ALLENTOWN, Pa.- PPL Corporation (PPL) is upping its capital spending plan as it responds to increased power demands across its service territory.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Friday, the company, headquartered in Allentown, discussed its 2025 fourth-quarter and full year financial results during a webcast led by\u00a0President and CEO Vince Sorgi.<\/p>\n
PPL said it expects to spend $23 billion from 2026 through 2029 to build new generation capacity and expand transmission networks,\u00a0compared to the prior plan of\u00a0$20 billion\u00a0from 2025 to 2028. The new figure includes more than $5 billion in infrastructure investments this year alone.<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, data centers, which are at the center of several plans being discussed across the Lehigh Valley, are one of the major considerations in those future investments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“PPL Electric Utility’s service territory continues to see rapid growth in data center interconnection requests,” Sorgi said. “As of today’s update, projects in advanced stages, meaning they have executed agreements and have meaningful financial commitments attached to them, now total approximately 25.2 gigawatts (GW), up another 23% since our last quarterly update.”<\/p>\n
Sorgi added, PPL believes all of those projects have a high probability of completion.<\/p>\n
Rate hike update<\/p>\n
Sorgi also provided an update on where PPL Electric’s rate hike request stands.\u00a0<\/p>\n
PPL is asking the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) for a distribution rate increase, its first such request since 2016. If it’s approved, the typical residential customer will pay about $8 more a month, and the average industrial customer can expect a monthly increase of about $514.<\/p>\n
“Earlier this week, evidentiary hearings were held and concluded in one day,” said Sorgi.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A decision from the PUC is expected in June, with the rates becoming effective the following month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Breaking down the numbers<\/p>\n
PPL reported\u00a02025 earnings (GAAP) of $1.18 billion, or $1.59 per share, compared with 2024 reported earnings of $888 million, or $1.20 per share.<\/p>\n
Adjusting for special items, 2025 earnings from ongoing operations (non-GAAP) were $1.34 billion, or $1.81 per share (the midpoint of PPL’s forecast), compared with $1.25 billion, or $1.69 per share, a year ago.<\/p>\n
PPL’s fourth-quarter (Q4) reported earnings were $266 million, or $0.36 per share, compared with fourth-quarter 2024 reported earnings of $177 million, or $0.24 per share.<\/p>\n
Adjusted earnings were $0.41 per share, just\u00a0missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.42 per share.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Operating revenue for Q4 came in at $2.27 billion, below some Wall Street estimates of $2.42 billion, but above\u00a0year-ago revenues of $2.21 billion.<\/p>\n
PPL announced a 2026 earnings forecast range of $1.90 to $1.98 per share, with a midpoint of $1.94 per share.\u00a0PPL also extended its 6% to 8% annual EPS growth target through 2029.<\/p>\n
In the markets<\/p>\n
Shares of PPL (NYSE: PPL) were up about 1.2% to $37.42 in late morning trading on Friday. That’s near the top of their 52-week range.<\/p>\n
PPL Corporation has a market capitalization of $27.35 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa.- PPL Corporation (PPL) is upping its capital spending plan as it responds to increased power demands…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,553,157,9962,9914,559],"class_list":["post-119250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-hamilton-street","tag-lehigh-valley","tag-pennsylvania-public-utility-commission","tag-ppl","tag-ppl-corporation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}