you some extremes. They could determine that what you're getting from the market is real-time price every five minutes at that point in time. What most folks will do is hedge over a period of time.
They could look back to your actual hedges, or they could presume that there's been some kind of hedging over some period of time based upon some kind of an index price. If your objective is to ensure that you were to earn at that PTC threshold, you would want to adopt and align with what Treasury comes out, because otherwise you're gonna create deviations from that. So not wanting to see that daylight, I anticipate we'll move towards what Treasury comes out with when they come out with something. But that is still TBD.
There's still a lot that's got to come out from the IRA in total. So we don't have a date for when Treasury will be putting out those regs. I wish we did. Once we get those and interpret those, we'll probably be able to answer a little bit better.
Dan and I keep laughing because we were convinced that those regulations were gonna be published last night. We were gonna have to answer that question in much more detail.
If there are no other questions, I'm gonna turn the mic back to you, Cregg.
Yes.
for some closing comments.
No, I appreciate that, Carlotta. Look, investors have asked for clarity. We have clarity. We've got predictability. We've talked about that in a bunch of different ways. Increased predictability from where we were 12 months ago. We talked about growth, very transparent growth opportunities that we've talked about and discussed in a, in a lot of detail. We've got a great financial house that's been set up for us along the way, but continues because of the cost control, the decisions that we make on disciplined investment, and the cash that we're gonna be getting. We are unique in the fact that we are not gonna have to issue equity to have that kind of capital program, and we're not gonna have to sell down assets. Neither one of those things are required to achieve the results that we've put forth for you.
I said something in the beginning that I just wanna end with, which is I said Sheila is my right hand. The reason that I said that is because I believe in the people that we have. None of that stuff that I just talked about is without the team, right? Whether it's the experience that Dan has over time, the fact that I was able to attract Rodney Dickens back to help us out in some specific areas after he was the president of Allegheny Power and was willing to come back and work with us again. The fact that Kim has been by my side since 1985, and we actually, you know, we both grew up working in trenches back then.
Oh, by the way, we've got a CNO who used to be a licensed operator at the plants that we're responsible for. That's why Sheila has to be and will continue to be my right hand. It's because of the people and the team that we have. That extends beyond this group and all the way through our organization. I appreciate you being here. I hope we left you with a lot of confidence, because we have it, and I hope that you have it as well. Thanks for listening.