Clearway Energy, Inc.

Hello, and welcome to Clearway Energy, Inc., third quarter 2024 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask the question during the session, you will need to press Start 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press Start 1-1 again. I would now like to hand the conference over to Akil Mosh. Sir, you may begin.

Good morning. Thank you for taking the time to join Clearway Energy Inc's third quarter call. With me this morning are Craig Cornelius, the company's president and CEO, and Sarah Rubenstein, the company's CFO. Before we begin, I'd like to quickly note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements which are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. Actual results may differ materially. Please review the safe harbor in today's presentation, as well as the risk factors in our SEC filings. In addition, we will refer to both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. For more information regarding our non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please refer to today's presentation. In particular, please note that we will refer to both offered and committed transactions in today's oral presentation, and also may discuss such transactions during the question and answer portion of today's conference. Please refer to the Safe Harbor in today's presentation for a description of the categories of potential transactions and related risk, contingencies, and uncertainties. With that, I'll hand it over to Craig.

Thanks, Akhil. Turning to slide four. Today, we're pleased to report that we've completed another solid quarter of execution, that we are on track to meet or exceed our key 2024 financial objectives, and that we have a strong outlook for Clearway's future. In addition to reporting on our strong performance this year, in today's call, we will provide you with guidance for our key financial expectations for 2025, we'll articulate longer-term goals for 2026 and 2027, and will outline the capital allocation framework we intend to employ as we go forward. Our financial results for the quarter demonstrated another quarter of strong performance in our diversified fleet, bringing us to $385 million of CAFTE in the year to date and putting us in a great position to meet or exceed our 2024 guidance. We are especially proud of the great work our team has done to run safely and improve the operations of our fleet over the last three quarters. ever vigilant, we are pleased to say that we achieved our best ever safety key performance indicators in the first three quarters of the year, and that we have also driven meaningful improvements in plant availability and conversion efficiency in comparison to the prior year. In conjunction with this strong quarter of performance, we've also announced a fourth quarter dividend in line with our commitment for 7% DPS growth in 2024. Looking ahead, We're pleased to report that we've continued to advance the growth of our fleet, concluding an investment commitment for the Pine Forest Solar and Storage Project, and having received an offer, which is now under evaluation, to invest in Phase 1 of the Honeycomb Storage Projects. As we advance these investment prospects and look ahead to further opportunities to come, we've continued to demonstrate our ability to methodically assemble accretive building blocks for our growth over time. Today we are establishing our financial guidance for 2025. We are establishing CAPTI guidance for 2025 at a midpoint of $420 million and establishing our dividend target for the year at $1.76 per share, in line with our previously articulated commitment for 2025 DPS. We are also reaffirming our intention to target dividend per share growth in 2026 at 6.5%, fulfilling our prior commitment. Though our guidance for fiscal year 2026 would be issued at this time next year, we look forward to delivering that future DPS growth in a prudent capital structure, supported by the full-year CAPTI contribution from committed growth investments that will be funded over 2025 and the progressive increase in revenues that should be delivered by our fleet. Finally, we are setting the next set of goals and updating our capital allocation framework for the future. Looking ahead to 2027, we will be targeting CAFTI per share of $2.40 to $2.60, a range which represents a solid growth trajectory extension of approximately 7.5% to 12% compounded annual growth from the midpoint of our 2025 guidance, reflecting the strengthening trajectory of our core asset base and our creative growth investment prospects. From this position of strength, we will aim to fund more of our growth from retained cash flow, targeting a payout ratio in 2027 within 70% to 80%, while also growing our dividend at a competitive pace with a targeted dividend per share growth rate in the bottom half of our historical 5% to 8% range in 2027. In concert with setting these goals, we're also refreshing our capital allocation framework to one that we believe will provide investors with enhanced visibility into long-term predictable CAFTI per share growth. Beyond our strong CAFTI per share growth roadmap into 2027, we will aim to achieve a long-term goal of 5% to 8% plus in CAFTI per share growth in the long term, and importantly, we'll aim to effectuate that growth with a greater reliance on our own cash flow generation. Increasing the fraction of our internal cash flow we reinvest in growth over time deploying capital in a way that is accretive, and raising capital in a way that is prudent and predictable. I'll discuss this refreshed framework in detail later in the presentation. In summary, Clearway continues to execute well, and we are excited to continue to deliver long-term accretive growth to you, our valued stakeholders. Turning to slide five. During the last quarter, we made solid steps forward on value accretive growth. as is evident by the completion of our investment commitment to Pine Forest on attractive terms and received a formal offer for Honeycomb Phase I, which is now under review. As a refresher, the Pine Forest Solar Plus Storage Complex will be a complementary addition to our fleet in the fast-growing ERCOT power market. Its solar capacity has been fully contracted for an average of approximately 20 years at strong pricing and settlement terms. the majority contracted with a leading information technology company. Its batteries will complement our existing fleet of assets in ERCOT, and together, these will be beneficial additions to our fleet. We aim to fund the investment by the end of 2025. We're also pleased to announce that CWIN received an offer for Phase 1 of the Honeycomb Battery Hybridization Program. As you'll recall, Clearway Group is developing and building a family of contracted battery assets adjacent to CWIN's existing fleet of solar projects in Utah. Subject to CWIN's independent director approval, CWIN has the opportunity to invest approximately $85 million in corporate capital at an approximately 10% cap yield into the projects and to fund this investment in 2026. Sarah will discuss the company's liquidity position more in her section, but both Pine Forest and Honeycomb are expected to be funded with existing sources of existing liquidity. Turning to slide six. Along with the improvements we've made to our fleet this year, growth investments like these have allowed us to build an excellent foundation for achieving the goals we are now setting for 2027. Starting from our previously disclosed pro forma CAFI per share of $2.15, and then taking into account the commitment to pine forest and updated levelized assumptions for resource adequacy capacity revenues in our conventional fleet, our existing asset base and committed investments set us up to target at least $2.40 per share in CAFTI in 2027, constituting the bottom end of the range we're targeting for CAFTI per share in the year. First, by 2027, Pine Forest will add to the other previously committed investments that underpinned our prior pro forma CAFI per share expectation. Beyond that contribution, our fleet improvement program, the results of which are evident in our strengthened results in 2024 year to date, adds further to our 2027 outlook. Finally, our outlook for RA capacity revenues has also strengthened as we have executed on our power marketing program this year. With the contracted position we've already established for 2027, combined with RA pricing trends we're observing in current customer engagements, we are confident that the RA pricing assumption embedded within our 2027 target range is achievable relative to where we are executing today. Indeed, that strength now lets us look to build up from the bottom end of the range at $2.40 in cap fee per share to higher levels within an accretive capital allocation framework which we'll outline later in our call. With that, I'll turn it over to Sarah to provide a summary of our key financial results for the quarter. Over to you, Sarah.