Dan Tucker
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Southern
Thanks, Tom, and good afternoon, everyone. As Tom mentioned, we had strong financial results for the year with adjusted earnings of $3.60 per share, $0.19 higher than 2021.
The primary drivers for the year-over-year increase are higher revenues associated with retail pricing, warmer weather, primarily in the second quarter of 2022, customer growth, increased usage, and investment of our regulated utilities. These revenue effects were partially offset by higher non-fuel O&M expenses and higher interest expenses. The increase in non-fuel O&M reflects long-term commitments to our regulated utilities to reliability and resiliency along with efforts to advance maintenance activities in light of emerging cost pressures. Additional shares from the mandatory conversion of our equity units in August '22 are also reflected in 2022 EPS results. A detailed reconciliation of our reported and adjusted results compared to 2021 is included in today's release and earnings package.
Weather-adjusted retail -- excuse me, electric sales were up 1.2% for 2022 compared to 2021, almost double the growth rate forecast for 2022 and back above pre-pandemic levels. We continue to see robust residential growth with the addition of nearly 50,000 residential electric customers and over 30,000 residential gas customers throughout the year. Residential customer usage also continued to outpace our expectations, reflecting sustained hybrid work practices across our service territories.
Additionally, commercial sales for 2022 beat our forecast by nearly 2%, reflecting a reversion to pre-pandemic trends as the economy shifts from consuming goods to services. Industrial sales for 2022 were lower than forecast by 1.5%, driven by a chemical facility closure and weakening industrial sales momentum during the second half of the year. With interest rates rising, we have seen slowing in construction and housing-related sectors such as lumber, stone clay and glass, and textiles.
In the fourth quarter of 2022, eight of our top 10 industrial segments experienced slower sales growth as compared to the prior quarter. Included in our 2023 guidance is an assumption of retail electric sales growth of 0% to 1%, and as in prior quarters, we continue to monitor the potential implications of supply-chain constraints, labor force participation, and inflationary pressures on our outlook.
The economic development pipeline in our service territories remains robust. 2022 economic development announcements in our Southeast service territories saw an increase in expected job creation and capital investment of 135% and 257% respectively in 2022 as compared to 2021. The pipeline of potential projects grew significantly compared to recent years with new corporate announcements and expansions representing a broad cross-section of industries, including automotive, technology, e-fulfillment and distribution, healthcare, and bioscience.
In addition to the traditional factors that have historically drawn businesses to our service territory, like transportation networks, a lower cost of living, and business-friendly state and local policies, another emerging trend that continues to drive momentum in both economic development wins and the size of the potential pipeline is the diversified workforce, especially technology workers and the diverse university systems in our territories which prominently feature several HBCUs. We're proud to have been on the forefront of helping develop this workforce through our significant investment along with Apple in the Propel Center in Atlanta. More and more as other companies strive to have their workforce reflect the diverse global customers they serve, our Southeast service territories have become a top choice for relocation or expansion.
We are proud of the significant role that our subsidiaries play in attracting new businesses to our service territories. And in 2022, Site Selection magazine named Alabama Power and Georgia Power top U.S. utilities for economic development for the fourth consecutive year and recognize the State of Georgia as the second-best business climate in the country. Strong economic development activity continues to differentiate our Southeast service territories from other areas of the country.
Turning now to our expectations for 2023. Our adjusted earnings guidance range for the year is $3.55 to $3.65 per share. Expected drivers for 2023 versus 2022 are continued growth in our state-regulated subsidiaries, including the contribution related to Vogtle Unit 3 going into service offset by higher parent company interest expense, including financing costs for plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4 costs in excess of $7.3 billion deemed reasonable by the Georgia PSC and share dilution reflecting the full year impact of the mandatory conversion of our equity units in August 2022. We estimate adjusted earnings of $0.70 per share for the first quarter.
Additionally, we are narrowing our 2024 adjusted guidance range of $4 to $4.30, which was established in early 2021. In order to acknowledge the uncertainty inherent and providing guidance three years in advance, the original 2024 range was wider than our typical annual EPS guidance ranges. Since this range was introduced in February 2021, our state-regulated outcomes have been largely consistent with our assumptions. Several upside opportunities inherent in the top-end of our original range like renewable and storage investment opportunities at both our state-regulated electric companies and Southern Power have been deferred to later years, largely due to adverse market conditions, including more challenging contracting requirements and global supply-chain constraints.
Financing cost, particularly parent company interest rates, are a significant headwind relative to our forecast in early 2021. Rates on variable and short-term debt are significantly higher than expected and as securities in our low-cost debt portfolio mature, new issuances, no matter the tenure, are significantly more expensive. Compounding these negative parent company interest-rate effects are the growth in our state-regulated capital plans relative to early 2021 and the increased costs for Georgia Power share of Vogtle 3 and 4, which has grown by nearly $1.9 billion since early 2021. Collectively, these factors would narrow our $4 to $4.30 range adjusted for 2024 to $4 and $4.10. Adding the potential for Vogtle 4 to be completed at the end of the first quarter of 2024, which would have a negative $0.05 per share impact solely in 2024, we are providing an adjusted 2024 earnings guidance range of $3.95 to $4.10 per share. We plan to further narrow this range during our fourth quarter 2023 earnings call early next year.
We continue to see our long-term adjusted EPS growth rate in the 5% to 7% range, consistent with our updated 2024 adjusted EPS guidance range. This projected growth is supported by a $43 billion capital plan with 97% of total projected capital deployment over the next five years at our state-regulated utilities. Additionally, our history of constructive regulation, strong credit ratings, and disciplined O&M spending serve to strengthen our outlook.
Our robust capital investment program continues to be driven by significant investment in our state-regulated utility businesses. Our total base capital investment plan of approximately $43 billion, which excludes the capital required to complete Vogtle Units 3 and 4, reflects a $2 billion increase in state-regulated utility investments relative to our previous five-year forecast. These increases in our forecast are the result of greater visibility into infrastructure required to serve major customer additions and expansions, further improve our grid, and protect our technology infrastructure as well as investments related to the transformation of our generation fleet.
We have continued to maintain our disciplined approach to capital forecasting within our state-regulated utility businesses. Consistent with past practice, we don't include placeholders, and we don't include capital that isn't expected to earn our allowed regulated returns. The result of this approach is that our capital expenditure forecast tend to grow, especially in the later years as our visibility into customer growth increases as regulatory processes unfold, as compliance obligations evolve, and as our long-term system planning is refined. We fully expect this trend to continue.
Additionally, we continue to believe Southern Power has a significant opportunity to continue growing through investments that facilitate fleet transitions in the growth of clean-energy infrastructure across the United States. Southern Power's business model has been distinctive since its beginnings in the early 2000s, focusing on long-term contracts with creditworthy counterparties and a risk-adjusted return profile that aligns well with our overall value proposition. We've allocated up to $3.5 billion over the five-year plan with approximately $500 million in 2023 and $750 million annually for the remainder of the forecast period. These allocations of capital are not included in our base capital forecast.
Our financial plan is anchored to our base capital forecast of $43 billion. As I have already suggested, we believe upside potential exists in our state-regulated subsidiary forecast and our Southern Power allocation which if realized would result in total spend of over $46 billion. We also continue to believe many of the same drivers for additional potential investment over the next five years could translate to investment opportunities beyond 2027 as we continue our journey to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
We have included a three-year financing plan in the Appendix to today's slide deck. This plan, which is consistent with our updated capital investment plan and the potential capital investment opportunities that we've highlighted, continues to assume no equity need over our five-year planning horizon. As always, we'll maintain our discipline and the flexibility to use all the financing tools at our disposal to drive value for shareholders.
Credit quality and strong investment rate -- strong investment grade credit ratings remain a top priority, and we continue to believe that to be a high-quality equity investment, our company must maintain a strong credit profile. As we complete plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4, we believe the expected reduction in construction risk and the projected improvement in FFO to debt metrics further position us to support our credit quality objectives.
Tom, I'll now turn the call back over to you.
