Our people and our infrastructure were put to the test, literally, and performed remarkably during that bitter cold stretch when temperatures dropped to minus 42 degrees Fahrenheit in the northern portion of our service area.
Our company today stands stronger than ever and our $16.1 billion capital plan, the largest in company history, is on track.
Over the next five years, we expect our investment plan to drive average annual growth in our asset base of 7%.
Our goal is now a 60% reduction in carbon emissions by 2025 and then an 80% reduction by the end of 2030, both from a 2005 baseline.
And, of course, our long-term goal remains net zero carbon emissions from our generating fleet by 2050.
In emission, on the natural gas distribution side of our business, we're now targeting net zero methane emissions by the end of 2030.
Our ongoing effort to upgrade our gas delivery networks and incorporate renewable natural gas into our system will clearly help us achieve this 2030 milestone.
As we continue to reshape our asset mix, we project that less than 10% of our revenues, and less than 10% of our assets will be tied to coal by the end of 2025.
Wisconsin's unemployment rate stands today at 3.8%.
The agreement provides for up to $80 million of performance-based incentives if Foxconn hires 1,454 qualified workers and invest $672 million by 2026.
In fact, we understand that Foxconn supply is approximately 40% of the worldwide market for servers.
For example, Green Bay Packaging just completed a $500 million expansion of its paper mill in Northeastern Wisconsin.
And Uline is growing again, building two new distribution warehouses in the Kenosha area south of Milwaukee with a projected investment of $130 million.
At the end of March, our utilities were serving approximately 7,000 more electric customers and 25,000 more natural gas customers compared to a year ago.
Retail electric and natural gas sales volumes are shown on a comparative basis beginning on Page 10 of the earnings package.
Natural gas deliveries in Wisconsin increased 3.2%.
And on a weather normal basis, natural gas deliveries in Wisconsin increased by 0.005% [Phonetic].
Retail deliveries of electricity, excluding the iron ore mine, were up 1.1% from the first quarter of 2020 and on a weather normal basis were up 1.4%.
We acquired a 90% ownership interest in the Jayhawk Wind Farm.
This project will be built in Kansas and consists of 70 wind turbines with a combined capacity of more than 190 megawatts.
We plan to invest $302 million for the 90% ownership interest and substantially all of the tax benefits.
This represents $1.9 billion of investment.
With a strong pipeline of opportunities ahead, we expect to invest an additional $1.5 billion in this segment through 2025.
In total, our shares of these projects would provide 675 megawatts of solar generation, 316 megawatts of battery storage, and 82 megawatts of wind.
Pending on the Commission's approval, we will invest approximately $1.5 billion to bring them online between 2022 and 2024.
We are also proposing to build 128 megawatts of generation at our existing Weston Power plant site in North Wisconsin.
If approved, we expect to invest $170 million in this project for a targeted in-service date in 2023.
We look forward to the Commission's decision in 60 to 90 days.
As we look to the remainder of the year, assuming normal weather, we expect to reach the top end of our earnings guidance for 2021 that stands at $3.99 a share to $4.03 a share.
We're also reaffirming our projection of long-term earnings growth in a range of 5% to 7% a year.
And as you may recall, in January, our Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.6575 [Phonetic] a share.
That was an increase of 7.1% over the previous quarterly rate.
We continue to target a payout ratio of 65% to 70% of earnings.
Our 2021 first quarter earnings of $1.61 per share increased $0.18 per share compared to the first quarter of 2020.
Starting with our utility operations, we grew our earnings by $0.04 compared to the first quarter of 2020.
First, colder winter weather conditions, when compared to the first quarter of last year, drove a $0.05 increase in earnings.
Also rate adjustments and weather normalized sales added $0.05 compared to the first quarter of 2020.
Negative drivers included $0.04 of higher depreciation and amortization expense and a $0.02 increase in day-to-day O&M expense.
Overall, we added $0.04 quarter-over-quarter from utility operations.
Moving on to our investment in American Transmission Company, we picked up a $0.01 related to continued capital investments.
Recall that our investment is now earning a return on equity of 10.52%.
The past [Phonetic], ATC would lose the 50 basis points ROE adder.
On an annualized basis, it will be a $0.02 earnings drag for WEC.
Earnings at our Energy Infrastructure segment improved $0.02 in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the first quarter of 2020, primarily from production tax credits related to wind farm acquisitions.
Finally, you'll see that earnings at our Corporate and Other segment increased $0.11, driven by improved Rabbi trust investment performance, some favorable tax items result in the quarter and lower interest expense.
In summary, we improved on our first quarter 2020 performance by $0.18 per share.
For the full year, we expect our effective income tax rate to be between 13% and 14%.
Excluding the benefit of unprotected taxes flowing to customers, we project our 2021 effective tax rate would be between 19% and 20%.
Looking now at the cash flow statements on Page 6 of the earnings package.
Net cash provided by operating activities decreased $295 million.
Total capital expenditures and asset acquisitions were $590 million in the first quarter of 2021, a $94 million increase from 2020.
On the financing front, with the $600 million holdco issuance in March, along with our refinancing efforts last year, the average interest rate on our holdco senior note is now 1.8% compared to 3.5% a year ago.
For the quarter, we are expecting a range of $0.75 to $0.77 per share.
As a reminder, we earned $0.76 per share in the second quarter last year.
Excluding $0.03 of better than normal weather and a $0.03 pickup from a FERC ROE decision, we would have earned $0.70 per share in the second quarter 2020.
As Gale mentioned earlier, we're guiding to the top end of our range for the full year, and as a reminder, that range is $3.99 per share to $4.03 per share.

Summary:
As we look to the remainder of the year, assuming normal weather, we expect to reach the top end of our earnings guidance for 2021 that stands at $3.99 a share to $4.03 a share.
Our 2021 first quarter earnings of $1.61 per share increased $0.18 per share compared to the first quarter of 2020.