Earlier this month, we completed the sale of EnerBank, grossing over $1 billion in proceeds.
As we double down on the clean energy transformation, I'm also pleased to share that we received approval for our Voluntary Green Pricing program, which would add an additional 1,000 megawatts of owned renewable generation to our growing renewable portfolio.
Our prices remain competitive as the average residential customer pays about $2 a day to heat their home and $4 a day to keep the lights on.
In fact, as we approach the winter heating season, our 90-day arrears are back to prepandemic levels with an 80% reduction in our uncollectible accounts.
In the first nine months of this year, we surpassed our full year cost reduction target of more than $40 million.
Within just a few months of the program introduction, we were working with nearly 20 different customers on their fleets and have another 50 who have indicated interest in the next tranche, exceeding our expectations.
Our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion continues to be recognized nationwide and most recently by Forbes, where we were ranked the #1 utility in the U.S. for both America's best employers for women and #1 for diversity, delivering excellence every day continues to position the business for sustainable long-term growth.
During the storm, we had more than 3,700 members of our team working around the clock to safely restore customers.
Year-to-date, we've delivered ahead of plan with adjusted earnings per share of $2.18 for continuing operations.
Our strong performance, coupled with the completion of the EnerBank transaction and the financial flexibility that provides -- gives us further confidence in our ability to meet our full year guidance, which we've raised to $2.63 to $2.65 from $2.61 to $2.65 for continuing operations.
For 2022, we are reaffirming our adjusted full year guidance of $2.85 to $2.87 per share.
Longer term, we are committed to growing our adjusted earnings per share toward the high end of our 6% to 8% growth range as we highlighted on our Q2 call.
As we move forward, we continue to see long-term dividend growth of 6% to 8% with a targeted payout ratio of about 60% over time.
Most of the gas is already locked in at just under $3 per thousand cubic feet, which is well below current levels in the spot market and offers tremendous customer value.
For the third quarter, we delivered adjusted net income of $156 million or $0.54 per share.
Year-to-date, we've delivered adjusted net income of $628 million or $2.18 per share, which is up $0.19 per share versus the first nine months of 2020, exclusive of EnerBank's financial performance.
For the first nine months of the year, rate relief continues to be the primary driver of our positive year-over-year variance to the tune of $0.45 per share given the constructive regulatory outcomes achieved in the second half of 2020 for our electric and gas businesses.
This upside has been partially offset by the aforementioned storms in the quarter, which drove $0.16 per share of negative variance versus the third quarter of 2020 and $0.11 per share of downside on a year-to-date basis versus the comparable period in 2020.
To round out the customer initiatives bucket, planned increases in our operating and maintenance expenses to fund safety, reliability and decarbonization initiatives added the balance of spend for the first nine months of the year, which, in addition to the August storm activity, added $0.35 per share of negative variance versus the comparable period in 2020.
To close out our year-to-date performance, we also benefited from favorable weather relative to 2020 in the amount of $0.07 per share and another $0.02 per share of upside, largely driven by recovering commercial and industrial load.
As we look ahead to the remainder of the year, we feel quite good about the glide path for delivering on our earnings per share guidance range, which has been revised upward to $2.63 to $2.65 per share, as Garrick noted.
As we look ahead, we continue to plan for normal weather, which in this case, translates to $0.06 per share of positive variance, given the absence of the unfavorable weather experienced in the fourth quarter of 2020.
We'll also continue to benefit from the residual impact of our 2020 rate orders, which equates to $0.07 per share and is not subject to any further MPSC actions.
And we'll make steady progress on our operational and customer-related initiatives which are forecasted to have a financial impact of roughly $0.07 per share of negative variance versus the comparable period in 2020.
In the third quarter, we issued $300 million of first mortgage bonds at a coupon rate of 2.65%, one of the lowest rates ever achieved at Consumers Energy.
We also remarketed $35 million of tax-exempt revenue bonds earlier this month at a rate of under 1% through 2026.
Due to the strong execution implied by these record-setting issuances coupled with the EnerBank sale, which provided approximately $60 million of upside relative to the sale price announced at signing, we now have the flexibility to reduce our equity needs for the year even further, which will now be limited to the $57 million of equity forwards we have already contracted.

Summary:
Our strong performance, coupled with the completion of the EnerBank transaction and the financial flexibility that provides -- gives us further confidence in our ability to meet our full year guidance, which we've raised to $2.63 to $2.65 from $2.61 to $2.65 for continuing operations.
For 2022, we are reaffirming our adjusted full year guidance of $2.85 to $2.87 per share.
For the third quarter, we delivered adjusted net income of $156 million or $0.54 per share.
As we look ahead to the remainder of the year, we feel quite good about the glide path for delivering on our earnings per share guidance range, which has been revised upward to $2.63 to $2.65 per share, as Garrick noted.