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Jeanne Jones

Thank you, Calvin, and good morning, everyone. I want to shout out our PECO employees and all Eagle fans as well, and I'll just say, Go Birds. But with that being said, today, I'll cover our fourth quarter and full year results, key regulatory developments and updates to our financial disclosures, including 2025 guidance.
Starting on Slide 7. As Calvin noted, we delivered strong financial results for the third year in a row, earning $2.45 per share on a GAAP basis and $2.50 per share on a non-GAAP basis. Results that are at the top end of our guidance range and result in 6% growth off the midpoint of our guidance range for 2023.
For the quarter, Exelon earned $0.64 per share on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis. Full year earnings benefited from ComEd's rehearing order we received in April. We also manage costs across the platform well as we offset another year of mild winter weather and higher storm activity, while ensuring we could accommodate a range of outcomes with significant regulatory activity in the fourth quarter. Quarter-to-date and year-to-date drivers relative to prior year can be found on Appendix Slides 35 and 36.
Turning to our outlook for 2025 on Slide 8. We are initiating operating earnings guidance of $2.64 to $2.74 per share. With new rates in effect across nearly all of our jurisdictions, further and continued investment for our customers, 2025 earnings growth relative to the midpoint of our 2024 estimated guidance range is in line with previous disclosures.
As we look ahead to the first quarter, we expect a relative EPS contribution to full year earnings to be higher than historical patterns at approximately 33% of the midpoint of our projected full year earnings guidance range. This accounts for the cold start to the year, new rates in effect, anticipated shaping of costs and ComEd revenue timing and assumes normal weather and storm conditions for the balance of the quarter.
Turning to Slide 9. As Calvin mentioned, we successfully closed out a busy regulatory calendar in 2024, reaching final resolution on key rate cases that provide supportive cost recovery for the next several years.
Starting with Pepco. On November 26, the D.C. Public Service Commission issued a final order on Pepco's Climate Ready Pathway DC multiyear plan, providing for $123.4 million incremental revenue requirement and a 9.5% ROE through 2026, advancing the shared interest in supporting the District's energy goals.
As part of the order, the commission initiated a lessons learned process to evaluate the learnings from DC's experience with multiyear plans so far and to formalize the adoption of regulations for alternative forms of rate making. We are looking forward to participating in the process in which a final work report for the first phase due by the end of 2025.
Moving on to PECO. The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission approved the joint petition for settlement in PECO's electric and gas rate cases on December 12. The approved settlements allow for a $354 million electric revenue requirement increase excluding a onetime credit of $64 million in 2025, and a $78 million gas revenue requirement increase in 2025, providing the funding necessary to further enhance reliability enable cleaner energy options and improve the level of service customers have come to expect.
Last, on December 19, the Illinois Commerce Commission approved ComEd's refiled grid plan and rate plan adjustments, providing recovery for a level of investment that will allow us to serve customers safely and reliably while making progress on the goals of CEJA.
Relative to 2023 rates in effect, the final order provides for an approximate revenue requirement increase of $1 billion from 2024 through 2027, inclusive of the increases that were approved in the December 2023 order.
As a reminder, the construct allows for the recovery of prudently incurred investment and expenses of up to 105% of the approved revenue requirement with certain investment in categories such as storms and new business, recoverable independent of the 105% threshold.
With these final orders, close to 90% of our rate base has established rate mechanisms in place through 2026 or 2027, allowing us to focus on planned execution and the strategic engagement necessary to support growing electrification needs and promote expansion of reliable generation in our states.
There are currently two Pepco Holdings base rate cases open. Delmarva Power filed its gas distribution base rate case in the third quarter, seeking to recover continued reliability investments, including pipeline integrity management, gauging pipe upgrades and upgrades to its LNG plant with the expectation of implementing interim rates on April 20, subject to refund.
Atlantic City Electric also filed its base distribution rate case on November 21, seeking recovery for grid improvement and modernization work supporting New Jersey's Energy Master Plan and the Clean Energy Act. ACE has requested an increase of $108.9 million with the expectation of implementing interim rates on August 21, subject to refund.
Finally, in Maryland, we continue to work to close out open reconciliations from our first BGE and Pepco Maryland multiyear plans, and we remain engaged in the lessons learned process for multiyear plan as we approach our next rate case filings in Maryland.
For our final briefs in December, we continue to advocate for multiyear plans at the appropriate rate structure to direct the increasing investment needed to support a reliable 21st century grid, while offering specific options to address stakeholder feedback on ways to improve upon the first set of multiyear plans.
Moving to Slide 10. We provide our updated utility CapEx and rate base outlook through 2028. We plan to spend approximately $9.1 billion in 2025 and a total of $38 billion over the next four years, an increase of $3.5 billion from the prior four-year planning period, which reflects greater investments to support our jurisdictions and updates to align with recently approved rate cases and jurisdictional priorities.
Of the overall increase, over 80% is attributable to incremental transmission capital. Such investment is driven by the structural trends that underpin the energy transformation in our jurisdictions. Increased demand for high-voltage investments to support high-density load growth in expanding and modernizing generation supply stack and the reliability and resiliency needs of grid customers.
Over $1 billion of that transmission increase is projected at ComEd, where we see continued commitments from data centers and other high-density load customers and interest continues to grow in our other jurisdictions as well.
Serving this new business will also require additional investment in the distribution network. The balance of the additional transmission relates to continued capacity expansion across our platform, including an additional year of investment in our two largest transmission projects.
One, supporting the retirement of the Brandon Shores coal plant and the other at the Tri-County line to address reliability needs due to low growth in the region. As a reminder, the Brandon Shores project is expected to go into service in 2028, while the Tri-County will go into service at various points in 2029 and 2030.
As we continue to allocate relatively more spend to longer dated transmission projects, our annualized rate base growth of 7.4% over the next four years remains fairly consistent plan over plan with a projected addition of nearly $20 billion from 2024 to 2028.
As the next slide shows, we feel confident about our ability to continue making the necessary investments to ensure our regions can meet their economic and energy goals, which rely more than ever on a safe, secure and resilient grid.
As you'll see on Slide 11, Exelon has an unmatched platform to meet the clear need for transmission investment. The proliferation of high-density load, increasingly volatile weather and a growing and changing generation stack all point to it. We serve more customers than anyone else, and we are one of the largest investors in transmission among our peers. With award-winning reliability, our utilities are uniquely positioned to capitalize on the transmission opportunities beyond our existing 11,000-plus miles today.
Beyond the $12.6 billion transmission capital in our plan, we estimate $10 billion to $15 billion of transmission opportunity within our footprint in the next 5 to 10 years. This includes over $1 billion of additional investment to support new high-density load, which is in our pipeline, but not yet in our guidance due to its earlier stages of design and planning or estimated online dates.
This upside also includes investments to address teams between PJM and other regions, such as the work associated with MISO tranche 2.1, which we are optimistic will result in at least $1 billion of spend in our ComEd service territory through PJM's supplemental planning process.
Our involvement in those projects also creates opportunity to be a part of the competitive processes for the $6 billion of work MISO estimates it will bid out, and we continue to see more of a need than ever for new generation, particularly to ensure our states can meet their policy goals.
Transmission interconnections are needed to deliver that power to customers no matter where it's situated or how it's generated. In fact, achieving CEJA's goals and the growing economic development in Illinois will likely require significant transmission investment. All of this work complements the continued need for reliability and resilience investment in our existing infrastructure to modernize aging lines ensure better security and harden critical infrastructure.
In 2019, PJM found that two-third of the transmission system in its footprint were over 40 years old, with one-third exceeding 50 years and some lower voltage transmission assets nearing 90 years. It is clear that there is no shortage of need to invest to serve our customers and communities well beyond our four-year plan. With some of the best run utilities in the country, we are well positioned to execute these opportunities while prioritizing reliability, resiliency and affordability.
Moving to Slide 12. Our dedication to operational excellence encompasses a commitment to customer affordability, ensuring we deliver above-average value at below average rate. Our ability to deploy $38 billion of capital for the benefit of our customers over the next four years is only possible with a rigorous focus on cost management and delivering value for those investments.
This focus is saving our customers approximately $550 million in O&M annually relative to what it would have been growing at a standard inflation level over the last decade. And we felt confident we can continue to keep our expense growth similarly limited over a planning horizon with an institutionalized team and culture committed to delivering value, even when our jurisdictions look to expand ways in which we can support them.
As we have mentioned, we have taken advantage of our exclusive focus on energy delivery to standardize and streamline our organizational structure and operations. Through 2024, this has resulted in approximately $100 million in executed sustainable savings initiatives, with line of sight to many more opportunities to ensure we can keep raising the bar for the value we provide to our customers.
Operating as One Exelon has helped to identify unique and impactful opportunities, like our cross-company project to identify best practices amongst our frontline distribution employees. This discipline further enhances the value of our investments, which have improved reliability by 35% since 2016. Achieving the best reliability metrics in the industry, while also maintaining bill metrics that are 19% to 21% below US averages makes it clear we are delivering above average performance at below average rates.
Turning to Slide 13. With $38 billion of projected capital spend, driving 7.4% rate base growth along with earning ROEs of 9% to 10%, we are projecting compounded annual earnings growth of 5% to 7% from our 2024 guidance midpoint of $2.45 per share. Maintaining our commitment to transparency, we have provided assumptions associated with our expected annual growth in earnings through 2028 on Appendix Slide 18.
As you can see on the slide, after 2024, we expect to deliver each year within the 5% to 7% range, keeping us on track to deliver at midpoint or better of our 5% to 7% annualized growth rate from 2025 to 2028.
We also continue to project an approximate 60% dividend payout of operating earnings, with the dividend now projected to grow in the lower end of our long-term earnings target as we retain more of our capital to invest more efficiently for our customers. For 2025, we anticipate paying out a dividend of $1.60 per share, representing 5.2% growth over last year.
Finally, I will conclude with a review of our balance sheet and financing expectations on Slide 14. Maintaining a strong balance sheet continues to be core to our strategy, and we closed out another year with average credit metrics comfortably exceeding our downgrade thresholds of 12% at Moody's and S&P.
We are pleased to receive an upgrade from S&P last week which takes Exelon's corporate credit rating up to BBB plus from BBB. We have updated our slides to reflect this improvement, along with the revised downgrade threshold of 13% at S&P that is reflective of the higher credit rating.
With most investment plans and recovery mechanisms established over the next two to three years and our balanced funding strategy in place, we anticipate our metrics approaching 14% by the end of our forecast, demonstrating our commitment to maintaining a strong balance sheet.
As a reminder, we continue to advocate for language that incorporates repairs for calculating the corporate alternative minimum tax in the final treasury regulations, though our plan incorporates the assumption that the final regulations will not allow for repairs. If implemented in a way that mitigates the cash impact, we'd expect an increase of approximately 50 basis points to our consolidated metrics on average over the plan.
From a financing perspective, we expect the $38 billion capital plan to be supported by $20 billion of internally generated cash flow, $12 billion of debt at the utilities and $3 billion of debt at the holding company with the balance funded with a modest amount of equity. Specifically, we expect 40% of our incremental capital will be funded with equity, bringing our total equity needs to $2.8 billion over the four-year plan, implying approximately $700 million of equity per year.
Our financial plan has also been designed to accommodate the use of other fixed income securities that receive equity credit in place of senior debt at our holding company. In addition to other credit-supportive internal levers, these instruments provide a more efficient means of building additional financial flexibility while ensuring we deliver at the midpoint or better of our 5% to 7% annualized earnings growth rate range through 2028.
I want to close by reiterating our confidence not only in the plan we have laid out but in the broader opportunity we have to deliver value for our customers and our shareholders, not just now but in the decades to come.
Thank you. I'll now turn the call back to Calvin for his closing remarks.

Calvin Butler

Thank you, Jeanne. I'll review our focus areas in 2025 before stepping back and reminding you what makes Exelon unique as a key partner in our jurisdictions as an employer and as an investment.
As I mentioned when I started the call, this business has always been about our customers. It was when Rembrandt Peale lit the first gas lamp in the streets of Baltimore in 1816, ultimately, incorporating what became BGE, our nation's first gas company.
And it was when Exelon was formed 25 years ago, creating the foundation for the network of wires and pipes that now delivers energy to more than 10.7 million customers today. So you can expect us to continue to focus on an equitable and balanced energy transition.
For the first time in decades, we have an opportunity to serve a growing load base for which we have already seen our jurisdictions compete successfully. But the magnitude of load growth we're seeing requires us to think differently about our approach to energy supply.
Over a period of limited load growth, competitive markets have been able to save customers billions of dollars annually while delivering adequate supply. However, it's clear as we face rapid and significant load growth we need enhanced solutions at PJM, and we also need other approaches complementary to PJM that can meet those evolving customer needs as cost effectively as possible.
We have been actively working with stakeholders on solutions to the higher energy supply prices that they face. And Slide 21 in the appendix outlines our positions and priorities as we work this actively with policymakers at the federal, RTO and state levels. Indeed, we are consulting with stakeholders on no less than 45 bills across our jurisdictions that impact supply or demand-side solutions in some way.
Regardless, it's clear that states are and should be proactively involved in supply solutions that complement the markets, not to mention pursuing policies that enable more demand-side solutions. There is no single answer to meeting the levels of load growth that are anticipated, but instead, a variety of solutions across regulated and merchant participants is necessary. We're committed to working collaboratively to support policies that ensure energy security as quickly and cost effectively as possible.
And in the meantime, we remain highly focused on all of the other ways in which we support customer affordability, areas in which we have and will continue to excel. This includes continued vigilance on cost with our size, skill and culture, keeping cost growth well below inflation. It includes ENERGY STAR award-winning efficiency programs, which saved customers an estimated $18 per month in 2024.
Third, our robust efforts to connect distributed resources, allowing customers an opportunity to generate their own power and save money from 4.2 gigawatts of generation. And finally, our innovative tools and processes to connect customers to low-income energy assistance, which totaled $500 million in 2024.
These efforts only increase the value of our product which we're delivering at top quartile or better levels in which we can only achieve with an employee base that can count on us to engage them, develop them and send them home safely.
In doing all of this right, we will execute on our financial plan, deploying $9.1 billion this year to support our customers that will earn a consolidated 9% to 10% operating return on equity from fair rate case outcomes that aligns with our stakeholders on how we invest customer dollars. Dollars which flow right back into their communities to drive increased economic opportunity.
We expect to deliver on our operating earnings guidance of $2.64 to $2.74 per share as always with the goal of being at the midpoint embedded. And lastly, we will execute on the financing plan that we laid out, allowing us to maintain a strong balance sheet and support the grid our customers expect and deserve.
These priorities are in line with the pillars of our value proposition on Slide 16, which we use as our North Stars to ensure that the entire Exelon organization is working together to create value for customers, employees and shareholders.
You can see we already lead the industry in so many ways across these areas, whether it's the number of customers served, the award-winning and innovative services we provide them are the consistent top quartile reliability or the innumerable recognitions we received as an employer of choice.
And we are a company that does what it says. Consistently delivering against our financial commitments in a manner that reflects strong alignment between our customers, policymakers and shareholders on the value created by our investments.
With these investments delivering 5% to 7% annualized growth and a dividend yield of around 4%, we offer an extremely attractive risk-adjusted return of 9% to 11%, which translates to consistent growth, long-term value.
Michelle, we can now open it up for questions.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Durgesh Chopra, Evercore.

Listen, just I had a couple of questions. First, just in Maryland, a little bit more color there. So what are you expecting out of the reconciliation decision? How is that going to impact your future rate case filings? And then implications to your financial one. We're getting a lot of questions around that. So maybe just a little bit more color as to how you're thinking about Maryland?

Calvin Butler

Yeah, absolutely, Durgesh. Let me first take it, and then I'll also offer it up to Mike or Jeanne if they have any color to add.
Let me be very clear that we believe the process is moving forward at a decent pace. What's been very evident is that we've shared with the commission and all stakeholders that we do believe that the costs that were incurred were prudent. And we have provided evidence and supporting that effort.
And if you even look at what others have come forward and saying, I don't think there's any one questioning those costs of what's been incurred. Now we're just moving forward in the process and the evidence being done and letting it play out. But it has been a very collaborative process to date.
Mike, anything to add there?

Michael Innocenzo

I would just say that we firmly believe that we've offered a structure that gives predictability to customers, helps us lower cost for customers and gives a good solid financial return for our shareholders as well.

Jeanne Jones

Yeah. And I'll just add, Durgesh. On the reconciliation, the procedural schedule takes us probably first half of this year. So in the first quarter or second quarter, we expect an outcome there. As Calvin mentioned, all prudent reasonable costs.
We have first initial rounds of testimony proposals from staff and others were in line with prior reconciliations. And much of that reconciliation was actual structural issues, things that we saw in the first two reconciliations. So continue to move that forward.
And then on the lessons learned, I think just reiterating what Mike and Calvin said, but also the multiyear plans, what we highlighted from our perspective is that multiyear plans have provided strong alignment with state policy and alignment of what we're investing while also keeping our distribution rates in the first quartile. So it's been a good mechanism in terms of delivering but also keeping the distribution rates competitive.
And multiyear plans are not unique to Maryland, two-third of jurisdictions use them or some similar type of sharing mechanism. We like the three-year timeframe, but are flexible on that. And I think there's a lot to be said about historic test years, honestly creating more work and being less effective on the cost control. And that's the piece that I think is so important right now.
If you think about affordability, as you think about delivering value for the customers, when you have a forward-looking plan, the ability to lock in long-term contracts the ability to align your workforce, the ability to plan ahead is what allows a company like Exelon to deliver that O&M growth rate of 2% to 2.5% in a period of rising inflation.
So we think these types of mechanisms provide a lot of benefits, which is what we continue to highlight and that lessons learned. We also expect the lessons learned to be completed in the first half of this year, and then we would kind of have that clarity moving forward for our next rate filing.

That's very helpful. We'll look for those data points in the first half. Then just switching gears, a lot of focus also on the [205 with FERC], maybe just update us what are your latest thoughts? Are there any discussions with stakeholders and what to expect as the 24th, -- the February 24 data soon approaching?

Calvin Butler

Absolutely. I have Colette Honorable, who is our Chief Legal Officer, here with us. Colette, would you like to lean into that?

Colette Honorable

Thank you, and thank you for the question. As you may be aware, we are still awaiting a decision. And to your point, we continue to talk with a number of stakeholders, including PJM to find forward-looking solutions that work well for our customers and for investors.
We are awaiting a decision in the 205 docket, and we hope to get a good result. We have been a leader on these issues and bringing issues around resource adequacy and energy security to the forefront. We appreciate the leadership from our states, from our governors. We appreciate the way that PJM has been leaning in with a number of proposals and reforms.
And if I might mention for your edification, we received a word from FERC of two approvals of reform efforts, one relating to shovel-ready projects. That's in docket ER 25-712, really making sure that objects that are shovel-ready are moving to the forefront. We were very supportive of that reform. And then in ER 25-778, the surplus interconnection service docket which really helps to ensure that it's easier to add more generation to existing sites for generators, that one was approved as well.
So we are seeing FERC being helpful here. We're going to continue to lean in and lead and we're hopeful about a positive result in the 205 are also, at the same time, continuing the work to engage with stakeholders. These customers are protecting us.
As you heard from Calvin and Jeanne with unprecedented low growth needs and that creates unprecedented opportunity. So we'll continue to work with all involved in a way that meets the needs of our customers, focuses on energy security and affordability while protecting the interest of investors.

Operator

Nicholas Campanella, Barclays.

Nicholas Campanella

I hope everyone is doing well. So just one quick clarification. Slide 18, just when we think about the growth into '27, is that just year-over-year off prior year '26 midpoint? Is that the way to think about that? If you could comment on that?

Jeanne Jones

Yeah. That's the way to think about it, Nick. We just -- we try to give you kind of the year-over-year. We always go back to the midpoint of guidance. So if you're thinking about this slide in totality, right, this is really about how do you grow -- how does Exelon grow from 2024 midpoint of 245 through 2028 on a year-by-year basis such that we get to that midpoint or better of the 5% to 7% over that four-year period.

Nicholas Campanella

And then I know legislation has been kind of a priority in Maryland from stakeholders. And I was wondering if you can kind of comment on what you would kind of expect there. But also just -- what's your expectations in Pennsylvania as it relates to solving for a generation and rate-based solution or some type of other capacity arrangement with the state that could alleviate the congestion there.

Calvin Butler

Yeah. No problem, Nick. I will start off and then I have with me, Carim Khouzami, who is the CEO of BGE and of course, we have Dave Velazquez with us as well, who is the CEO of PECO that can add on. But let me just share with you, as I said in my opening statement, we have over 45 bills that we're actively working across all of our jurisdictions. All with a focus on ensuring affordability, energy security and adequate generation. I mean that's resource adequacy in those lines is first and foremost.
Having said that, several pieces of legislation proposes changes to regulatory and planning processes, including implementing distribution planning expedited review of certain clean energy generation and creating a new integrated resource planning office. And by our footprint, we're looking at best practices that are being suggested in one jurisdiction and how do we employ that or share that information with our other jurisdictions.
So I'm going to stop there and let Carim talk about what's happening in Maryland, why, I think there's over 20 bills to date that you're tracking.

There is, Calvin, and thank you, and I would just echo what Calvin said. Right now, in Annapolis here in Maryland, there's a lot of attention being made on how do we deal with the resource adequacy issue, energy security issue here in Maryland.
As a reminder, Maryland currently imports about 40% of its power from out of state. That is something that the legislation, the governor and many others are very focused on trying to see what we can do to incent generation to be built in the state.
The approach that's being taken is more of an all of the above approach. They're looking at various different fuel types, various different ways to incent to try to get generation built here in the next few years so that we can increase the amount of in-state capacity.
As BGE and PECO Holdings, we're very involved in all those discussions. We're very supportive. We agree with the state that we need to build more in-state generation to relieve some of the pressures that we have on the Slide 5 of the bill. So again, that's something that we're looking at tracking closely and working closely with all stakeholders.

Calvin Butler

And Nick, you also asked about Pennsylvania, and I know there's two active bills currently addressing the resource adequate issue and Dave Velazquez, you want to share your thoughts?

Dave Velazquez

Yes, this is Dave. Good morning, everybody. [PAS] like other states like Maryland has been very active. You've seen that the PUC has held technical conferences on this issue. As you know, Governor Shapiro has been very active in working with PJM to address this issue.
And all the companies in Pennsylvania as well have been active in trying to work with all the stakeholders to come up with I'll say, alternatives, if necessary, to the PJM capacity markets to ensure that we continue to have adequate generation.
And some of the things that have been mentioned to include longer-term contracts. They include utility build. Some of those things will require legislation. And I think it will be an active session legislatively around those issues as well as both in the House and Senate lawmakers are concerned about some of the same issues.

Operator

Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Jefferies.

Julien Dumoulin Smith

Appreciate it. Go Birds. Just coming back a couple of different things here quickly. Absolutely. Just with respect to -- I know Durgesh was trying to get at this a second ago about the prospects. But just to say explicitly, how do you think about settlements abilities here.
I mean, I know there's a few different dockets, a few different efforts afoot with respect to PJM policy and [colocation]. Is there an ability to settle that out and kind of side step maybe a more protracted effort considering all this discussion about the kind of power?
And then related (inaudible) I'll sort them tied to data centers. How do you think about these deposits here in as much as -- that seems like a wider industry trend and certainly is an offset to rate base growth and certainly could accelerate through the course of this year. So is there any kind of [heuristic] you'd offer as you continue to see some developments on data centers and how much that could sort of [could have netting] effect to near your rate base, if you will.

Calvin Butler

Thank you, Julien. Let me make sure I capture the essence of the two-part question. One was talking about settlements as it relates to the activity that may be going on at the FERC level and so forth. And the second was really focusing in on deposits that customers are giving around data center growth. And if can that spur additional development and growth moving forward.
On the first piece, let me just share, and then I'm going to turn it to Jeanne, is that we always are looking out for the best interest of our customers and having active discussions with all parties involved. We are never going to believe that we always are sitting back and can't come to some type of resolution and keep moving it forward. But we have some tenants that we're holding on to because it's around affordability for our customers and that the grid is being shared by everyone. So everyone should bear some of those costs.
So having said that, I'm going to turn it to Jeanne to give you any additional insight.

Jeanne Jones

Yeah. I think on the first one, Julien, I would just -- the word settlement is used, but I think of it more as like do we partner with stakeholders? Absolutely. So all -- the 205s are about seeking clarity and a point where there was differing views on network load and other things. And so getting those 205s filed, words about getting clarity while this concept is discussed, right?
And so do we want to work with stakeholders and thinking about what is the right tariff, whether it's the state or federal level, sure. But the 205s are around seeking clarity and getting certainty so that if someone is looking for certainty today, that's the fastest path, right? While that is being discussed at PJM or with our states as it relates to large load.
And then on the deposits, Yeah, we are seeing meaningful deposits come in as we see meaningful load growth. You look at ComEd, for example, in our driver tables, you can see large our large consumer -- our C&I class is growing 4% weather normal year-over-year. It's real, right? And so as that load comes into the service territory, driving up capital investment but also we get those deposits to protect our other customers to make sure that the load shows up.
When you look at '24 rate base, just to give you a sort of size of impact, our 2024 rate base was around $400 million lower. So relative to our last disclosure. The large majority of that was deposits. And so to your point, it does reduce rate base, but it's all a good thing, right? It's good for our customers that we're protecting them with the deposits, and it's a signal that there is more investment that we need to do to accommodate this new load, which is really exciting, right?
We also added a disclosure in the back that shows our historical load while growth was growing, our net load was declining due to energy efficiency and solar things and investments.
Now you look forward, our gross and net load is growing somewhere between 1% to 2%. So exciting development in terms of economic development, but the deposits, that's how they show up, and that's kind of the order of magnitude we saw in '24 as an example.

Calvin Butler

And Julien, if I can add something to Jeanne. We shared with you on our last call we don't even put anything into our LRP forecast until certain actions are taken by these developers. One, we look at the purchase of real estate; two, we look at, hey, are you putting in skin in the game in terms of developing plans; or three, putting down a deposit and then and only then do you see us actively start integrating this into our plan.
And that's why you see the load growth that we've projected to you that we've done -- shown on the slide, really adding up because once they put those take some actionable steps, we then included into our plan.

Julien Dumoulin Smith

Right. They basically said, for as much as you might see an acceleration in these deposits through the course of this year as some of this load materializes, you may very well see a corresponding increase or even net increase through the forecast period as that load is subsequently incorporated in your forecast.
There's no net decline here, you actually include the future CapEx opportunity in parallel of those deposits. So you shouldn't necessarily see this being any kind of reduction through the course of the year, you haven't gotten ahead of yourself and including that load. It all happened in parallel?
Excellent. Awesome. And does it speak to any greater confidence of these data points materials, I know that there haven't been any kind of flashy data center press release should we say. But these deposits presumably bode well and favorably for ongoing activities here. Should we expect any kind of more explicit disclosures as we work our way through the course of this year, especially given some of these, as you say, fruitful deposit there?

Jeanne Jones

Yeah. We do have one slide where we try to put kind of our recent wins. So Slide 19 in the Appendix where you can see some of the recently announced data center projects that typically the operating company or the company does do a press release on.
But we tried to give you some insight here. We have over 200 online data centers today. I talked about ComEd's year-over-year growth. But if you look at the chart on that side and the top left, you can also see just in the last couple of years, we've had a 24% CAGR over the last couple of years in terms of megawatts online.
So it's real in terms of the number of data centers online in our territories. It's real when you look at the load year-over-year on a weather-normal basis. It's real when you look at the pipeline that we see growing. And as Calvin mentioned, it's a pipeline that we only talk about ones that are -- what we would call greater than 80% probable because of the financial commitments that they've made.
So it's an exciting time. I think it's -- we see this trend continuing, but I think we're going to be prudent about it and always focus on affordability and think about our other 10.5 million customers, too. And that's where something like the deposit shows up and our activity at FERC as we think about just an equitable transition to this higher load growth as well.

Operator

Steve Fleishman, Wolfe.

Steve Fleishman

So just maybe following up on that last topic a little bit. I guess, specifically, this was a topic in the Illinois grid plan on large loads. Could you give us -- and I think they kind of pulled out the capital for that, what you're expecting. Can you give us maybe some info on what you have for the Illinois large loads in the capital plan?

Calvin Butler

Absolutely. Jeanne?

Steve Fleishman

And then related -- yeah, go with that first, yeah.

Jeanne Jones

Sure. Okay. So yeah, so on the grid plan, all distribution and what we had there was about $400 million -- a little over $400 million of capital that was not approved. But in the remarks on the grid plan, they commented, right, that this can be fully reconcilable through the annual reconciliation should ComEd's forecast be correct, which we believe it is.
And so that's sort of the magnitude on the distribution side. And then when you look at on the transmission side, ComEd was at about $1 billion plan over plan on the transmission side relative -- and it's really driven by this high-density load and the megawatts that we see coming online in the service territory.

Steve Fleishman

And is there a way to -- related to that, is there a way to take some of the data center gigawatt data that you're getting and tie it into some level of CapEx per gigawatt or I know that's -- everything is different, but just is there some.

Jeanne Jones

Yeah. To your point, because every project is different. And of course, we always try to do it in the most efficient way. So we work with our customers to say, how much do you need? Where do we have capacity? And so there could be very minimal investment need as we work to sort of find those sweet spots for our customers when we think about our entire customer base.
And then there's others that depending on their ramp and how much they need and where they want to be located, there could be capital investment needed. So hard to do a rule of thumb.
I would say, again, that's how we kind of always point back to just the percentage of transmission as we think about the 4-year plan and how that shows up. And again, $3.5 billion for this four-year period, 80% of that is transmission, really driven by these high-density load centers coming in and the economic development we're seeing across the territories.

Steve Fleishman

Okay. One last question. Just the new FERC Chair, Christie, was, I think, quoted last week saying you'd have more clarity on their policy on the colocation in the near future. Do you think that will be in your 205 case? Or what of the several cases is likely forum to have clarity?

Calvin Butler

Yeah, Steve, and to your point, I think clarity is the keyword there and what we're driving for and seeking and Colette and her team are working regularly with FERC and others. So Colette, would you like to elaborate?

Colette Honorable

Thank you. Good morining, Steve, we, too, are interested in this clarity. So we're pleased to see the Chairman now a month plus in the role really focusing on this. Look, the great news is that we are all focused on this issue.
We all recognize this time we're in, and we all want to be prepared to meet the demands of our customers and the needs of all of our customers as quickly as we can. So as we mentioned earlier, the decision on the 205 could be any tone but by February 24. So it could be as soon as that and there could be some decision on any of the other pending dockets.
We are looking forward to getting the clarity and more importantly, you can count on us to continue engaging. This is an exciting time and we look forward to supporting our customers, all of them, today and in the future.

Operator

Shar Pourreza, Guggenheim Partners.

Shahriar Pourreza

Just real quick, I know there's a lot going on this morning, but just a question on CMC and the status of it. Is there any sort of progress of conversations with IPA and other stakeholders on managing that roll off? Anything we should be watching, I guess, in the coming months from the public side that could indicate progress, legislative solution as the governor involved, et cetera?

Calvin Butler

Jeanne, please.

Jeanne Jones

Yeah, I think Illinois just like all of our other states, right, as they think about energy security, the CMCs are a unique thing for sure, right? And they go through '27, which is actually quite nice when you think about the next capacity auction being -- coming in prior to that.
But the CMCs are not a perfect hedge either, right? They're more so on the energy side and less on the capacity. So our customers in ComEd are already seeing some of that capacity increase during this time period.
But I guess from our perspective, we look at it no different than any of our states and how we're leaning into the energy legislation to provide solutions. Illinois is unique in that they have the IPA. And so they'll do their thing, and they'll think about how they want to procure.
But we'll be there to help support from a customer lens perspective, and do all everything we can to ensure that what we're looking for what our customers need is definitely the reliable generation but stable and predictable energy and capacity prices that allow them to run their businesses and meet their home and family needs.
So I guess we just -- Illinois is no different than the other states that we're working with. We've got to find solutions at PJM on the capacity market. Colette talked about that. We're very supportive of some of the solutions that they provided and pleased to see that FERC has already approved a couple of them.
But we're also supporting our states, Illinois included, that are looking at a variety of options. It could be looking at capacity obligation for a large load. It could be looking at state procurements. It could be looking at state-integrated resource plans.
So a lot of options on the table. But what we're most pleased about is those options are being considered and states are moving with a sense of urgency. And so Illinois is no different than the other states focused on this.

Shahriar Pourreza

Got it. And then just lastly, we haven't had an update on Artificial Island discussions with PSEG, or have you done any work on bill impact if Artificial Island went behind the meter for Atlantic City Electric customers? And if it's a side of the meter deal or a quasi front of the meter deal, how should we think about how quickly a DC can connect to that system?

Jeanne Jones

Yeah. I would say we haven't -- I think in our 205s, we had some examples of what the impact could be in terms of a cost allocation and so I would just point to that. But at the end of the day, I'll just reiterate, we're not against co-location.
We are -- what we have always said is that the principles are, we believe it's network load and that the right cost allocation should be in place. So not against it. It's not something that -- as long as it's network load and we have the right cost allocation, it's -- remains economic development to our service territories is always something we're supportive of.

Shahriar Pourreza

Got it. So I guess, Jeanne, the question is can you connect the DC pretty quickly on the Atlantic City Electric system? Is there any speed to market issues? Is there open capacity there? Or do they have to sit on a long interconnection queue?

Calvin Butler

Mike?

Michael Innocenzo

Yeah. I mean, I would say, I mean specifically, it really depends upon what they will locate there. I think for all of our connections wherever we're talking, whether it's Artificial Island or anywhere in our system, we certainly look for where there's capacity.
We look for their ramp-up. We look to make sure that we do our studies as accelerated as possible to make sure that we understand the impact. I would say in most, I'll say, more in general, in almost all of our discussions with our different customers that are coming to look to states, we're almost always able to find a way that meets their time needs. Again, a lot of it gets into how much load, how quickly a load they want to ramp up and we're finding ways to work creatively with them and accommodate that.

Shahriar Pourreza

Congrats, Calvin and Jeanne on the results, very good results.

Calvin Butler

Thank you, Shahriar.

Jeanne Jones

Thank you, Shahriar.

Operator

At this time, I would now like to turn the call back to Calvin Butler for closing remarks.

Calvin Butler

Thank you, all again, for your steady support of Exelon. I think Shahriar captured that when he congratulated Jeanne and I, let me just congratulate the 20,000-plus Exelon employees because of all the hard work you put in 2024 was a successful year.
We are very excited about the year ahead, which brings unprecedented opportunity for us to continue to lead this energy transformation with our jurisdictions and continue to provide long-term value for all stakeholders. We look forward to engaging with you in the months ahead.
And Michelle, that concludes our call.

Operator

Thanks to all of our participants for joining us today. This concludes our presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a good day.