Prompt:
Human: As a reminder, Gulf Power legally merged into Florida Power & Light Company effective on January 1, 2021.
Gulf Power will continue as a separate reportable segment within Florida Power & Light and NextEra Energy through 2021, serving its existing customers under separate retail rates.
NextEra Energy delivered strong third quarter results with adjusted earnings per share increasing by approximately 12% year-over-year.
Both the principal businesses executed well on major initiatives and we continue to advance our opportunity set for new renewables and storage.
Building upon the solid progress made in the first half of the year, NextEra Energy is well positioned to meet its overall objectives for 2021 and beyond.
Earlier this month, we were honored to be named on Fortune's 2021 Change the World list, the only electric utility in the world to be recognized.
This recognition is a testament to NextEra Energy's best-in-class position in the renewable energy sector and our continued commitment to the customers and communities that we serve.
At FPL, net income increased approximately 10% versus the prior-year comparable period, reflecting contributions from continued investment in the business.
Most notably, during the quarter, we reached what we believe is a fair and constructive long-term settlement agreement with a number of intervenors in our rate case, continuing a long history of negotiated outcomes that benefit both customers and shareholders.
We believe the agreement, if approved, should enable us to continue to focus on operating the business efficiently while investing in the future to ensure resilience, reliability, affordability and clean energy for generations to come in Florida.
We expect the Florida Public Service Commission to vote on our agreement at its agenda conference on October 26, and I'll provide more details on the proposed agreement in a few minutes.
FPL's major capital initiatives continue to progress well, including what will be the world's largest integrated solar power battery system, the 409-megawatt FPL Manatee Energy Storage Center that is now 75% complete and on track to begin serving customers later this year.
Gulf Power also had a great quarter of execution, and its strong year-to-date financial performance is attributable to continued successful implementation of the cost reduction initiatives and smart capital investments that we previously outlined.
Gulf Power's year-to-date net income contribution increased approximately 14% versus the prior-year comparable period.
And we remain focused on improving Gulf Power value proposition by providing lower costs, higher reliability, outstanding customer service and clean energy solutions for the benefit of our customers.
At Energy Resources, adjusted earnings for the quarter increased by approximately 12% year-over-year.
Our development team had another terrific quarter of new renewables and storage origination, adding approximately 2,160 megawatt to our backlog since the last earnings call, marking the best quarter of overall origination and the best quarter of new wind additions in Energy Resources' history.
These backlog additions include approximately 225 megawatts of combined solar and storage projects and a 500 megawatt wind project that is intended to power an adjacent new green hydrogen facility, which I'll provide some additional details on in just a few minutes.
We continue to expect that our competitive advantages will drive meaningful growth in renewables and various forms of energy storage at Energy Resources in the coming years, as the trend toward broad decarbonization across many facets of the US economy takes hold.
Overall, with three strong quarters complete in 2021, we are pleased with the progress we are making at NextEra Energy, and we are well positioned to achieve the full-year financial expectations that we have previously discussed subject to our usual caveats.
Now, let's look at the detailed results, beginning with FPL.
For the third quarter of 2021, FPL reported net income of $836 million or $0.42 per share, which is an increase of $79 million and $0.04 per share, respectively year-over-year.
Regulatory capital employed increased by approximately 10.5% over the same quarter last year and was the principal driver of FPL's year-over-year net income growth of approximately 10%.
FPL's capital expenditures were approximately $1.5 billion in the third quarter and we expect its full-year capital investments to total between $6.6 billion and $6.8 billion.
Our reported ROE for regulatory purposes will be approximately 11.6% for the 12 months ended September 2021.
During the quarter, we restored $124 million of reserve amortization, leaving FPL with a balance of $597 million.
As you know, much of the East Coast of the US was recently impacted by Hurricane Ida, which made landfall on the Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane and also caused catastrophic flooding across the Northeastern US.
Our deepest sympathies are with those that have been impacted by Ida's widespread destruction.
We value deeply the industry's commitment to mutual assistance and we were fortunate to be in a position to assist other utilities this year.
As part of our assistance efforts, we sent more than 1,250 of our employees and contractors as well as transmission equipment and other supplies to help rebuild the grid to support the restoration efforts of the impacted utilities.
Let me now turn to Gulf Power, which reported third quarter 2021 net income of $91 million or $0.05 per share.
Gulf Power's third quarter earnings per share contribution was flat versus the prior-year comparable quarter.
As a reminder, the third quarter of 2020 benefited from the reversal of COVID-19 related expenses that had occurred earlier in that year.
During the quarter, Gulf Power's regulatory capital employed grew by approximately 13% year-over-year.
Gulf Power's capital expenditures were approximately $200 million during the third quarter and we expect its full-year capital investments to be roughly $800 million.
For the full year 2021, we continue to expect Gulf Power's regulatory ROE to be in the upper half of the allowed band of 9.25% to 11.25%.
All of our major capital initiatives at Gulf Power are progressing well.
Gulf Power anticipates bringing approximately 150 megawatts of cost effective zero emission solar capacity online within the next six months.
The North Florida Resiliency Connection, which among other things, will allow customers to benefit from greater diversity in solar output across the two different time zones, is expected to be in service in mid-2022.
These continued smart capital investments in renewables and core infrastructure are expected to drive customer benefits for many years to come.
During the quarter, Gulf Power was impacted by Tropical Storm Fred, which experienced an unexpected change in path before striking the service territory.
Through a restoration workforce of roughly 1,700 personnel, Gulf Power was able to restore its service to essentially all of the approximately 20,000 customers impacted by Fred in Northwest Florida in less than 24 hours.
Moreover, the average customer outage was restored in less than 2 hours.
Our culture of preparation, including our annual storm drills and the team's focused execution helped ensure an efficient, timely and safe response to the tropical storm.
The economy in Florida continues to grow at a healthy pace and remains among the strongest in the nation.
Florida's labor force participation rate has recovered to its highest level in nearly 18 months reflecting the ongoing recovery, following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic last year.
The real estate sector in Florida also continues to grow with a three-month average new housing starts up over 40% year-over-year.
In August alone, there are -- there were twice as many new housing starts in Florida than in the average over the last 10 years.
Florida building permits, a leading indicator of residential new service accounts, are up 47% year-over-year and have outpaced the nation's quarterly growth by 32%.
As another indicator of Florida's economic health, Florida's retail sales index is up nearly 60% versus the prior year.
During the quarter, FPL's average number of customers increased by approximately 77,500 or 1.5% from the comparable year prior quarter driven by continued solid underlying population growth.
FPL's third quarter retail sales decreased 1.4% from the prior-year comparable period.
A decline in weather related usage per customer of approximately 2.7% offset the benefits of customer growth.
On a weather-normalized basis, third quarter sales increased 1.3% with continued strong underlying usage contributing favorably.
For Gulf Power, the average number of customers grew 1.6% versus the comparable prior-year quarter.
And Gulf Power's third quarter retail sales increased 0.6% year-over-year with strong usage from increased customer growth contributing favorably.
As a reminder, on March 12th, we initiated Florida Power & Light's 2021 base rate proceeding for rate relief beginning in January of 2022.
After months of negotiation, we reached a proposed settlement agreement in early August with a number of intervenors in the proceeding.
The Office of Public Counsel, The Florida Retail Federation, The Florida Industrial Power Users Group, The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Vote Solar, The CLEO Institute and The Federal Executive Agencies all joined the agreement, reflecting a broad set of constituents across our customer base.
The four-year proposed agreement, which begins on January 2022 provides for retail base revenue adjustments as shown on the accompanying slide and allowed regulatory return on equity of 10.6% with a range of 9.7% to 11.7%, and no change to FPL's equity ratio from investor sources for the combined system.
Should the average 30-year US Treasury yields be 2.49% or greater over any consecutive six-month period during the term of the agreement, Florida Power & Light's allowed regulatory ROE would increase to 10.8% with a range of 9.8% to 11.8%.
Additionally, if federal or state permanent corporate income tax changes become effective during the term of the proposed agreement, Florida Power & Light would be able to prospectively adjust base rates after review of the impacts on base revenue requirements.
The proposed agreement also includes flexibility over the four-year term to amortize up to $1.45 billion of depreciation reserve surplus.
Consistent with the rate plan filed in March, the proposed settlement agreement would unify the rates and tariffs of FPL and Gulf Power by implementing a five-year transition rider and credit mechanism to address the initial differences in cost of serving the existing FPL and Gulf Power customers.
Additionally, the proposed settlement agreement also provides for Solar Base Rate Adjustments or SoBRA, upon reaching commercial operations of up to 894 megawatts annually of new solar generation in each of 2024 and 2025, subject to a cost cap of $1,250 per kilowatt and showing an overall cost effectiveness for FPL's customers.
FPL would also be authorized to expand its SolarTogether voluntary community solar program by constructing an additional 1,788 megawatts of solar generation through 2025, which would more than double the size of our current SolarTogether program and is expected to save our customers millions of dollars over the lifetime of the assets.
In addition to solar energy, the settlement agreement would support FPL's green hydrogen pilot project in Okeechobee County.
This innovative technology could one day unlock 100% carbon-free electricity that's available 24 hours a day.
The proposed settlement agreement also introduces several electric vehicle programs and pilots designed to accelerate the growth of electric vehicle adoption and charging infrastructure investment across Florida with a total capital investment of more than $200 million.
Under the proposed agreement, FPL would continue to recover prudently incurred storm costs consistent with the framework in the current settlement agreement.
Future storm restoration costs would be recoverable on an interim basis beginning 60 days from the filing of a cost recovery petition, but capped at an amount that could produce a surcharge of no more than $4 for every 1,000 kilowatt hour of usage on residential bills in the first 12 months of cost recovery.
Any additional costs would be eligible for recovery in subsequent years.
If storm restoration costs were to exceed $800 million in any given calendar year, FPL could request an increase to the $4 surcharge.
We believe the proposed settlement is fair, balanced and constructive and supports our continued ability to provide highly reliable, low cost service for our customers through the end of the decade.
FPL's typical resident bill is lower today than it was 15 years ago and is well below the national average.
The proposed agreement would keep typical residential bills well below the national average and among the lowest in Florida through 2025.
Let me now turn to Energy Resources, which reported third quarter 2021 GAAP losses of $428 million or $0.22 per share.
Adjusted earnings for the third quarter were $619 million or $0.31 per share, which is an increase of $68 million and $0.03 per share, respectively year-over-year.
The effect of mark-to-market on non-qualifying hedges, which is excluded from adjusted earnings, was the primary driver of the difference between Energy Resources' third quarter GAAP and adjusted earnings results.
Contributions from new investments added $0.03 per share relative to the prior year comparable quarter, primarily reflecting continued growth in our contracted renewables and battery storage program.
The contribution from existing generation assets increased $0.01 per share year-over-year.
Our customer supply and trading business contribution was $0.02 higher year-over-year due to favorable market conditions in our retail supply and power marketing businesses.
All other impacts decreased results by $0.03 per share versus 2020, driven primarily by miscellaneous tax items.
As I mentioned earlier, Energy Resources' development team had a record quarter of origination success, adding approximately 2,160 megawatts to our backlog.
Since our last earnings call, we have added approximately 1,240 megawatts of new wind projects, 515 megawatts of new solar projects and 345 megawatts of new storage assets to our renewables and storage backlog.
In addition, our backlog increased by Energy Resources' share of NextEra Energy Partners' planned acquisition of an approximately 100 megawatt operating wind project that the partnership is announcing today.
Through the three -- first three quarters of 2021, we have added more than 5,700 megawatts to our renewables and storage backlog.
Energy Resources' backlog of signed contracts now stands at approximately 18,100 megawatts.
At this early stage, we have made terrific progress toward our long-term development expectations with more than 7,600 megawatts of projects already in our post 2022 backlog.
Our backlog additions for the third quarter include a 500 megawatt wind project, the majority of which is contracted with a hydrogen fuel cell company.
The project's customer intends to construct a nearby hydrogen electrolyzer facility that will use the wind energy production to supply up to 100% of the facility's load requirements.
The hydrogen manufactured by the facility would enable commercial and industrial end users to replace their current gray hydrogen and fossil fuel purchases with emissions-free green hydrogen, further accelerating the decarbonization of the industrial and transportation sectors.
Energy Resources also add nearly 300 megawatts of battery storage projects in California, and we continue to experience significant demand from California based utilities and commercial and industrial customers for reliable energy storage solutions.
We are currently developing nearly 2,400 megawatts of additional co-located and stand-alone battery storage projects in California with the potential to be deployed in 2023 and 2024, to enhance reliability and help meet the state's energy storage capacity requirements and ambitious clean energy goals.
More than 30 years, we have been investing in clean energy in California and are proud to help the state lead the country to a carbon-free sustainable future.
Consistent with our focus on growing our rate regulated and long-term contracted business operations, during the third quarter, Energy Resources entered into an agreement to acquire a portfolio of rate regulated water and wastewater utility assets in eight counties near Houston, Texas.
The proposed acquisition expands our regulated utility business in an attractive market with significant expected customer growth and furthers our strategy to build a world class water utility in the coming years.
Subject to regulatory approvals, the acquisition is expected to close in 2022.
Energy Resources is also currently in construction on an innovative water reuse and reclamation project that would help our customer achieve significant savings on its water supply needs and make its operations more efficient and sustainable while at the same time, delivering attractive returns to Energy Resources.
While the roughly $45 million total equity investment for these transactions is small in context of our overall capital program, we are optimistic about the strong growth anticipated in this new market and the potential for clean water solutions to generate additional contracted renewables opportunities going forward.
Turning now to the consolidated results for NextEra Energy.
For the third quarter of 2021, GAAP net income attributable to NextEra Energy was $447 million or $0.23 per share.
NextEra Energy's 2021 third quarter adjusted earnings and adjusted earnings per share were $1.48 billion and $0.75 per share, respectively.
Adjusted results from corporate and other segment increased by $0.01 year-over-year.
Our long-term financial expectations through 2023 remain unchanged.
For 2021, NextEra Energy expects adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $2.40 to $2.54 and we would be disappointed not to be at or near the high-end of this range.
While we are pleased with our year-to-date results, which have exceeded the top end of our growth rate expectations so far for the year, we expect the fourth quarter results to include impacts from certain liability management activities that we are currently reviewing to take advantage of the low interest rate environment.
These initiatives could generate negative adjusted earnings per share impacts of as much as $0.08 to $0.10 in the fourth quarter before translating to favorable net income contributions in future years and an overall improvement in net present value for our shareholders.
Looking further ahead, for 2022 and 2023, NextEra Energy expects to grow 6% to 8% off of the expected 2021 adjusted earnings per share, and we would be disappointed if we are not able to deliver financial results at or near the top-end of these ranges in 2022 and 2023.
Our earnings expectations are supported by what we believe is the most attractive organic investment opportunity set in our industry.
From 2018 to 2023, we continue to expect that operating cash flow will grow roughly in line with our adjusted earnings per share compound annual growth rate range.
We also continue to expect to grow our dividends per share at roughly 10% rate per year through at least 2022 off of a 2020 base.
As always, our expectations assume normal weather and operating conditions.
Let me now turn to NextEra Energy Partners, which performed well and delivered third quarter results generally in line with our expectations.
Yesterday, the NextEra Energy Partners Board declared a quarterly distribution of $0.685 per common unit or $2.74 per common unit on an annualized basis, continuing our track record of growing distributions at the top-end of our 12% to 15% per year growth range.
Inclusive of this increase, NextEra Energy Partners has now grown its distribution per unit by more than 265% since the IPO.
NextEra Energy Partners continues to execute against its growth initiatives during the quarter.
Since the last earnings call, NextEra Energy Partners closed on its previously announced acquisitions of approximately 400 megawatts of operating wind projects from a third party and approximately 590 net megawatts of geographically diverse wind and solar projects from Energy Resources.
In addition, today, we are announcing an agreement to acquire an approximately 100 megawatt operating wind asset in California from a third party to further expand NextEra Energy Partners portfolio and enhance its long-term growth visibility.
The project is located in a strategic market with strong expected growth in renewables demand, and it also offers significant optionality to NextEra Energy Partners in terms of operational savings and long-term value creation.
NextEra Energy Partners intends to purchase the asset for a total consideration of approximately $280 million, subject to closing adjustments, which includes the assumption of approximately $150 million in existing project finance debt estimated at the time of closing.
NextEra Energy Partners expects to recapitalize this project finance debt in 2022 as it executes on its overall financing plan for the year.
We expect to fund the approximately $130 million balance of the purchase price using existing debt capacity.
Subject to regulatory approvals, the acquisition is expected to close later this year or in 2022.
Following the project debt paydown next year, the asset is expected to contribute adjusted EBITDA and unlevered cash available for distribution of approximately $22 million to $27 million, each on a five-year average run rate -- annual run rate basis beginning December 31, 2022.
NextEra Energy Partners continues to leverage its competitive advantages to be successful in third-party M&A and extend its long runway of growth.
Consistent with our long-term growth prospects, today, we are also introducing year-end 2022 run rate expectations, which are built upon its strong existing portfolio cash generation and continued ability to access low cost capital to acquire accretive renewable energy projects.
Overall, we are pleased with the year-to-date execution at NextEra Energy Partners and we believe we are well positioned to continue delivering LP unitholder value going forward.
Now, let's look at the detailed results.
Third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $334 million, up approximately 7% from the prior year comparable quarter due to growth in the underlying portfolio.
New projects, which primarily reflect the asset acquisitions that closed at the end of 2020 and the recently closed acquisition of 391 megawatts of operating wind assets from a third party, contributed $23 million.
Existing assets contributed $7 million, primarily driven by the wind repowerings that occurred in the fourth quarter of last year and an improvement in wind resource.
Wind resource for the third quarter was 101% of the long-term average versus 96% in the third quarter of 2020.
These favorable impacts were partially offset by lower solar resource in the third quarter of this year.
Cash available for distribution of $158 million for the third quarter declined by $4 million versus the prior year, primarily as a result of lower year-over-year PAYGO payments after a weaker wind resource period in the second quarter of this year.
As a reminder, NextEra Energy Partners recapitalized its Genesis Solar project and other existing assets at the end of last year and the impact of this new project level financing cost versus the prior year was offset by an associated reduction in corporate level interest expense as reflected in our other category.
Additional details of our third quarter results are shown on the accompanying slide.
On a year-to-date basis versus 2020, adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution have increased by roughly 9% and 6%, respectively.
And NextEra Energy Partners remains well positioned to continue to deliver on its outstanding growth objectives.
We continue to expect NextEra Energy Partners portfolio to support an annualized rate of fourth quarter 2021 distribution that is payable in February of 2022 to be in the range of $2.76 to $2.83 per common unit.
From a base of our fourth quarter 2020 distribution per common unit at an annualized rate of $2.46, we continue to see 12% to 15% growth per year in LP distributions as being a reasonable range of expectations through at least 2024.
NextEra Energy Partners continues to expect to be in the upper end of our previously disclosed year-end 2021 run rate adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution expectation ranges of $1.44 billion to $1.62 billion and $600 million to $680 million, respectively.
We expect to achieve our 2022 distribution growth of 12% to 15% while maintaining a trailing 12-month payout ratio in the low 80% range.
By year-end 2022, we expect the run rate for adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $1.775 billion to $1.975 billion and run rate for cash available for distribution to be in the range of $675 million to $765 million.
At the midpoint, these revised expectations ranges reflect estimated growth in adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution of roughly 23% and 13%, respectively, from the comparable year-end 2021 run rate expectations.
These growth rates are supported by our strong execution against our long-term growth objectives in 2021, including opportunistic third-party transactions that were not previously in our plan.
As a reminder, all of our expectations are subject to our normal caveats and include the impact of anticipated IDR fees as we treat these as an operating expense.
Finally, during the quarter, S&P updated its ratings methodology for NextEra Energy Partners.
And in particular, it will now evaluate NextEra Energy Partners debt metrics on a funds from operations or FFO to debt basis with a downgrade threshold of 14% instead of a debt-to-EBITDA basis.
We believe that the combination of S&P's updated methodology, its assessment of NextEra Energy Partners improving diversity and its use of less conservative assumptions in the portfolios and renewable generation cash flows will allow for several hundred million dollars more of financing flexibility relative to our previous assumptions, providing the partnership with even greater flexibility going forward to finance accretive acquisition for the benefit of our unitholders.
In summary, we continue to believe that both NextEra Energy and NextEra Energy Partners have some of the best opportunity sets and execution track records in the industry and we remain as enthusiastic as ever about our future prospects.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
compname says qtrly gaap earnings per share $0.23.
qtrly adjusted earnings per share $0.75.
compname says for 2021, expects adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $2.40 to $2.54.
announcing agreement to acquire about 100-mw operating wind asset in california from a third party.
sees 2022 run-rate expectations, of roughly 23% & 13% growth, respectively, from 2021 run-rate adjusted ebitda, cafd midpoints.
intends to purchase an about 100-mw operating wind asset for total consideration of about $280 million.
continues to expect to be in upper end of previously disclosed year-end 2021 run-rate adjusted ebitda, cafd expectations ranges.


Prompt:
Human: All of whom are also officers of NextEra Energy Partners, as well as Eric Silagy, president and chief executive officer of Florida Power and Light Company.
As a reminder, Gulf Power legally merged into Florida Power and Light Company effective on January 1, 2021.
Gulf Power continued as a separate reportable segment within Florida Power and Light and NextEra Energy through 2021, serving its existing customers under separate retail rates.
Both NextEra Energy and NextEra Energy Partners had an outstanding year in 2021 and are well positioned to capitalize on the substantial opportunities that lie ahead.
NextEra Energy's performance was strong both financially and operationally and we executed the largest capital program in our history.
Continuing our long track record of delivering value for shareholders, NextEra Energy achieved full year adjusted earnings per share of $2.55, up more than 10% from 2020.
Over the past 10 years, we've delivered compound annual growth and adjusted earnings per share of approximately 9%, which is the highest among all top 10 U.S. power companies who have achieved, on average, compound annual growth of roughly 3% over the same period.
Amid this significant growth, the company has maintained one of the strongest balance sheets and credit positions in the industry.
In 2021, we delivered a total shareholder return of more than 23%, significantly outperforming the S&P 500 Utilities Index and continuing to outperform both the S&P 500 and the S&P 500 Utilities Index in terms of total shareholder return on a three, five, 10 and 15-year basis.
Over the past 15 years, we've outperformed nearly all of the other companies in the S&P 500 Utilities Index and quadrupled the average total shareholder return of the index.
Over the same period, we've outperformed 80% of the companies in the S&P 500 while nearly tripling the average total shareholder return of the index.
We are proud of our long-term track record of providing growth and value creation opportunities for our shareholders and we remain intensely focused on execution and continuing to drive shareholder value over the coming years.
At FPL, net income increased nearly 11% year over year while continuing to deliver on its commitment to making smart, long-term investments in innovative technology, clean energy and strengthening our electric grid for the benefit of our customers.
We were pleased the Florida Public Service Commission unanimously approved the settlement agreement in October, an agreement, which we believe is a fair and balanced outcome in our base rate case.
while keeping FPL's typical residential bills well below the national average and among the lowest in Florida through the end of 2025.
For customers in Northwest Florida, typical customer bills are projected to decline over the next four years.
Among the long-term infrastructure investments anticipated in the new agreement, new solar generation is expected to grow through the expanded SolarTogether community solar program which is expected to more than double over the next four years as well as through new base rate solar generation, including the nearly 1,800 megawatts to be recovered under solar base rate adjustment or SoBRA upon reaching commercial operations in 2024 and 2025.
In total, our current solar build-out expectations are for approximately 4,800 megawatts of new solar over the term of the settlement agreement.
In early 2019, FPL announced its groundbreaking role to install 30 million solar panels in Florida by 2030.
With the anticipated solar additions approved under the settlement agreement, I am pleased to announce that we now expect to reach this milestone by 2025, five years earlier than previously anticipated.
Including the solar additions anticipated through 2025, this ambitious 30 by 30 initiative is expected to have generated approximately $2.5 billion in fuel cost savings for customers and created more than 20,000 construction jobs while supporting the Florida economy with more than $700 million in property taxes over the life of the assets.
During 2021, FPL successfully executed on its strategic initiatives, including placing another 671 megawatts of cost-effective solar and service, completing the first roughly 1,500 megawatt phase of our SolarTogether community solar program.
Additionally, last month, we commissioned the world's largest integrated solar-powered battery system, the 409-megawatt Manatee Energy Storage Center, which will allow our customers to benefit from low-cost solar energy even during times when the sun is not shining.
FPL has also continued to provide exceptional service reliability, achieving its best-ever reliability rate in 2021.
And FPL was recognized for the sixth time in seven years as being the most reliable electric utility in the nation.
Moreover, FPL was ranked No.
1 in both residential and business customer satisfaction in the Southern U.S. among large electric providers by J.D. Power in 2021 and we are completely committed to continuing to provide clean, affordable and reliable service to our customers for many years to come.
energy resources also had a terrific year in 2021, delivering adjusted earnings growth of 13% versus the prior year.
The team also had an outstanding record year of renewables and storage origination, adding approximately 7,200 megawatts to our backlog during the year as we continue to capitalize on the ongoing clean energy transition that is occurring in our nation's generation fleet.
Our backlog additions have grown more than 20% compound annual growth rate since 2017 and we are well on our way to meeting our current development expectations for new signed contracts.
With the significant additions to our backlog of signed contracts over the last year, we've now signed nearly 80% of the megawatts needed to realize in the midpoint of our 2021 to 2024 development expectations range, with significant time remaining to sign additional power purchase agreements.
Our supply chain and engineering and construction teams also continued to execute in 2021, commissioning approximately 3,800 megawatts of new wind and wind repowering, solar and storage projects.
Over the past two years, energy resources has constructed more than 9,500 megawatts of renewables and storage projects, demonstrating the strength and resiliency of its execution expertise, even in the midst of a global pandemic and industrywide supply chain disruptions.
Finally, during 2021, NextEra energy transmission its efforts to grow America's leading competitive transmission company and had its best year ever.
During the year, the business delivered a record earnings contribution by increasing net income by nearly 20% over its previous earnings contribution record in 2020.
to support this transition to a low-cost, low-carbon economy fueled by renewable energy.
We anticipate that NextEra energy transmission will continue to capitalize on the growing opportunity set to both deploy capital profitably as well as to enable further renewables deployment.
The tremendous execution in both the major businesses in recent years, including '21, gives us great visibility to the longer-term outlook of NextEra Energy.
Let me start with our opportunity set, which I would not trade with anyone in our industry.
At Florida Power and Light, the settlement agreement allows us to focus on operating the business efficiently, reliably and affordably for the benefit of our customers.
Under the new agreement, we expect our average annual growth in regulatory capital employed to be between 8% and 9% over the four-year term through 2025.
When you put it all together, low bills, best-in-class reliability, award-winning customer service and a clean emissions profile are what helped FPL provide what we believe is one of the best customer value propositions in the nation.
At energy resources, our outlook for new renewables and storage development remains as strong as ever and we are excited to be able to continue supporting the industry's transition away from old inefficient forms of generation and into clean, reliable, low-cost renewables and storage.
We believe that the rapidly accelerating trend toward electrification and decarbonization of a broad range of sectors across the U.S. economy has significantly increased the total addressable market for new renewables and storage, even beyond our expectations just a few years ago and is now measured in trillions of dollars of capital investment opportunity in the coming decades.
We believe that energy resources is uniquely positioned to advance its market leadership position in this environment.
We have been in the renewables business for more than 30 years and have the experience, resources, balance sheet, talent and advanced data capabilities necessary to execute complex renewable energy generation and storage integration projects at scale.
We believe we have an excellent opportunity set for continued growth ahead of us at energy resources and we will further discuss our long-term plans for deploying renewables at both energy resources and Florida Power and Light and the associated impact to our overall emissions profile and future goals at our upcoming investor conference, which we plan to hold on June 14 in New York City.
With the anticipated continued strength of the investment opportunities at both Florida Power and Light and NextEra energy resources, I am pleased to announce that we are increasing our adjusted earnings per share expectations for 2022 and 2023 and introducing our expectations for 2024 and 2025.
For 2022, we are now expecting our adjusted earnings per share to be in a range of $2.75 to $2.85, up from our prior range of $2.55 to $2.75.
For years 23 through 25, we expect to grow our adjusted earnings per share by roughly 6% to 8% per year off the expected 2022 adjusted earnings per share.
For 2023, this translates to a new range of $2.93 to $3.08, up from our prior range of $2.77 to $297 million.
Our new adjusted earnings per share expectations for 2024 are $3.13 to $3.33.
And for 2025 are $3.35 to $3.60.
As always, our expectations assume our usual caveats, including normal weather and operating conditions.
In summary, we continue to remain as enthusiastic as ever about NextEra Energy's long-term growth prospects.
Based on the strength and resiliency of our underlying businesses, we will be disappointed if we are not able to deliver financial results at or near the top end of our adjusted earnings per share expectation ranges in each of 2022, '23, '24 and 2025, while at the same time, maintaining our strong credit ratings.
Let me now turn to NextEra Energy Partners, which delivered a total unitholder return of approximately 30% in 2021, bringing its two-year total unitholder return up to more than 72% and further advancing its history of value creation since the IPO in 2014.
For 2021, the NextEra Energy Partners grew its LP distributions per unit by 15% year over year and has now grown its distributions per unit by nearly 280% since the IPO.
NextEra Energy Partners achieved its distribution growth objectives while maintaining a trailing 12-month payout ratio of approximately 80% as of year-end 2021.
NextEra Energy Partners had a terrific year of execution in '21 and we are increasing our year-end 2021 financial expectations to reflect this better-than-expected growth execution.
NextEra Energy Partners delivered year-end run rate adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution in excess of our prior expectations, including delivering more than 13% year-over-year growth in run rate cash available for distribution at the midpoints.
This execution is supported by NextEra Energy Partners' outstanding portfolio of clean energy assets, which was further diversified in 2021.
During the year, NextEra Energy Partners acquired interests in approximately 1,900 net megawatts of long-term contracted renewables and storage assets from energy resources.
In addition, during the year, NextEra Energy Partners successfully completed two acquisitions of renewable energy assets from third parties, adding nearly 500 megawatts of operating wind projects to its portfolio.
These transactions demonstrate NextEra Energy's ability to leverage the operational expertise of NextEra energy resources, low-cost sources of capital and our strong industry relationships to be successful in third-party acquisitions.
The combination of a growing portfolio at energy resources and a growing set of opportunities to acquire renewables from third parties as well as significant organic growth opportunities, further supports the partnership's long-term growth visibility.
NextEra Energy Partners also continued to demonstrate its ability to access attractive sources of capital to finance its growth investments, including executing on the lowest-cost convertible equity portfolio financing in its history.
The roughly $820 million convertible equity portfolio financing carries a low implied cash coupon to the investor and partially funded NextEra Energy Partners acquisition of a 50% interest in a renewables portfolio, consisting of approximately 2,520 megawatts of newly constructed or in construction renewables projects and approximately 115 megawatts of integrated battery storage.
NextEra Energy Partners was able to demonstrate the benefits to LP unitholders of the convertible equity portfolio financing structure during the fourth quarter when the partnership exercised its right to purchase 100% of the outstanding minority equity interests in the portfolio of wind and solar assets, supporting its 2018 convertible equity portfolio financing.
Relative to issuing the same amount of common equity in 2018 to fund our growth needs.
This financing allowed us to reduce unit issuance by more than 50% and save more than $140 million or roughly 75% in nominal cash costs while retaining the more than 80% increase in the net unit price over the last three years.
NextEra Energy Partners public float has increased approximately 50% since 2019.
We believe our strategy of using low-cost convertible equity products to efficiently layer in common equity over time has created significant value for existing LP unitholders.
I continue to believe that the combination of NextEra Energy's partners clean energy portfolio, growth visibility and financing flexibility offers LP unitholders a uniquely attractive investor value proposition.
As with NextEra Energy, we remain intensely focused on continuing to execute and deliver that unitholder value over the coming years.
These changes are part of a long-term succession process undertaken by the board and me over the better part of the last six years.
Effective March 1, John Ketchum will price me as president and CEO of NextEra Energy.
Rebecca will succeed John as president and CEO of NextEra energy resources.
Kirk Crews, currently vice president, business management for NextEra energy resources will succeed Rebecca as executive vice president and chief financial officer of NextEra Energy.
John, Rebecca and Kirk will also be appointed to the respective roles at NextEra Energy Partners.
In addition, Eric Silagy, president and chief executive officer of Florida Power and Light Company has been named chairman and chief executive officer of Florida Power and Light.
It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as CEO for nearly 10 years.
I'm as excited as I've ever been about the future prospects of NextEra Energy and NextEra Energy Partners.
A big part of a CEO's legacy is the new leader in the next-generation leadership team that follows.
And I couldn't be more thrilled about turning over the CEO role of this great company to John.
I know he will be as focused on creating value for you, our owners, as I have been over the last two decades.
John has been an incredible partner to me and a senior leader in this company for more than 19 years and I can think of no better person to succeed me as CEO.
John's breadth of experience across all aspects of our company, including commercial, operational, financial and legal as well as the significant leadership capabilities and vision position him exceptionally well to lead NextEra Energy to even greater heights in the coming years.
I also want to congratulate Rebecca, Eric and Kirk on their new roles.
One of the defining characteristics of this company over the last 30 years has been the quality and strength of its leadership team and I'm very proud of and excited for the team that will leave this company into the future.
As the announcement mentioned, I'm going to remain as executive chairman for a transition period to support John in his new role.
I have been privileged to have worked with and learned from Jim during an incredible period of growth for our company and I am honored to have the opportunity to lead this company in the years ahead.
As CEO, I intend to remain intensely focused on delivering value for our shareholders and building upon our long track record of success.
I believe there is no company better positioned to lead our country's energy transformation than NextEra Energy.
And I am humbled by the opportunity to lead this team through such an exciting period for our company.
I am fortunate to have a broad leadership team with the experience and capability that I too believe is the best in the industry.
I am very excited to have Eric, Rebecca and Kirk take on these expanded and new roles in the company.
They, along with our broader leadership team and all of our approximately 15,000 employees worked tirelessly every day to serve our customers in Florida and across North America.
Jim has been an unbelievable steward of this company over his nearly 10 years as CEO, growing the leading, most profitable electric utility and renewable energy company in North America.
Our total shareholder return during Jim's tenure has been more than 500% and it is great evidence of Jim's exceptional vision, leadership and commitment to excellence.
I know I speak for all of our employees that we are deeply grateful for everything Jim has done for our company.
Let's now turn to the detailed results, beginning with FPL.
For the fourth quarter of 2021, FPL reported net income of $560 million or $0.28 per share, up $0.03 per share year over year.
For the full year 2021, FPL reported net income of $2.94 billion or $1.49 per share, an increase of $0.14 per share versus 2020.
Regulatory capital employed increased by approximately 11% for 2021 and was the principal driver of FPL's net income growth of nearly 11% for the full year.
During the fourth quarter, net income was impacted by a number of factors, including an approximately $32 million pre-tax contribution to our charitable foundation that will allow it to continue to support the communities that we serve.
FPL's capital expenditures were approximately $2.2 billion in the fourth quarter, bringing its full year capital investments to a total of roughly $6.8 billion.
FPL's reported ROE for regulatory purposes is expected to be 11.6% for the 12 months ended December 31, 2021.
During the fourth quarter, we utilized approximately $137 million of reserve amortization, leaving FPL with a year-end 2021 balance of $460 million.
As a reminder, our new four-year settlement agreement became effective this month and includes the flexibility over the four-year term to amortize up to $1.45 billion of depreciation reserve surplus, which is inclusive of $346 million in reserve amount that we previously anticipated to be remaining at year-end 2021 under FPL's now expired 2016 rate agreement.
Consistent with the terms of the 2021 settlement agreement, half of the $114 million in excess reserve balance at year-end 2021 will be used to reduce our outstanding capital recovery asset balance and the other half will increase FPL's storm reserve to offset future restoration costs.
As a reminder, the new agreement limits reserve amortization to $200 million in 2022, which we will treat as a limitation in any given quarter during the year.
Given the historical shape of our customer usage, we typically use more reserve amortization in the first half of the year and reverse reserve amortization in the hotter summer months.
We currently expect FPL to initially earn below our target regulatory ROE in the early part of 2022.
Although for the full year, we are targeting the upper end of the allowed range of 9.7% to 11.7%.
As a result, we also expect FPL's earnings growth to be lower in the first half of the year and higher in the second half.
As always, our expectations assume our usual caveats, including normal weather and operating conditions.
Our overall capital program at Florida Power and Light is progressing well.
We continue to advance one of the nation's largest solar expansions and met our solar deployment objectives at both FPL and Gulf Power in 2021, including commissioning more than 800 megawatts of new solar across the combined system.
Beyond solar, construction on the highly efficient roughly 1,200 megawatt Dania Beach Clean Energy Center remains on schedule and on budget, as it continues to advance toward its projected commercial operations date later this year.
The North Florida Resiliency Connection remains on track to be in service by mid-2022.
Let me now turn to Gulf Power, which, as a reminder, was legally merged into FPL on January 1, 2021, but continue to be reported as a separate regulated segment during 2021.
Gulf Power reported fourth quarter 2021 GAAP earnings of $60 million or $0.03 per share.
For the full year, Gulf Power reported net income of $271 million or $0.14 per share an increase of $0.02 per share year over year.
Base O&M reductions and investments in the business were the primary drivers of Gulf Power's approximately 14% year-over-year growth in net income.
Gulf Power's capital expenditures for the full year were roughly $800 million and its reported ROE for regulatory purposes is expected to be approximately 11.25% for the 12 months ending December 2021.
Given that this is the last time we will be talking about Gulf Power's financial results, let me take a moment to summarize the team's execution over the past three years.
Gulf Power has delivered significant improvements in all key financial and operational metrics, while meaningfully improving its customer value proposition.
The execution of the NextEra Energy playbook at Gulf Power, which is focusing on reducing costs and making smart capital investments for the benefit of customers, has been a remarkable success.
Gulf Power has realized a nearly 40% reduction in O&M costs since the acquisition.
Since 2018, Gulf Power improved service reliability by nearly 60% and it was awarded national recognition for its outstanding reliability performance in the Southeast suburban and rural service area for the second year in a row in 2021.
Over the same period, Gulf Power realized an approximately 60% improvement in safety among our employees who have worked tirelessly to help us execute on our plans.
Regulatory capital employed has grown by approximately 16% compound annual growth rate since 2018.
We have invested approximately $2.5 billion in long-term improvements to Gulf Power's existing system and generation fleet.
As a result of our clean power modernization investments at Gulf Power, we have already delivered an approximately 25% reduction in CO2 emissions over the last three years and we look forward to further expanding the opportunity for our customers to access clean, low-cost solar and storage in the years to come.
This high level of performance across the board could not have been possible without the hard work and commitment of all of the Gulf Power employees.
Execution of the plans that we laid out at Gulf Power has generated great outcomes for our shareholders as well.
Gulf Power's net income has grown by a compound annual growth rate of approximately 19% since 2018, an outcome that was even better than our expectations when we announced the acquisition.
Our performance with Gulf Power is a clear validation of our strategy and our conviction that you can be clean, reliable, affordable and profitable at the same time.
The Florida economy remains strong.
Over the last 10 years, Florida's GDP has grown at a roughly 5% compound annual growth rate.
The GDP of Florida is roughly $1.2 trillion, which is up approximately 8% from pre-pandemic levels and would make Florida the 15th largest economy in the world.
At the same time, Florida's population continues to grow at one of the fastest rates in the nation.
According to recent Census Bureau data, more people moved to Florida from other parts of the country than to any other state in 2021.
We believe this is a reflection of Florida's unique proposition in terms of great weather, low taxes and a pro-business economy, all of which should support ongoing customer growth at Florida Power and Light.
Over the past year, Florida has created more than 485,000 new private sector jobs and Florida's labor force participation rate has improved significantly.
Three months average Florida building permits, a leading indicator of residential new service accounts are up 15% year over year and have outpaced the nation's quarterly growth in new building permits by roughly 13%.
Other measures of confidence in the Florida economy have meaningfully improved versus the prior year, including a 34% improvement in Florida's retail sales index and a 2.6% decline in mortgage delinquencies while mortgage delinquencies across the U.S. have remained roughly flat.
During the quarter, FPL's average customer growth was strong, increasing by nearly 82,000 customers from the comparable prior-year quarter.
FPL's fourth quarter retail sales were down 1.5% versus the prior-year period, driven by an unfavorable weather comparison.
For 2021, FPL's retail sales increased 1.7% from the prior year on a weather-normalized basis, driven primarily by ongoing strong customer growth and a 1.5% year-over-year increase in underlying usage per customer.
Additional details are shown on the accompanying slide.
Energy resources reported fourth quarter 2021 GAAP net income of $851 million or $0.43 per share.
Adjusted earnings for the fourth quarter were $414 million or $0.21 per share.
energy resources contribution to adjusted earnings per share in the fourth quarter is up $0.04 versus the prior-year comparable period.
For the full year, energy resources reported GAAP earnings of $599 million or $0.30 per share and adjusted earnings of approximately $2.21 billion or $1.12 per share.
Energy resources full year adjusted earnings per share contribution increased $0.13 or approximately 13% versus 2020.
For the full year, growth was driven by continued new additions to our renewables and energy storage portfolio as contributions from new investments increased by $0.12 per share.
Contributions from existing generation and storage assets decreased $0.04 versus the prior year due primarily to underperformance in our existing wind fleet as a result of extreme market conditions in Texas in February of last year.
NextEra energy transmission and gas infrastructure contributed favorably, increasing results by $0.01 and $0.02, respectively, year over year, while the contribution from our customer supply and trading businesses decreased $0.02 versus 2020.
All other impacts increased results by $0.04 year over year.
As Jim mentioned, energy resources had an outstanding year, delivering our best year ever for origination, adding approximately 7,200 net megawatts of new renewables and battery storage projects to our backlog.
In 2021, we commissioned approximately 3,800 megawatts of wind, solar and storage projects, including a 110-megawatt build-own-transfer project that was not included in our backlog.
In addition, since the last call, we have added approximately 1,500 megawatts of renewable projects to our backlog, including approximately 70 megawatts of new wind and wind repowerings, 300 megawatts of solar and 500 megawatts of battery storage.
Our origination performance in 2021 reflects continued high demand among all customer classes for clean energy solutions that not only help achieve their renewable energy goals but perhaps more importantly, allow our customers to save energy -- save money on energy costs, while switching to lower cost forms of generation like wind, solar and solar plus storage.
Our renewables backlog now stands at more than 16,600 megawatts, which is roughly the size of our entire renewables generation portfolio at the end of 2017 and nearly 25% larger than our backlog at year-end 2020 and this provides terrific visibility into the strong growth that lies ahead for energy resources over the next few years.
The accompanying slide provides additional details on where our development program in energy resources now stands.
We remain optimistic about the expanded investment opportunities that the broad decarbonization of the U.S. economy presents for energy resources.
We believe that there are many new market opportunities where our industry-leading development platform will provide a competitive advantage to further grow our core long-term contracted renewables and storage business.
As we have previously discussed, green hydrogen presents a particularly compelling new market for energy resources.
During the fourth quarter, a clean energy technology company in which we are a minority equity investor and that has developed a proprietary process to decarbonize the industrial production of hydrogen at economic prices.
One, a conditional approval for an approximately $1 billion DOE, Department of Energy loan to expand its clean hydrogen and carbon black production facilities in Nebraska.
Our agreement with this company provides energy resources the opportunity to be its preferred renewable energy supplier for the facility and we are encouraged by the acceleration of the facility build-out that is expected to occur as a result of this new loan.
Similarly, early in the year, we completed the strategic investment in a liquid fuels company with a proprietary process to produce 0 emissions synthetic fuels by combining green hydrogen with concentrated carbon dioxide streams captured from industrial processes.
Our strategic partnership with this company includes the opportunity for energy resources to provide up to 3,000 megawatts under a preferential energy supply agreement.
Finally, as part of our efforts to help our commercial and industrial customers achieve their substantial goals for both energy savings and decarbonization, we recently announced an agreement with J.P. Morgan Chase that allows for use of our proprietary state-of-the-art smart energy software to optimize its energy use and reduce its carbon footprint.
Energy resources advanced software platform uses artificial intelligence and blockchain technology and leverages data from the industry-leading renewables and storage fleet owned and operated by energy resources.
Two, among other things, match energy demand with clean energy resources available on the market in real time.
We recently signed a similar agreement that allows a large university to use our advanced software platform to manage and optimize more than 100-megawatt solar plus storage asset in California.
Through these initiatives, energy resources is leveraging its best-in-class renewable energy expertise to provide significant value to its customers in a market with meaningful growth potential.
We are at the vanguard of building a sustainable energy era that is both clean and affordable and we are driving hard to continue to be at the forefront of the disruption that is occurring within the energy sector and broader parts of the U.S. economy.
Consistent with our long-term track record, we will remain disciplined as we take steps to be at the forefront of these developing markets while taking a leadership role in clean energy transition expected to drive tremendous growth for energy resources over the next decade and beyond.
Turning now to the consolidated results for NextEra Energy.
For the fourth quarter of 2021, GAAP net income attributable to NextEra Energy was $1.2 billion or $0.61 per share.
NextEra Energy's 2021 fourth quarter adjusted earnings and adjusted earnings per share were $814 million or $0.41 per share, respectively.
For the full year 2021, GAAP net income attributable to NextEra Energy was $3.57 billion or $1.81 per share.
Adjusted earnings were $5.02 billion or $2.55 per share.
For the corporate and other segment, adjusted earnings for the full year decreased $0.05 per share compared to the prior year, primarily as a result of higher interest and refinancing costs associated with certain liability management initiatives completed during the fourth quarter to take advantage of the low interest rate environment.
Our fourth quarter refinancing activities reduced nominal adjusted net income by roughly $140 million.
We expect these initiatives to translate into favorable net income contribution in future years and an overall improvement in net present value for our shareholders.
Specifically, during the fourth quarter, NextEra Energy successfully refinanced approximately $5.2 billion in existing debt and hybrid securities and proactively issued roughly $4.9 billion in replacement funding.
This combination of redemptions and new issuance extended its maturity profile by over six years and is expected to generate an approximately $30 million after-tax reduction in annual interest expense in the near term.
Capital recycling remains an important part of our financing plan as we continue to execute on the tremendous growth opportunities in front of us.
During the fourth quarter, energy resources closed on its previously announced agreements to sell a portfolio of newly constructed and under construction renewable assets to NextEra Energy Partners and to a third-party infrastructure investor.
Through the sale of this 2.5 gigawatt renewables portfolio, energy resources was able to recycle nearly $3.5 billion of capital, including the tax equity proceeds, an accretive matter -- manner and take advantage of the strong market for wind, solar and storage assets.
We believe that our renewables development platform at energy resources is second to none and our ability to continue to harness market demand for renewables and recognize the value of that platform is a key competitive advantage for NextEra Energy as it continues to grow its portfolio of long-term contracted operating renewables and storage assets at energy resources.
Turning now to our financial expectations for NextEra Energy.
As Jim discussed, today, we are increasing the ranges of our adjusted earnings per share expectations for 2022 and 2023 and introducing our expectations for 2024 and 2025.
For 2022, NextEra Energy now expects adjusted earnings per share to be in a range of $2.75 to $2.85.
For 2023 through 2025, NextEra Energy expects to grow roughly 6% to 8% off of the expected 2022 adjusted earnings per share range.
And we will be disappointed if we are not able to deliver financial results at or near the top end of these ranges for each year.
Details of our new financial expectations are included on the accompanying slide.
From 2021 to 2025, we expect that our average annual growth in operating cash flow will be at or above our adjusted earnings per share compound annual growth rate range.
We also continue to expect to grow our dividends per share at roughly 10% per year through at least 2022 off of a 2020 base.
As always, our expectations assume our usual caveats.
Let me now turn to the detailed financial results for NextEra Energy Partners.
Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was $322 million and cash available for distribution was $91 million.
Adjusted EBITDA growth versus the prior-year comparable quarter was primarily due to the growth in the underlying portfolio.
For the full year 2021, adjusted EBITDA was $1.36 billion, up 8% year over year and was primarily driven by the full contribution from new projects acquired late in 2020.
Our existing projects portfolio, favorable performance from NextEra Energy Partners natural gas pipeline investments and contributions from the wind repowerings that we added at the end of 2020 were partially offset by weaker wind resource and lower generation at our Genesis Solar project as a result of outages for major maintenance in the first and fourth quarters of 2021.
For the full year, wind resource was 98% of the long-term average versus 100% in 2020.
Cash available for distribution was $584 million for the full year.
The benefit to cash available for distribution from lower corporate level interest expense was partially offset by a comparably higher project level financing costs on our Genesis solar project and other existing assets that were recapitalized to fund the acquisition of approximately 500 net megawatts from energy resources at the end of 2020.
Over the past three years, NextEra Energy Partners cash available for distribution has grown at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 20%.
As a reminder, these results include the impact of IDR fees, which we treat as an operating expense.
Additional details are shown on the accompanying slide.
Yesterday, the NextEra Energy Partners board declared a quarterly distribution of $0.775 per common unit or $2.83 per unit on an annualized basis, up 15% from the comparable quarterly distribution a year earlier and at the top end of the range we discussed going into 2021.
During the quarter, NextEra Energy Partners closed on the initial funding of its approximately $820 million convertible equity portfolio financing with Apollo Global Management and use those proceeds along with existing NextEra Energy Partners debt capacity to fund its acquisition of approximately 1,300 net megawatts of renewables and storage from energy resources.
Under the terms of the agreement, NextEra Energy Partners is expected to benefit from a low implied initial cash coupon over the first 10 years, despite only providing approximately 4% of the upfront capital needed to purchase the assets.
While we expect to allow NextEra Energy partners to achieve a full return of its capital invested into this acquisition in less than two years.
Additionally, the financing will provide NextEra Energy partners the flexibility to periodically buy out the investors' equity interest between the five and 10-year anniversaries of the agreement at a fixed pre-tax return of approximately 5.6% inclusive of all prior distributions, making this NextEra Energy Partners lowest cost convertible equity portfolio financing to date.
NextEra Energy Partners will have the right to pay up to 100% of the buyout price in NEP common units issued at no discount to the then current market price.
NextEra Energy Partners also issued approximately 7.25 million new NEP common units during the fourth quarter to acquire the remaining equity interest in a portfolio of 1,388 megawatts of wind and solar assets associated with the convertible equity portfolio financing that NEP entered into in 2018.
NextEra Energy Partners funded the remaining roughly $265 million of the approximately $885 million of total consideration for the acquisition of equity in the portfolio, with project level debt issued on a subset of the underlying assets.
The nearly $650 million project financing supported by these assets, which was also the lowest cost project level debt financing in the partnership's history is reflective of the strong performance of the underlying assets in the portfolio and also supportive financing of other growth opportunities executed in 2021.
From an updated base of our fourth quarter 2021 distribution per common unit at an annualized rate of $2.83, we continue to see 12% to 15% growth per year in LP distributions as being a reasonable range of expectations through at least 2024.
We expect the annualized rate of the fourth quarter 2022 distribution that is payable in February of 2023 to be in a range of $3.17 to $3.25 per common unit.
We continue to expect to achieve our 2022 distribution growth of 12% to 15%, while maintaining a trailing 12-month payout ratio in the low 80% range.
Given the successful execution of the recent acquisition from energy resources as well as the approximately 100-megawatt operating wind facility from a third party, year-end December 31, 2021 run rate adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution exceeded our previous expectations ranges.
As a result, today, we are introducing new year-end 2021 run rate expectation ranges for adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution of $1.635 billion to $1.795 billion and $640 million to $720 million, respectively.
With a combination of strong cash flow generation from existing NextEra Energy Partners portfolio, including the approximately 2,400 net megawatts of new renewables and storage added during 2021 and its relatively low payout ratio, NextEra Energy Partners has significant flexibility in terms of acquisitions in the coming year.
Although acquisitions could occur at any time during 2022, for modeling purposes, it may be practical to assume that any new unannounced asset additions occur late in 2022 and therefore, have limited contributions to the calendar year 2022 expectations implied by the year-end 2021 run rate for adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution for the portfolio that we just discussed.
NextEra Energy Partners run rate expectations for adjusted EBITDA and CAFD at December 31, 2022, remain unchanged.
Year-end 2022 run rate adjusted EBITDA expectations are $1.775 billion to $1.975 billion and CAFD in the range of $675 million to $765 million, respectively, reflecting calendar year 2023 expectations for the forecasted portfolio at year-end 2022.
As a reminder, all of our expectations are subject to our normal caveats and include the impact of anticipated IDR fees as we anticipate -- as we treat those as an operating expense.
In summary, we continue to believe that both NextEra Energy and NextEra Energy Partners have excellent prospects for growth, both in the near and longer term.
Florida Power and Light, energy resources and NextEra Energy Partners each have outstanding set of opportunities across the board.
The progress we made in 2021 reinforces our longer-term growth prospects.
And while we have a lot to execute on in 2022, we believe that we have the building blocks in place for another excellent year.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
nextera energy partners lp qtrly loss per common unit attributable to nextera energy partners, lp assuming dilution $0.12.
nextera energy partners lp - increases year-end 2021 run-rate financial expectations for adjusted ebitda and cash available for distribution.
nextera energy partners lp - for year-end 2022, nextera energy partners' run-rate expectations for adjusted ebitda and cafd remain unchanged.
nextera energy partners lp - introducing revised year-end dec.
31, 2021, run-rate adjusted ebitda expectation ranges of $1.635 billion to $1.795 billion.
31, 2021, cafd expectation ranges of $640 million to $720 million.
compname says on an adjusted basis fourth-quarter earnings were $814 million or $0.41 per share.
2021 fourth-quarter net income attributable to nextera energy on a gaap basis of $1,204 million, or $0.61 per share.
on an adjusted basis, nextera energy's 2021 fourth-quarter earnings were $814 million, or $0.41 per share.
nextera energy - extended its long-term outlook of roughly 6% to 8% compound annual growth in adjusted earnings per share by two years, through 2025.
nextera energy - for 2022, nextera energy now expects adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $2.75 to $2.85.
nextera energy - for 2023 through 2025, nextera energy expects to grow roughly 6% to 8% per year off the expected 2022 adjusted earnings per share.


Prompt:
Human: With us on the call from National Fuel Gas Company are Dave Bauer, President and Chief Executive Officer; Karen Camiolo, Treasurer and Principal Financial Officer; and John McGinnis, President of Seneca Resources.
We may refer to these materials during today's call.
While National Fuel's expectations, beliefs and projections are made in good faith and are believed to have a reasonable basis, actual results may differ materially.
National Fuel's first quarter was a great start to our fiscal year, with operating results up 5% year-over-year.
Operationally, we had a really strong quarter, particularly at Seneca and NFG Midstream, where in spite of 4 Bcf of pricing-related curtailments, production and the associated gathering throughput was up 36% over last year.
Most of that growth was the result of last year's Tioga County acquisition, which continues to trend better than our initial expectations.
The team has been focused on high-grading our consolidated development program, optimizing our firm sales and transportation portfolio and driving down unit costs.
You can see our success in Seneca's updated guidance.
We increased the midpoint of our production range and lowered our forecasted unit costs, all while holding our capital range constant.
Seneca added a second drilling rig in January, with first production permit scheduled to come online in early fiscal 2022.
The goal is to fill our Leidy South capacity as soon after it goes in service, and thereby, capture the premium winter pricing in the East Coast markets.
The second rig will focus principally on Tioga County.
We're at $2 netback prices, our consolidated returns on Utica wells are north of 65%.
Looking beyond fiscal 2022, absent new firm takeaway capacity, Seneca's program will likely average between 1.5 and 2 rigs, which will keep our production flat to slightly growing.
Our focus will be on generating free cash flow.
As you can see from our updated slide deck at a $2.75 NYMEX price, we expect our Upstream and Gathering businesses will generate approximately $115 million to $125 million in free cash flow in 2021.
As our production grows in 2022 and 2023, we expect this level of free cash flow to similarly increase.
Obviously, our ability to generate cash is heavily dependent on the direction of commodity prices.
As you know, we have an active hedging program and continue to methodically layer in hedges with the goal of protecting our investment in PDPs and locking in the strong rates of return generated by our unique integrated development program.
Switching gears, our FERC-regulated pipeline businesses had a great quarter, with earnings up nearly 25%.
This was driven by the Supply Corporation rate case settlement that went into effect last February, coupled with the new revenues from our Empire North expansion project that was placed in service at the end of fiscal 2020.
Our FM100 expansion and modernization project is on track to continue this momentum into fiscal 2022 and 2023.
As a reminder, this project will add $50 million in annual revenue, once it goes in service, which I expect will occur late in this calendar year.
We're waiting on a few remaining state permits, which we anticipate receiving in the next few weeks.
All of the necessary federal permits have been received.
We've awarded the job to contractors in order for the necessary long lead time items, including pipeline and compressor units.
Once all permits are in hand, we'll file for our notice to proceed with FERC and start construction shortly thereafter.
With respect to the recent change in leadership at FERC, we don't see any cause for concern on FM100.
As you know, FM100 is a companion project to Transco's Leidy South expansion.
And though the latter project is a little ahead of ours in the permitting process, FERC views them as essentially one project.
Just last week, Transco received the notice to proceed from FERC for a portion of their project, which gives us confidence that ours will receive similar treatment when we file for our notice to proceed in the next few weeks.
Switching to the Utility, warmer-than-normal weather and the impact of the pandemic on our operating costs weighed on earnings for the quarter.
These were somewhat offset by the continued growth in revenues from our New York jurisdiction's system modernization tracking mechanism.
As we continue to face the COVID pandemic, the safety and well-being of our employees, customers and communities are our highest priorities.
We remain focused on business continuity and providing the safe and reliable service our customers expect.
With the change in administration in Washington, there has been increased focus on the role of natural gas in the nation's energy complex.
Natural gas has already played a significant role in the decarbonization of the economy.
The displacement of coal-fired power generation and fuel switching for residential heating drove a 12% reduction in total US greenhouse gas emissions since 2008.
The importance of natural gas to the economy cannot be understated.
For example, in our New York utility service territory, nearly 90% of households use natural gas to heat their homes.
And on a day like today, nearly 50% of New York State's electricity is being generated using natural gas.
In the near-term, that role is not going to change overnight.
But longer-term, it's clear we're moving toward a lower carbon world.
I firmly believe the cost and reliability advantages provided by natural gas will ensure it has a future serving the energy needs of the country.
Heating a home in the Northeast using natural gas costs less than half of what it would using electric heat.
And LDCs are incredibly reliable.
This past winter, natural gas service at our Utility was available 99.9% of the time.
It makes little sense to forfeit these benefits in favor of more expensive, less reliable alternatives.
But to make sure we have a place in the energy complex, we must dramatically lower our emissions footprint and National Fuel is committing to do so.
How will we get there?
On my view, there are three main avenues to pursue.
First is improving the emissions profile of our operations.
We've already made great progress here.
For example, through our modernization program, greenhouse gas emissions on our utility system have dropped by more than 60% from 1990 levels.
But we're not done.
At the current pace of the program, we expect a more than 80% reduction by 2040.
We have to encourage our customers to use less.
Our conservation incentive program has resulted in end-use emissions reductions of over 1.3 million metric tons since its implementation in 2007.
And lastly, we need to embrace technology across all aspects of our business, including our own operations, the equipment used by our customers and alternative fuels like RNG and hydrogen.
We're proud to be an anchor sponsor of the Low-Carbon Resources Initiative, which is researching new technologies that lower the carbon footprint of pipelines, LDCs and their customers.
I'm excited for the future of natural gas.
We have some work to do.
But at the end of the day, I'm very confident natural gas will have a prominent role in meeting our country's energy needs, and that National Fuel's operations, from the wellhead to the burner tip, will remain an important part of the energy solution.
In closing, National Fuel had a great first quarter.
As I've said on prior calls, fiscal '21 should be a big growth year for us.
The first quarter delivered on that expectation, and the outlook for the remainder of the year continues to be strong.
Gas prices have been volatile, but our strong hedge book helps protect from those swings.
As we look toward '22 and beyond, we're well positioned for both growth and meaningful cash flow generation, a combination that many of our peers cannot match.
Our balance sheet is in great shape.
And our integrated, yet diversified business model, provides a level of downside protection to help us navigate the ebbs and flows that we'll inevitably face.
As you've probably seen, John McGinnis is retiring effective May 1 of this year.
Over the course of his 14 years with the Company, John has been instrumental in the growth of Seneca, taking it from a small conventional operator that produced less than 50 Bcfe annually to the key player in the Appalachian Basin that Seneca has become.
Also, John Pustulka, our Chief Operating Officer, is retiring effective May 1.
There isn't an individual that I've met who has been more dedicated to the Company and the industry.
Over his 47-year career, he led by example and was a main driver of our corporate culture, particularly as it relates to employee safety.
I wish them both the best in retirement.
While they'll be missed, I'm certain the Company won't miss a beat under the leadership of Ron Kraemer, who will assume the role of COO; and Justin Loweth, who will become the new President of Seneca.
Seneca had a strong first quarter.
We produced a Company record, 79.5 Bcfe, despite approximately 4 Bcf of price-related curtailments in October and early November.
Our nearly 40% production increase in Appalachia was largely due to the Company's fourth quarter fiscal 2020 acquisition of upstream assets in Tioga County, as well as production from our ongoing development program.
We continue to see the benefits of our recent acquisition, with increased scale and operational synergies driving a collective $0.10 per Mcfe decrease in G&A and LOE expenses from the prior year's first quarter.
With about six months of operations now under our belt, we are seeing additional cost reductions above our initial expectations.
As an example, LOE reductions of over $50,000 a month have been realized by releasing unneeded equipment rentals and contract services on the acquired assets.
Additionally, we achieved between $300,000 to $500,000 per well in reduced water cost on our recent Tioga 007 pad completions through the use of acquired water withdrawal points and storage facilities.
In line with our plans discussed on last quarter's call, we added a second drill rig in early January, which will focus on our EDA assets, including the deep inventory of acquired Utica locations in Tioga.
This activity will allow Seneca to bring online additional volumes in early fiscal '22, commensurate with the expected availability of our capacity on the Leidy South project, reaching premium markets during the winter heating season.
We expect Seneca's other rig to remain focused in the WDA, maintaining relatively balanced activity between these two operating areas longer term.
Although pricing in fiscal '21 has not been as strong as we initially projected during this winter, the supply and demand fundamentals, whether notwithstanding, remain constructive over the next 12 to 18 months.
Looking out beyond the current year, the fiscal '22 strip is around $2.80 an Mcf, a price where we realized strong returns from our Appalachia program.
As always, we have maintained our disciplined approach to hedging and are already well positioned in fiscal '22, with over 180 Bcf of fixed price firm sales, NYMEX swaps and costless collars in place.
This provides Seneca with downside protection, but leaves the potential to generate significant additional free cash flow, should prices move up.
We'll keep a close eye on pricing dynamics and look for opportunities to layer in additional hedges as we move through this fiscal year, closer to the in-service date of Leidy South.
We are maintaining our fiscal '21 capex guidance, which remains in the $350 million to $390 million range.
Based on our strong first quarter well results and solid execution by our operations team, we are revising our production guidance to range -- to a range of 310 Bcfe to 335 Bcfe, a 2.5 Bcfe increase at the midpoint.
Most of our production growth in fiscal '21 should occur during the first half of the year, with flat to slightly declining production during the back half as we defer completion and flowback activity until the winter season when our new FT capacity is targeted to be in service.
For the remainder of the fiscal year, we have 186 Bcf or around 80% of our East Division gas production locked in physically and financially.
We have another 30 Bcf of firm sales providing basis protection, so over 90% of our forecasted gas production is already sold.
We currently estimate that we'll have around 17 Bcf of gas exposed to the spot market.
So, as always, these volumes are potentially at risk for curtailment.
And in California, we have around 67% of our remaining oil production, is hedged at an average price of around $57 per barrel.
Justin Loweth, our Senior VP of Seneca, will be promoted to President.
Justin has been with Seneca for 10 years and has been instrumental in much of our success over the past decade, and I am confident in his ability to lead the Company forward.
We pay a lot of attention to our succession planning across the organization, and I am pleased to be leaving Seneca with an experienced and strong management team.
National Fuel's first quarter GAAP earnings were $0.85 per share when you back out items impacting comparability, including a ceiling test charge and the impact of a gain related to the sale of our timber properties, operating results were $1.06 per share.
This increase of 5% over last year was on the strength of our Pipeline & Storage segment results, as well as the impact of the Upstream and Gathering acquisition in Appalachia.
Dave and John already hit on the high-level drivers, so I'll focus on a few other details from the quarter and discuss our outlook for the remainder of the year.
First, in line with our expectations, we closed on the sale of our timber properties in December, receiving net proceeds of $105 million after closing adjustments.
As a result, we recorded an after-tax gain of $37 million.
We made the decision to divest substantially all of these properties to fund a portion of our Appalachian acquisition.
The timing of the sale allowed us to structure the transaction as a like kind of exchange, which defers a relatively sizable tax gain over the life of the Appalachian reserves that we acquired last year.
The other large item impacting comparability during the quarter was the $55 million after-tax non-cash ceiling test charge.
Given where prices are today, we would not expect to record another ceiling test impairment in the fiscal year.
Moving to operating results for the quarter.
John and Dave hit the high points in our Upstream and Pipeline businesses, so let me touch briefly on earnings at the Utility, which were down $3.5 million versus last year's first quarter.
Warmer weather, particularly in our Pennsylvania service territory and an additional accrual for bad debt, likely to result from the pandemic, impacted this business during the quarter.
While we haven't witnessed a material deterioration and customer payment trends, we are in the midst of the winter heating season, and customers are only just beginning to see larger monthly bills.
As a result, we continue to conservatively accrue additional expense to reserve against the potential for increased bad debts, and would expect to do so at least through the remainder of the winter.
Switching to our outlook for the rest of the year, we've revised our guidance range higher, now projecting earnings to be between $3.65 and $3.95 per share, a $0.10 increase at the midpoint.
This increase was driven by strong results during the first quarter, modest decreases in Seneca's cash unit costs and a reduction in our expected DD&A rate as a result of the additional ceiling test charge and reserve bookings during the first quarter.
These are expected to be somewhat offset by revisions to our commodity price assumptions for the remaining nine months of the year, with our NYMEX natural gas guidance decreasing to $2.75 per MMBtu and WTI guidance increasing to $52.50 per barrel.
With respect to consolidated capital spending, all of our segment ranges remain the same, and we are still projecting between $720 million and $830 million for the fiscal year.
At the midpoint of our guidance ranges, we'd expect funds from operations to exceed our capital spending by approximately $50 million for the year.
Incorporating that with the proceeds from the sale of our timber properties, we expect to be able to cover our dividend without any material incremental short-term borrowings.
We are well hedged for the remainder of the year, so any changes in commodity prices should have a muted impact on earnings and cash flows.
Switching to the balance sheet.
We have $500 million of long-term debt set to mature in December.
We expect to access the capital markets in fiscal 2021 to replace this maturity.
With our next maturity thereafter, not until fiscal 2023, we have a nice runway without any major refinancing requirements.
On our short-term credit facilities, we enhanced our liquidity by increasing the size of our 364-day credit facility and extending its maturity through the end of calendar 2022.
This now gives us $1 billion in committed unsecured credit facilities that are almost entirely undrawn today.
From an overall leverage standpoint, our balance sheet is in great shape.
We are well within the investment-grade targets set forth by the rating agencies.
And as we look to fiscal 2022 and finish construction on the FM100 project, we expect to see further improvement in these metrics.
In closing, we had a solid first quarter, and the outlook for the year remains strong.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
compname reports q1 gaap earnings per share $0.85.
q1 gaap earnings per share $0.85.
qtrly adjusted operating results $1.06 per share.
sees 2021 earnings, excluding items impacting comparability, will be within range of $3.65 to $3.95 per share.
co now assumes that wti oil prices will average $52.50 per bbl for remainder of 2021.