Focusing on the third quarter, our performance remains strong, earning $3 per share compared to $3.07 per share in third quarter of 2020.
Residential cooling degree days in the third quarter decreased 27.5% compared to the same time a year ago, and were 10.6% lower than historical 10-year averages.
We are updating weather normalized sales guidance to 3% to 4%, up from 1% to 2%, based on continued robust customer growth and strong residential usage.
We expect earnings per share to be within the range of $5.25 to $5.35 per share.
This is our first fully litigated rate case in over 15 years.
First, the Commission adopted a total base rate decrease of $119 million inclusive of fuel.
The Commission did reverse its initial vote to move the SCR issue to a separate proceeding and instead provided partial recovery of the SCRs with the disallowance of $216 million.
In addition, the Commission voted to lower the ROE from the recommended opinion orders already low ROE of 9.16% to 8.7%.
With this part of the decision, the Commission has adopted an ROE that's meaningfully below the national average of 9.4% for electric utilities and the company disagrees with the Commission's rationale.
We've seen a 6% weather normalized increase in demand for residential electricity from 2018 to 2020.
During that same period we've lowered the average residential customer bill by more than 7%.
Arizona remains among the fastest growing states in the country, where other states were experiencing little or negative customer growth, we're projecting 1.5% to 2.5% retail customer growth in 2021 and 3% to 4% weather normalized sales growth.
We expect 43,000 housing permits this year in Maricopa County alone, levels that have not been reached since before the great recession.
As you may remember, Taiwan Semiconductor broke ground on their $12 billion investment earlier this year, cementing Phoenix is one of the top semiconductor hubs in the country.
More recently, KORE Power announced their intention to build a 1 million square foot lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility.
This will reduce annual carbon emissions from the plant by an estimated 20% to 25% compared to current conditions.
In addition, we remain committed to end the use of coal at our remaining Cholla units by 2025 and to completely exit coal by 2031.
Since our Clean Energy commitments announcement we've procured nearly 1,400 megawatts of additional Clean Energy and storage.
We're providing a 2022 earnings guidance range of $3.80 to $4 per share given the full effects of the rate case.
No surprise, the most significant driver is the recent rate case decision, with a negative $0.90 impact.
This reflects an additional $13 million downward adjustment beyond the $90 million net income impact estimated for the recommended opinion on order last quarter.
We are focused on cost management and expect O&M savings to provide some positive impact to get us to our 2022 guidance range of $3.80 to $4 per share.
I want to be transparent and reemphasize that this as projected 5% to 7% earnings growth, builds on our 2022 guidance.
We realize the 2021 base year is a lower growth rate at about 1% to 2%.
Steady population growth is expected to drive average annual customer growth in the range of 1.5% to 2.5% through 2024.
In addition, we expect average annual sales growth to be in the range of 3.5% to 4.5% through 2024 on a weather-normalized basis.
We have updated our capital plan to $4.7 billion from 2022 to 2024.
Third, as you can see from 2019 to 2024, we project that our rate base growth will remain steady at an average annual growth rate of 5% to 6%.
Yesterday, our Board of Directors announced an increase in our quarterly shareholder dividend from $0.83 to $0.85 per share.
We have consistently grown our dividend for 10 years straight and we are committed to dividend growth going forward.
Our longer term objective is to grow the dividend, commensurate with earnings growth and target a long-term dividend payout ratio of 65% to 75%.
Additionally, we maintain robust and durable sources of liquidity with our $1.2 billion of credit facilities recently extended to 2026 and a well-funded and largely derisked pension.
Even with the recent downgrade by Fitch and the credit reviews announced by Moody's and S&P, our balance sheet targets include three key components, maintaining credit rating strength, maintaining an APS equity layer greater than 50% and an FFO to debt range of 16% to 18%.
In return, we have the highest dividend yield among peers, which stands today above 5%.
While certainly a factor of the current valuation, even at a stock price 20% higher than current levels, we offer a dividend yield more competitive than peers.
In addition, we announced long-term earnings per share growth guidance of 5% to 7% from 2022 for the next five years.
With the attractive dividend yield and solid earnings per share CAGR, we anticipate a competitive 10% to 12% total shareholder return going forward.

Summary:
We expect earnings per share to be within the range of $5.25 to $5.35 per share.