WEC Energy Group - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• Q3 2025 delivered clean beats on revenue and EPS versus S&P Global consensus, while EBITDA was modestly below; 2025 EPS guidance was reaffirmed at $5.17–$5.27, assuming normal weather. EPS $0.83 vs $0.81* and revenue $2.104B vs $1.898B*, with EBITDA $0.840B* vs $0.864B*.
• Management unveiled a materially larger 2026–2030 plan: $36.5B capex (+$8.5B vs prior plan) supporting asset base CAGR just over 11% and LT EPS CAGR of 7–8%, with growth skewing higher in 2028–2030.
• Load growth is increasingly data-center led (Microsoft and Vantage/Oracle) and underpinned by a proposed Very Large Customer (VLC) tariff (ROE 10.48–10.98%, 57% equity ratio), with a PSCW order expected by early May 2026—key regulatory catalyst.
• Capital and funding roadmap is clear: ~$21B operating cash, ~$14B incremental debt, and ~$5B common equity plus additional hybrid securities over five years; dividend growth targeted at 6.5–7% with a 65–70% payout ratio, and a Q4 dividend of $0.8925 payable Dec. 1 was declared.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Revenue and EPS beats versus consensus, with rate base growth, favorable weather, and ATC equity earnings contributing; CEO: “We delivered another solid quarter, and we remain on track for a strong 2025.”
  • Strategic growth visibility improved: $36.5B five‑year plan, asset base growth >11% CAGR, LT EPS growth raised to 7–8%, anchored by hyperscale data center demand in Wisconsin.
  • Regulatory pathway for serving very large loads advancing: proposed VLC tariff with ROE 10.48–10.98% and 57% equity ratio; expected PSCW order by early May 2026 for June service—terms agreed with customers.

• What Went Wrong

  • EBITDA slightly missed S&P Global consensus despite top-line/EPS beats (actual $0.840B* vs $0.864B*), as higher depreciation and O&M offset positives.
  • Expense pressure: depreciation and amortization up y/y (Q3: $373.4M vs $340.5M) and interest expense higher y/y (Q3: $223.6M vs $204.2M).
  • Corporate & Other earnings decreased $0.11 per share, driven by tax timing and higher interest expense—an area to monitor as the financing cycle accelerates.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon and welcome to WEC Energy Group's Conference Call for Third Quarter 2025 Results. This call is being recorded for rebroadcast, and all participants are in a listen-only mode at this time. After the presentation, the conference will be open to analysts for questions-and-answers. In conjunction with this call, a package of detailed financial information is posted at wecenergygroup.com. A replay will be available approximately two hours after the conclusion of this call. Before the conference call begins, please note that all statements in the presentation, other than historical facts, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that are subject to change at any time. Such statements are based on management's expectations at the time they are made.

In addition to the assumptions and other factors referred to in connection with the statements, factors described in WEC Energy Group's latest Form 10-K and subsequent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated. During the discussions, referenced earnings per share will be based on diluted earnings per share unless otherwise noted. This call also will include non-GAAP financial information. The company has provided reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in the materials posted on its website for this conference call. It is my pleasure to introduce Scott Lauber, President and Chief Executive Officer of WEC Energy Group. Please go ahead.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today as we review our results for the third quarter of 2025. Here with me are Xia Liu, our Chief Financial Officer, and Beth Straka, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations. As you saw from our news release this morning, we reported third quarter 2025 earnings of $0.83 per share. With this solid quarter, we remain on track for strong 2025 results. Our focus on executing the fundamentals of the business is creating real value for our customers and stockholders. Today, we are reaffirming our earnings guidance for the year at a range of $5.17-$5.27 a share. Of course, this assumes normal weather through the remainder of 2025. In addition, I'm excited to share our new five-year capital plan. Let's start by talking about the economic growth that's driving the plan.

We continue to see major business building a future in our region. Overall, our electric demand is expected to grow 3.4 GW between 2026 and 2030, an increase of 1.6 GW compared to the prior plan. Microsoft is making good progress on its large data center complex in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin. The company has stated that the first phase of that project is on track to go online next year. In addition, Microsoft also recently announced plans for a second phase in Mount Pleasant that would be similar in size and power. Its projected investment is an incremental $4 billion on top of the original $3.3 billion investment. The economic development south of Milwaukee is supporting approximately 2.1 GW of our overall 3.4 GW demand growth. As you recall, Vantage Data Centers has signed on to develop data center facilities on approximately 1,900 acres north of Milwaukee in Port Washington.

Just last week, Vantage announced that this campus, named Lighthouse, will be part of OpenAI and Oracle's partnership on the Stargate expansion. Vantage has reported that the site has the potential to reach 3.5 GW of demand over time. Right now, we're focused on providing generation for an estimated 1.3 GW of demand at the site in the next five years. The city of Port Washington approved Vantage's plans in August for the initial development on 670 acres. Vantage has stated that it expects to invest $15 billion in the project. The campus will feature four data centers, and construction is planned to start this year. Vantage has announced that the facility could go online in late 2027, with this first phase of the project scheduled for completion in 2028. The growth from large customers is also fostering small commercial and residential development throughout our service territory.

Wisconsin's unemployment rate stands at 3.1%, continuing a long-running trend below the national average. This significant economic development is driving our capital plan. As you may have seen from our announcement this morning, we expect to invest $36.5 billion in capital projects between 2026 and 2030, an increase of $8.5 billion above our previous five-year plan. That's more than a 30% increase. With this updated capital plan, we expect asset-based growth at an average rate of just over 11% a year. We expect that strong asset-based growth to support our updated long-term projected earnings per share growth of 7% to 8% a year on a compound annual basis between 2026 and 2030. This is based on the midpoint of our 2025 guidance.

For the next two years, however, we expect to maintain our existing EPS growth rate of 6.5% to 7% on a compound basis and then accelerate starting in 2028 to the upper half of the new guidance range on a compound basis. As you're well aware, we're in the early stages of deploying the capital required to support the robust growth in our region, and it takes time to fully put the projects in service. The increase in our plan is driven by investments in regulated electric generation, transmission, and distribution in Wisconsin, and the pipe retirement program in Illinois. Let me give you a few more details. Over the next five years, we'll utilize an all-of-the-above approach for generation to support the economic growth and reliability by investing in new natural gas, batteries, and renewables. The key for reliability is dispatchable resources.

Between 2026 and 2030, we expect to invest an incremental $3.4 billion in modern, efficient natural gas generation versus the prior plan. This includes combustion turbines, reciprocating internal combustion engines or RACE units, and upgrades to existing facilities. We also will continue to invest in renewable generation and battery storage, increasing our projected investment by $2.5 billion over our prior plan. In addition, American Transmission Company plans to continue to invest in our transmission capabilities to serve our region's economic growth, connect new generation, and strengthen the system. Part of that new transmission is planned to serve customers and new data center needs. Our plan calls for us to invest approximately $4.1 billion in ATC projects between 2026 and 2030. This represents a $900 million increase from the previous plan.

To help assure reliability and support economic growth, we're continuing to invest in our electric and natural gas distribution networks with an additional $2 billion in the plan. This includes significant investment in our pipe retirement program in Chicago. Recall that the Illinois Commerce Commission directed us to focus on retiring all cast iron and ductile iron pipe with a diameter under 36 in by January 1st, 2035. We expect that over 1,000 mi of older pipe will need to be replaced. Turning to the regulatory front, I have just a few updates across our service areas. In Wisconsin, our proposed Very Large, or VLC, tariff remains with the Public Service Commission for review. As we discussed earlier this year, this tariff is designed to meet the needs of our very large customers while protecting all of our other customers and investors.

As currently proposed and in our testimony filed earlier this month, the tariff would provide for a fixed return on equity in an updated range of 10.48%-10.98% and an equity ratio of 57%. These financial terms have been agreed upon with the customers. The proposed terms of the agreements are 20 years for wind and solar, and the depreciable lives for natural gas and battery storage assets. We worked with our very large customer in designing the tariff, including the financial parameters, and we believe the tariff is a key component to making Wisconsin a prime spot for data center investment. We have a procedural schedule and provided our direct testimony earlier this month. A commission order is expected by early May of next year for customers to take service in June.

In Illinois, we are continuing to coordinate with the city of Chicago on our pipe retirement program. As we are ramping up these efforts, we will continue to have regulatory reviews of the process. This includes the forecast and the general rate case proceeding, which we are planning to file in early 2026 for test year 2027. Of course, we'll keep you updated on any further developments. Now I'll turn it to Xia to provide you more details on the financial results and our financial plans.

Xia Liu (CFO)

Thank you, Scott. Our third quarter 2025 earnings were $0.83 per share, one penny over third quarter 2024 adjusted earnings. Our earnings package includes a comparison of third quarter results on page 16. I'll walk through the significant drivers. Starting with our utility operations, earnings were $0.12 higher when compared to third quarter 2024 adjusted earnings. Weather positively impacted earnings by about a penny relative to last year. Compared to normal conditions, we estimate that weather had a $0.03 favorable impact in the third quarter of 2025 compared to a $0.02 favorable impact in 2024. Rate-based growth contributed $0.15 more to earnings, and timing of fuel expense, tax, and other items added another $0.07. These positive drivers were partially offset by $0.06 from higher depreciation and amortization expense and $0.05 from higher day-to-day O&M.

In terms of our weather-normal retail electric deliveries, excluding the iron ore mine, we saw a 1.8% increase compared to the third quarter of 2024. This was led by the large commercial and industrial segment, which grew 2.9%. The residential and small commercial and industrial segments grew 1.3% and 1.4%, respectively. Overall, we're slightly ahead of our annual electric sales growth forecast. Looking ahead with the updated load growth, we now expect our annual electric sales growth to be between 6% and 7% for the period 2028 through 2030. That's up from the 4.5% to 5% we previously forecasted. Turning to American Transmission Company, capital investment growth contributed an incremental $0.02 to Q3 earnings versus 2024. At our Energy Infrastructure segment, earnings increased a penny in the third quarter of 2025 from higher production tax credits. Next, you'll see that earnings from the corporate and other segments decreased $0.11.

This was largely driven by tax timing and higher interest expense. In terms of common equity, we issued about $800 million through the first nine months via our ATM program, as well as the dividend reinvestment and employee benefit plans. This largely satisfied our common equity needs for this year. As Scott noted, we're reaffirming our 2025 earnings guidance of $5.17-$5.27 per share. This includes October weather and assumed normal weather for the remainder of the year. Going forward with the updated capital plan, we expect our EPS growth to accelerate post-2027. Overall, based off the midpoint of the 2025 guidance range, our long-term growth rate CAGR is expected to be 7% to 8% through 2030. Now, let me comment on the financing plan that supports this growth and the new capital plan.

As we have consistently guided you, we expect any incremental capital will be funded with 50% equity content. When compared to the prior plan, we added $8.5 billion of capital and about $4 billion of incremental equity content, equally split between incremental common equity and hybrid or like-kind securities. Here are the details of the funding sources. Over the next five years, we expect cash from operations to be approximately $21 billion, funding more than half of our cash needs. Approximately $14 billion of the funding is expected to come from incremental debt, and the remaining cash is expected to be funded by approximately $5 billion of common equity. As a reminder, the cadence of common equity is a function of capital expenditures. For 2026, we expect common equity issuances to be between $900 million to $1.1 billion.

In closing, as Scott discussed previously, the strong economic development and load growth in Wisconsin is the foundation of our new five-year plan. With the asset base forecasted to grow at 11.3% a year on average, we expect to nearly double our asset base over the next five years. It's important to note that the bespoke assets allocated to our very large customers are projected to represent 14% of our total asset base by 2030. As a reminder, the tariff is designed so these customers pay their fair share by not being subsidized by other customers. We're very excited about our company's future and the investment opportunities ahead of us. With that, I'll turn it back to Scott.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Thank you, Xia. Finally, a quick reminder about the dividend. As usual, I expect we'll provide our 2026 dividend plan and earnings guidance in December. We continue to target a payout ratio of 65%-70% of earnings, and we're currently positioned well within that range. We expect to grow the dividend at a rate of 6.5%-7%, consistent with our past practice. Overall, we're optimistic about our five-year plan and the longer-term outlook. I think we're in the early stages of the growth cycle as we continue to see opportunities and economic development in our region, including data centers. We look forward to providing additional details on our plan in just over a week at the EEI Conference. Operator, we are now ready for the questions-and-answer portion of the call.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. We'll take our first question from Shahriar Pourreza at Wells Fargo.

Shahriar Pourreza (Analyst)

Hey, guys.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back, Shahriar.

Shahriar Pourreza (Analyst)

Oh, thanks, Scott. Appreciate it. Just, Scott, on the obviously, just on the updated growth outlook, I mean, there is that inflection post 2027. I guess some would be surprised it's more back-end loaded. Can you maybe just walk us through how the CAGR shapes kind of in that back half of the plan? Can it be accelerated? Are there incrementals? Is there an opportunity to smooth this out a little bit? Thanks.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Sure. Great question. Remember, as we historically have done, we've always taken the midpoint of the current year's guidance, the 2025 guidance, and looked at a compound annual growth rate. I think it'll help if I give you a little color of what we're seeing year by year and think about it as you look at our capital plan. In the first year in 2026, we're seeing 6.5%-7%. I think as you start looking in 2027, you can see our capital plans ramping up to a little almost $7 billion and a little over $7.7 billion. When you have that, you're going to see part of those earnings coming in. In 2027, we're seeing 7%-8% probably on that annual basis, year-over-year growth versus looking at a compound basis. When you look at those outer years, 2028 through 2030, I'm seeing closer to 8%.

That's kind of where we're seeing. It just takes a while to ramp up. Really lines up well with what our capital plan is. That's how you get that compound growth rate, that 7%-8% at the upper end of our plan here. Does that add a little color?

Shahriar Pourreza (Analyst)

No, it does. Is there any opportunity, Scott, to smooth it out a little bit, or is the plan the plan?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

I think there's some opportunities that we could see as things potentially accelerate. There's a lot of stuff that we're asking for approvals for, and the commission's doing a great job getting us approvals. There's just a lot of activity, and we want to be very prudent on what it takes to get approvals, what it takes to actually get everything to start building those plans. I think there's opportunity there. We don't like to have any white space. We want to make sure we can execute, and we want to make sure we can deliver. We feel this is very, very executable.

Shahriar Pourreza (Analyst)

Perfect. All right. I appreciate that. Just my perennial question for you is just around the Point Beach conversations with NextEra, I guess. Any sort of sense of timing around an announcement? Do you have an Analyst Day coming up in early December? Are you still thinking by year-end, or are the conversations kind of shifting a little bit further out?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

That's a great question. The conversations are still going on. They're maybe shifting a little bit farther out. I just want you to know, in this plan, we have it assumed one way or the other. We have no capital in here if we had to replace that capacity. In the end, we're really looking at what's the best for our end-use customers and what value we have for the customers. We just have to be very prudent. We have a lot of opportunities. We think, in fact, if we don't renew something, there's potentially capital upside. We're just going to really look at it from the perspective of the customer and what makes sense overall.

Shahriar Pourreza (Analyst)

Fantastic. Thank you, guys. I'll see you in a few days. Thanks.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Yep. Sounds good. See you. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our next question from Julien Dumoulin-Smith at Jefferies.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon, team. Thank you guys very much. Nicely done. I'm wearing the rally cap for you guys here today on this one.

Of course.

With that said, there's a lot to pick on here. Let me come back to the question on this Microsoft expansion in the second phase. Obviously, they made some headlines recently. How should we interpret that as being incremental or not to the plan if eventually something folds in there? I mean, to what extent is it or isn't it fully reflected here?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

We work with Microsoft along with all the other customers in Southeast Wisconsin that we came up to that 2.1 GW for Southeastern Wisconsin. I can't really divulge individual customer information, but let's just say I'm very confident in the growth we have in Southeastern Wisconsin, and I think there's more growth in the remaining five years when you think about the next five years of our plan. I don't know if you had a chance to listen to the Microsoft conference call. They actually called out the growth in Southeastern Wisconsin. They called the data center Fairwater. It's the world. Expect to go online next quarter, or this quarter they announced it expects to go online next year. They say it could scale up to 2 GW alone.

I can't speak for them, but when you look at the overall picture, I think there's a lot of opportunities as you think about the next five years also.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Analyst)

Got it. Excellent. If I can needle you on a couple of details here. One thing that stood out here, you raised the transmission CapEx by slightly less than $1 billion, but I think the Port Washington transmission project itself with ATC was $1.3 billion. Is that fully in there? Again, I know it's a partial ownership for you guys, etc., but just wanted to clarify that here.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Sure. We're a 60% owner of American Transmission Company, so it's all kind of factored in here. I think there's maybe a little bit more upside as we see other data centers in there. I think it's probably the basic is factored in our plan, so there's probably a little more upside at that $1.4 billion. I think that even came out after the original ATC forecast was pulled together. I think there's a little bit more runway there. Remember, there's only so much transmission you can do on the system at a time, so it's maybe limited a little bit by that.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Analyst)

Got it. Sorry to needle you on one more here. The ramp in Illinois seems a little bit more than perhaps some were expecting. It's a pretty healthy number here, the $1.5 billion. Can you speak a little bit to what's taking place there? Also, if you have any latest thoughts about what could happen with this Illinois legislation, if it has any meaningful impact for you guys.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Sure, sure. It's very consistent with what we've been laying out that it's going to ramp up a little, some in 2026, then in 2027, and we expect we'll be up to about that $500 million in 2028 and going forward. Remember, we had about $90 million a year on the plan, so it falls in line between that $1.4 billion and $1.6 billion. We have $1.5 billion in here. That all kind of consists of what we've been saying. The Illinois legislation, we'll see where that goes. There's a little bit on efficiencies in there. I don't think it'll have a significant effect on us, but we, of course, are watching it.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith (Analyst)

All right, guys. I'll let others ask. Thank you so much again. Nicely done.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We'll move next to Michael Sullivan at Wolfe Research.

Michael Sullivan (Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Good afternoon, Michael.

Michael Sullivan (Analyst)

Hey, Scott. Wanted to start with slide 22. If you could just help on the just bridging the asset-based growth to earnings growth, is the delta there from 11% to 7.8%? Is it all just equity dilution, or is there anything else we should be thinking about? On that same slide, the 14% of asset-based with the bespoke customer, is that a proxy for earnings attached to those projects as well?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

A couple of items, and we'll let Xia address it too. At a high level, the bespoke portion there, that's identifying people that ask how much of the potential rate base in those outer years will be tied to that Very Large Customer tariff. That's the current projection, and that's about 14% of our asset base up in 2030. Dealing with that, the renewables and other stuff that the VLC tariff will cover. That 11.3% to our growth rate, a large part of it is just dealing with, Xia, I think it looks like what we do with the financing and the dilution from the equity issuance.

Xia Liu (CFO)

Yeah, I think roughly 3% is from the equity, and the rest is a little bit of holding company. Terry, Michael?

Michael Sullivan (Analyst)

Okay. That's very helpful. Sticking with the financing plan, any sense of where you are in terms of capacity for junior subs and hybrids? Are there any thresholds that eventually you run into at some point, or still a lot of runway?

Xia Liu (CFO)

still a lot of runway. As you know, the agencies have a slightly different definition for the capacity. S&P uses a percentage of the total capitalization, and Moody's uses a percentage of the total debt capacity. The five-year plan, with the planned junior sub, we still have billions of dollars of capacity left. We're good.

Michael Sullivan (Analyst)

Okay, that's great. Thank you very much.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Thanks, Michael.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our next question from Nicholas Campanella at Barclays.

Nicholas Campanella (Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to ask just a very large increase in the capital plan and the rate-based growth following that. That's obviously coming with a financing need. You are in a lot of different states and jurisdictions. I noticed that you also, as part of this plan, took some capital out of WEC Infrastructure. Just wondering what the appetite is to recycle capital to replace common equity needs or other financing needs in the plan.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Sure. That's a great question. If there was an opportunity that came along, we, of course, would look at it. We just want to make sure that it hits our financial parameters. It would be good for investors. We really like the performance of some of our smaller companies. They perform very well. They don't take a lot of work, and we continue to execute on them. We've got a great team there. It's not like we're looking to sell them at all, but if an opportunity would exist, we would always look at that opportunity. We just want to make sure it's good for our investors.

Nicholas Campanella (Analyst)

Okay, great. As we think about the ability for current customers to gross up commitments in your territory or potential new customers, one thing we've heard through this earnings season from some other companies is they talked about just available turbine capacity, what their advantage in the supply chain would be to deliver on those incremental deals. How do you think about that from the WEC side? If Vantage was to come and do an increased commitment, or Microsoft was to come, or other large load customers, do you have the turbines or maybe the renewable agreements to execute on that? Thanks.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Great question. We have a team that works with our very large customers and potential additional customers on how we could supply either an accelerated load on their basis or additional load or new growth. We are working with them every day. We have a robust supply chain and are working with developers to have a path to be able to serve that. I feel very confident if the load would increase, we could work with them. We have been working with them behind the scenes for several years on this to stay ahead of it. What you're seeing in the plan, though, is what they have firm commitments to.

Nicholas Campanella (Analyst)

Maybe if I could just sneak one more in quickly, just on Point Beach. Just recognizing the license extension there just recently happened in the last few months. What's just the state of urgency from state stakeholders to kind of further lock up this capacity through the end of the decade or the end of 2030 now? Is that something that you think we could see by year-end?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

We have the capacity. I think it's through 2030 and 2033, so we have a lot of time. We've been working with NextEra. We just have to make sure that we have the right agreement for our customers. As I said, we do have access to other abilities if we need to replace that capacity. We're working with them. We just have to get to a right position. If we get there, great. If we don't get there, there's a lot of opportunities for us too.

Nicholas Campanella (Analyst)

Thanks a lot.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

All right. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Next, we'll move to Andrew Weisel at Scotiabank.

Andrew Weisel (Analyst)

Hey, everybody. Good afternoon.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Hey, Andrew.

Andrew Weisel (Analyst)

First question. Sorry if I'm getting too cute here, but for 2028 to 2030, are you implying 8% or like 7.5%-8%? If it is the latter, doesn't the math suggest that the overall five-year period would be below the midpoint?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

I don't think it'll be below the midpoint. I think we're going to look at probably in that 8% area. That'll get us to the midpoint on a compound basis.

Xia Liu (CFO)

I think there's a little confusion, Andrew, in terms of the upper half on the slide. I think that's a compound number off the midpoint of 2025. What Scott is talking about is on an annual basis, if you look at from 2027 to 2028, 2028 to 2029, we're seeing that 8% range. If you compound it back, that's the 7%-8% off the midpoint of 2025.

Andrew Weisel (Analyst)

Okay. Great. Just wanted to clarify, it's about 8% for the later years, right?

Xia Liu (CFO)

On an annual basis.

Andrew Weisel (Analyst)

Okay. Great. Just wanted to clarify that. Thank you. Next question. On the CapEx update, first of all, very impressive numbers, a huge increase. What I want to understand, though, is it's an $8.5 billion increase, but when I add up the pieces on page 18, I'm calculating a total of $8.1 billion. I don't know if it's rounding or if there's some pieces missing, but can you help me bridge that gap? Where's the extra $400 million coming from?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Yeah. I mean, we just kind of picked out a couple of the highlights there. I guess if you do the specific reconciliation with the bar chart, you have a little bit more gas distribution of a couple hundred million. I think it's kind of cats and dogs in generation and everything else. We just called out the significant ones.

Andrew Weisel (Analyst)

Okay. That's what I thought. Just wanted to be sure. Lastly, in terms of demand, again, a big increase. You're forecasting 3.4 GW by 2030, up from 1.8 GW in 2029 previously. Is that increase related to data center projects you've been talking about ramping up, or is it some of the other manufacturing activity you discussed in the past? I know there's a lot going on along the I-94 corridor. How much of that is existing projects ramping versus new incremental projects coming online?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Yeah. Great question. When you look at it, it's about 1.6 GW growth. 1.3 is the Vantage Data Centers project in Port Washington. In Southeastern Wisconsin, as you can imagine, a significant part is from the data center in Southeastern Wisconsin, but it really is all the customers in that area. We have Eli Lilly expanding. We've got Amazon. We've got other companies coming to the region. That's not even counting all the residential load we're starting to see and new construction starting in the area. I think it's all of the above, but definitely significantly related to data center growth.

Andrew Weisel (Analyst)

That's great. Thank you so much.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our next question from Sophie Karp at KeyBanc.

Sophie Karp (Analyst)

Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Absolutely.

Sophie Karp (Analyst)

Thank you for the comprehensive update today. If I may just dig in a little bit on the data center announcements, right? There's been a slew of announcements lately. Some assets traded hands. I think there's some confusion what's incremental, what's in the plan. Could you make it very clear to us what's actually in the plan of the recent gigawatts of announcements and what yet is not in the plan? Yes.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Sure. What's in the plan, and we have Southeastern Wisconsin. There's 2.1 GW down there that includes the Microsoft, what they have told us to factor into this five-year plan. In Northern, in that Port Washington site, I would look at it as being Vantage, and Vantage has worked with Oracle. Those are the same megawatts at 1.3 GW. Vantage/Oracle is 1.3 GW. That's what's in the plan. What's not in the plan is there's additional land of about 1,200 acres in Port Washington that potentially could house another, what, 2 GW plus of additional capacity. In Southeastern Wisconsin, when you think about the Microsoft site, there's additional 700+ acres that they have there that I think could be for future development that also could add into the overall gigawatt usage. I think there's a lot of opportunity for future growth here. I hope that helps clarify it.

Sophie Karp (Analyst)

Yeah. It sounds like the plan as it stands right now is just super conservative. Is it fair?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Yeah, we only put what the customers are announcing and provide us the information on.

Sophie Karp (Analyst)

Got it. Okay. My other question was this. When you specifically, it's very helpful color when you talk about 14% of your rate base being under the Very Large Customer tariff by the end of 2030 or by 2030. What do you expect? The economics on that are pretty clear, right? These are premium economics on that chunk of rate base. What do you expect the economics to be for the rest of the rate base? When you formulate your plan, do you expect that the overall average will be similar to what you have today or the trajectory of what you have today, or for the lack of a better word, some deterioration in the economics of the rest of the rate base? Do you expect the rest to be unaffected by the presence of this new premium part of rate base?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Right. We assume the rest of the rate base earns the current authorized return that we currently have in each of the jurisdictions when you look at them separately. When you look at Wisconsin, right now, we're at that 9.8% ROE and depending upon the utility, like a 57.5%, 58% regulated ratio on Wisconsin Electric, each of those earn their separate return. Remember, the foundation of our tariffs is that the large customers don't get subsidized or subsidize the other customers. They each pay their fair share. We keep them as separate.

Sophie Karp (Analyst)

Got it. Very clear. Thank you so much.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our next question from Ryan Levine at Citigroup.

Ryan Levine (Analyst)

Good afternoon. Two quick questions. Just in terms of the execution or state of conversations for some of the Vantage expansion beyond the 1.3, any color you could share around maybe the engagement level or the timeline that conversations are progressing through?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

We're always in our discussions with Vantage, Microsoft, and potential others. Right now, Vantage, as we said in the preparatory marks, are really concentrating on that first 1.3 GW. I think they had a press release out there. They're going to have construction of about 4,000 construction workers out there when they're able to start construction. I think everyone's concentrating on that. We'll have more discussions over the next, probably next year. I think everyone's just concentrating on the first part of the load, which is what we want to make sure we can achieve too. I think there's opportunity long term.

Ryan Levine (Analyst)

There was a lot of mention about Microsoft and Oracle, but beyond those two customers, is the engagement level fairly broad, or is it really focused on a more narrow group of potential customers for expansion?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

We have other customers that we're talking to, but those are the two main ones that are already in the area and made public announcements. We're talking to others. I don't want to jump that. I try to play it pretty close to let them make the announcements or them sign purchase cancellation agreements before we get ahead of our skis on potential. We are talking to others.

Ryan Levine (Analyst)

Okay. Just to clarify around your plan, is the assumption embedded in the plan conservative in that it doesn't assume an outcome or doesn't assume the higher Very Large Customer tariff ROE? To the extent that you were to be successful in that application, that would be additive to plan or help provide additional buffer?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

No. I mean, we're assuming the Very Large Customer tariff is implemented. What we talked about on the call, there's a range of ROEs, 10.48%-10.98%, which we really stayed with the fundamentals of making sure we don't have a secondary effect that hurts our other customers. Those are more on a we're working individually, and we can't give more details, but on a higher return on some of it to that 10.98%. More to come on that as we continue to work with our customers on it.

Ryan Levine (Analyst)

Great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We'll move next to Paul Fremont at Ladenburg.

Paul Fremont (Analyst)

Thank you. Thank you very much. The first question has to do with the Microsoft announcement where they canceled the Caledonia site. What they said, I think, was that they would continue to look for alternative sites in Southeastern Wisconsin in your service territory. What other locations do they have land, or do you potentially have land that you would be able to sell to them?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Good question. You are correct. They're looking for a different site than what was their original plan. We really don't have that significant type of land available elsewhere. I don't know their specific plan. I know they said they're looking at other places in Southeastern Wisconsin, probably more to come in that area. It's just good that this is really great for the area when you think about property taxes and good-paying jobs. I know they're early in their look, so we'll see where that goes. Once again, that's a potential for more upside on our load.

Paul Fremont (Analyst)

Great. The timing of how long it would take for them to find sort of a replacement-type scenario, would it be like 12 months, or what would be sort of a reasonable assumption?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

I can't talk for Microsoft. They move pretty fast. I think a year is maybe reasonable, but we'll see where it goes.

Paul Fremont (Analyst)

Okay. My next question on Point Beach would be, if you're unable to reach an accommodation with NextEra, what type of generation would you build, and when would you have to start building it?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

That's a good question. We'll look at it, but it would have to be something that would be dispatchable that we could cover the dispatch on it. It'd have to be some type of gas. We'll see where the EPA rules. Do we eventually look at a combined cycle maybe, and maybe some renewables in there? We like all of the above approach. I know some people don't like renewables, but when you think of gas prices at times when they're high, renewables are very popular when gas prices are high. We look at all of the above mix. If you think about it, the contracts are 2030 and 2033, so there's still plenty of time. Like we said, we work with all our large customers, and our planning team is looking at how do we replace this. I'm sure we have several options available.

Paul Fremont (Analyst)

Last question for me. When we look at the $4.8 billion-$5.2 billion of common equity, would some of that be junior subordinated debt, or would any junior subordinated debt issuances be incremental?

Xia Liu (CFO)

It's the latter. The $4.8 billion-$5.2 billion would be common equity.

Paul Fremont (Analyst)

Is there junior subordinated debt contemplated then as part of your incremental debt?

Xia Liu (CFO)

Correct. As I said in the prepared remarks, we added $4 billion of equity content. Two more of common, and the other two would come from the junior subordinated debts or like-kind securities.

Paul Fremont (Analyst)

Great, thank you very much.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We'll take our next question from Anthony Crowdell at Mizuho.

Anthony Crowdell (Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon, team. Thanks for squeezing me in. Just one quick one. I'm curious, with all the load and growth that we haven't seen for years in this sector, I'm curious if this is making earnings forecasting and rate-based growth forecasting easier or harder. Is it chunkier with these large loads coming in, and it's becoming more of a challenge of forecasting out, or is all this load just such a tell when it is making life a lot easier on the forecasting?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

It is sure nice to have load to drive the capital plan, which makes it a lot nicer. There is a lot of stuff that we have to keep into account, including the timing of in-service, the timing of the load. We have a whole team working at staying ahead to make sure we have the turbines and the renewable sites located. We always like growth. We will take on that challenge. It just takes a lot of people, a lot of bodies monitoring and keeping on top of everything. The key is execution. We have a whole group executing on the capital projects as we got commission approval this summer. We are working on those projects right now. It is just different. Let's put it that way.

Anthony Crowdell (Analyst)

That's all I had. Thanks so much.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Next, we'll go to Steve D'Ambrisi at RBC Capital Markets.

Steve D'Ambrisi (Analyst)

Hi, Scott. Hi, Xia. Thanks very much for taking my question.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Hey, Steve.

Steve D'Ambrisi (Analyst)

I just had a quick one about a lot of the questions today being about two existing hyperscale sites expanding and when. What's interesting to me is, realistically, you guys are relatively unique in the fact that you don't really talk about a sales funnel of other customers. I guess what I would most be interested in is, do you think that getting the VLC tariff through the Public Service Commission will help potentially broaden the customer base? Clearly, you've had success siting some of the biggest data centers in your service territory that we've seen across the country. I'm just interested to hear about potential other people.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Yeah. That's a good question. I think the Very Large Customer (VLC) tariff, in fact, we attract some of our several the first customer before we even had a tariff. I think when you think about location, the ability for WEC and American Transmission Company to be able to deliver and provide the generation and renewables and transmission to help energize their sites and move fastly in the Wisconsin environment and in the MISO footprint, I think that is a great advantage. I think also being in Wisconsin, you got a cooler environment for air storage cooling. I think that's an advantage. We don't have the natural disasters that other parts of the country have. I think all of those are positive. Our customers are very large customers. We worked with them as we filed the Very Large Customer tariff.

I think they considered and I've heard several times how it's fair. I think that's also a plus. Once it gets approved, I think that that's going to definitely be helpful. I think the key is, and all our large customers make sure that we do not affect any other customers' rates. That was good as a foundation for it. Having it approved, I think, can only help. We're really excited about the pipeline we are talking to now and the potential growth at the significant sites that we have already going in Wisconsin.

Steve D'Ambrisi (Analyst)

Okay. Great. That's all I had. Thanks very much. I appreciate it.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We'll go next to Bill Appicelli at UBS.

Bill Appicelli (Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon. Most of the questions have been asked. Just one question clarifying. Just on the step-up in the asset-based growth, is there any additional offsets there or anything that came out? Just thinking because the back of that load math maybe would have supported, given the $8.5 billion of CapEx, something maybe a little bit closer to 12%. I'm just curious if there's anything else different in the bridge there.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

No. I think the only thing we took out is we don't have any investments in WECE for the most part. Overall, I don't think there's much other changes there. It's just more back-end loaded.

Bill Appicelli (Analyst)

Right. Okay.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Starting more in 2027, I guess.

Bill Appicelli (Analyst)

Okay. From an affordability perspective, what's embedded in this plan in terms of the electric side, in terms of average annual rate increases for residential customers?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

We will be filing a rate case in Wisconsin for our biannual process. We're pulling those numbers together now that we'll file sometime at the end of the first quarter, most likely beginning of the second quarter. We're looking at inflation-type increases, but it's early in the process now. The key is none of it's going to be costs that are coming in from any of the hyperscalers. They're paying their fair share.

Bill Appicelli (Analyst)

Okay. Great. All right. Thank you.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our final question today comes from Carly Davenport with Goldman Sachs.

Carly Davenport (Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks so much for taking my question. I just had one clarification just on some of the other growth opportunities. As you think about the next five years, do you see incremental capacity and potential on the system for more load to be added in the course of the current plan, or would that be largely beyond the 2030 timeframe as you think about those opportunities?

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

I think as we work with these very large customers, I think at the end of our current five-year plan, we potentially could see additional growth come in depending upon how they look at their individual development. I think there's a potential for both on the current plan plus in the next five years.

Carly Davenport (Analyst)

Great. Thank you so much. I'll leave it there.

Scott Lauber (President and CEO)

Sounds good. Thank you. All right. That concludes our conference call for today. Thank you for participating. If you have more questions, feel free to contact Beth Straka at 414.