Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure plc

Welcome to Atlantica's full year 2023 financial results conference call. Just a reminder that this call is being webcast live on the internet and a replay of this call will be available on Atlantica's corporate website. Atlantica will be making forward-looking statements during this call, which are based on current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from our forward-looking statements. If any of our key assumptions are incorrect, or because of other factors, including the risk factors section of the accompanying presentation and in our latest reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, all of which can be found on our website. Atlantica does not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements. Joining us for today's conference call are Atlantica's CEO, Santiago Siege, and the CFO, Francisco Martinez-Davis. As usual, at the end of the conference call, we will open the lines for the Q&A session. I will now pass you over to Mr. Siech. Please, sir, go ahead.

Thank you very much. Good morning. Thank you for joining us for our 2023 conference call results. In 2023, we have met the guidance we provided at the beginning of the year, both regarding EBITDA and for CAPI. If we cover briefly some of the achievements during the year, we remind you that in early 2023, we were able to refinance two large assets in Spain, creating long-term value by extending maturities at what at the time were still very reasonable costs. Additionally, 2023 has been a year where we have continued evolving in our growth strategy, demonstrating that Atlantica can grow through a combination of development and construction of our own pipeline and through the acquisition of assets whenever we find opportunities with reasonable returns. In fact, during the year, several new solar assets have reached commercial operation. Additionally, our development team in the U.S. has made very significant progress during the year. At this point in time, we have three new projects fully contracted and under construction or about to start construction in the southwest of the U.S., leveraging the IRA. As you all know, North America continues to be our main target geography in terms of new investments, in terms of capital allocation. And finally, in 2023, we have continued finding and moving forward new development opportunities in our key geographies. In fact, our renewal pipeline has increased by 12% versus last year. If now we look forward and we talk briefly about 2024, we see that as of March 1, we have already committed or earmarked between $175 and $220 million in new investments, with a majority allocated to solar and storage projects in the US. This represents a 60%, 70% of our $300 million investment target. Additionally, we expect to complement that amount with some targeted acquisitions as we believe that the current M&A market is constructive in some areas where we believe that we should be able to lock in accretive transactions like the ones we have done in the past. So all in all, at this point in time, we think that the $300 million target is achievable. Finally, together with our partner, we are in the progress of divesting our 30% stake in Monterey. We consider that that is a good example of capital recycling opportunities. With that, I will now turn the call over to Francisco, who will guide us through our financial results.

Thank you, Santiago, and good morning to everyone. Please turn to slide number four, where I will present our key financials for full year 2023. Revenue remains stable at $1,099.9 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $794.9 million within our 2023 guidance range, ensuring a 1.7% increase versus 2022, excluding the effect of foreign exchange and our unscheduled outage at CACHU. Regarding cash flow for distribution, we generated $235.7 million in 2023, Also, once again, meeting the yearly guidance. On the following slide, number five, you can see our performance by geography and business sector. In North America, revenue increased by 4.9% to $424.9 million in 2023, compared to the same period of last year, mostly due to higher production in our solar assets in the U.S., with higher availability at Solana. The increase in adjusted EBITDA was lower, 3%, mainly due to lower production from our wind assets where we had lower wind resource during the year. In South America, revenue increased by 13% compared with 2022, up to $188.1 million. and EBITDA increased 15.9% to 146.7 million. The increase was mainly due to assets which recently entered into operation and inflation in the indexation mechanisms in our contracts. In the EMEA region, revenue in adjusted EBITDA decreased by 8.2 percent to 328.9 million and 8.8 percent to 26.6 million, respectively. The reduction was mainly due to an unscheduled outage at CACHU that we discussed in the previous quarter. As a reminder, we expect the insurance policy to cover the impact of business interruption after a 60-day deductible. Let's now please turn to slide number six where we will review our operational performance. Electricity produced by our renewable assets reached 5,458 gigawatt hours in 2023, an increase of 2.6% versus the same period of 2022. mainly due to the increase in production in our solar assets in the United States and Spain, as well as the contribution of recently consolidated assets and those that have entered into operation recently. Looking at our availability-based contracts, our efficient natural gas and heat segment and water segments continue to achieve very high availability levels during 2023. Let me now please turn the call back over to Santiago.