Durgesh Chopra: Okay. And then maybe just, Xia just can you update us on the timing of equity. I think you’re targeting a small amount this year. And then sort of pro rata going forward setting the numbers were 100 million, 200 million this year, and then 450 million a year, starting in 2025. How should we think about that with a slightly higher equity number now.
Xia Liu: Nothing is new Durgesh, the 100 to 200 where we’re on the way getting there, we turned on the dividend reinvestment plan, employee benefit plans as of January 1 this year. And we have seen shares coming in so far. And traditionally, those programs give us between 100 million to 200 million. If not, we’ll turn on the ATM program later in the year. And then going forward, it will be a combination of the benefit programs and the ATM program.
Durgesh Chopra: So just to be clear, though, the total equity issuance amount doesn’t — it should still be in that 100 million or 200 million, or I guess what I was really asking is the incremental equity. I know it’s small. That’s going to be just going to 2025 and beyond.
Xia Liu: Correct. Yes. Exactly.
Operator: Thanks, Durgesh. And our next question comes from the line of Michael Sullivan with Wolfe research. Michael, please go ahead.
Michael Sullivan: I wanted to just parse out the ’24 guide a little bit more. How much year-over-year uplift are you getting from the energy infrastructure segment? And can you just confirm the solar project is going to be taking PTC or ITC?
Gale Klappa: We’ll let Xia give you the breakdown. But the solar project that we’re in final due diligence on would be PTCs. Not ITCs, PTCs. So to your point, we’re not playing accounting games. We’re not trying to take some giant one time, leap forward here. It would be the standard approach that we’ve used on all of our other infrastructure projects. Xia?
Xia Liu: Yes. I would look at it holistically. So 23 to 24, we talked about a reduction from Illinois, that’s $0.10 to $0.12. And we have some interest headwinds in the year and a little bit of O&M and offsetting that you would see Wisconsin, ATC and WEC to offset those headwinds. So overall, that’s the increase from the 463 to midpoint 485.
Michael Sullivan: Okay. And then just sticking with 24, the O&M increase? How much of that was kind of known, I guess, through most of last year? And how much of it popped up more recently? Like, I don’t know if you could piece out this January storm? And then these projects that sounds like there’s a little bit of lag on, what was kind of like known versus more recent development of the O&M uptick?
Gale Klappa: We will let Xia give you the more detailed answer, but long story short, the lion’s share of the O&M increase is already recovered in rates. I mean, they were driven by asset additions, been driven mostly by asset additions that have come into service. And were recovered in the last rate cases. Xia?
Xia Liu: Yes. And that’s it. So about 1%, I call it out 5% of those we already knew, 1% of that was related to storm, the rest would be the O&M related to assets in the rate cases, as well as additional WEC infrastructure projects.
Michael Sullivan: I’m sorry. Go ahead, Gale.
Gale Klappa: No, I was just going to say if you just think about it broadly, as we add assets, you add O&M to basically operate those assets. And we added a considerable, I mean, we added a considerable number of renewable assets, infrastructure projects, et cetera. But if you look at core O&M, I mean, core O&M is very, very under control.
Michael Sullivan: Okay. Just can you put the storm one time and like an earnings per share basis?
Gale Klappa: Scott, I think we’re talking the January storm, 8 million –
Scott Lauber: It’s about $0.02.
Michael Sullivan: $0.02, okay. Okay, and then, thanks for all that. And then kind of just shifting to this upcoming Wisconsin rate case. Any like high level sense of the size of the rate increase we should be anticipating there.
Gale Klappa: Scott, go ahead.
Scott Lauber: So we’re currently pulling all those numbers together. As you can tell, we’ve been working on filling in the hole from the Illinois capitol, but we’re currently working on those numbers, you know, we got these asset additions that we’re putting in this year. And of course, there’ll be some inflation as we look at O&M. So we don’t have a final number yet. But we should know by the end of the first quarter here when we file something. But everything seems reasonable if you’re pulling stuff together.
Michael Sullivan: Okay. Like within the range of where the last case was, in terms of like opening ask, ballpark, is that fair?
Gale Klappa: Yes. I doubt it to be higher than that. It’ll be in that ballpark or a little less. I would think. We’re still pulling those together, though. We got to factor a lot of stuff in and look at like the production tax credits. We’re getting on the solar that just went into service and factoring that all in. You’ll see the filing in the second quarter.
Operator: All right. Thanks, Michael. And our next question comes from the line Andrew Weisel with Scotiabank. Andrew, please go ahead.
Andrew Weisel: Two quick follow ups on the commissioners in Wisconsin, so obviously some new faces their. First question just to confirm that turnover won’t have any impact on the timing or outcome of the rate case, or well, I shouldn’t say outcome. It won’t impact the timing right.
Gale Klappa: Now, the timing has been set by commission policy, I would expect no change.
Andrew Weisel: Okay, great. The other question I had relates to former commissioner Kyler Huebner, he was ousted if you will by the Republican led Senate, and a lot of the media reports make it sound like a lot of the pushback from that Senate was around his support for renewables and solar in particular. So my question is, do you worry that the state’s commitment to renewables might potentially be changing politically? And if so, would that impact your spending strategy at all?
Gale Klappa: Short answer is no. And in fact, I don’t know what you were reading. But I really don’t think his support for renewables or solar was really a deciding factor in the Senate vote at all. I would just ask you to go back and perhaps read some of the other. Actually, there are very specific comments that were made by members of the Senate Energy Committee news releases that were put out after the fact explaining the action. But it wasn’t, at least in our view, it was not at all related to the fact that that he felt a certain amount of renewables were needed. Not at all.
