Genie Energy Ltd.

Good morning and welcome to Genie Energy's first quarter 2023 earnings call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by a zero. After today's presentation by Genie Energy's management, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Brian Siegel of Hayden IR.

Thank you, Operator. With me today are Michael Stein, Genie Energy's CEO, and Avi Golden, Genie Energy's CFO, who will discuss operational and financial results. Any forward-looking statements made during this conference call, whether general or specific in nature, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the reports that we file periodically with the SEC. Genie assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements that we have made or may make or to update the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those that we forecast. During the remarks, management makes reference to adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure. Management believes that its measure of adjusted EBITDA provides useful information to both management and investors that supplement our core operating results. Our earnings release, which is posted on the genie.com IR page, includes a reconciliation of consolidated adjusted EBITDA to its nearest comparable gap measures, consolidated debt income and income from operations, for all periods presented. In addition, adjusted EBITDA for applicable segments are reconciled in the earnings release to their respective segments' income from operations for all periods presented. I will now turn the conference over to Michael Stein, Gini's Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Brian. Welcome to Genie Energy's first quarter earnings call. As those of you who have been following us know, in 2022, we achieved remarkable financial results. Those results were driven by our ability to be nimble with customer acquisition and renewals, while our risk management team did an excellent job managing market volatility. It was a banner year, but it came at a cost. Throughout 2021 and 2022, we saw the size of our customer base shrink as due to extraordinary volatility in the wholesale energy markets, we scaled back our customer acquisition efforts. However, during that period, we repeatedly stated that when the volatility subsided, we would be ready to return to growth. In the first quarter of 2023, we delivered on that promise. Allow me to elaborate. In the first quarter, our REP business, GRE, increased its meter base by 63,000, an increase of 22% over last year. And the customer base grew by 92,000 RCEs a 35% increase from last year. With this increase, in just one quarter, we were able to climb to within 3,000 RCEs of the highest domestic RCE count in the company's history. Meanwhile, our SG&A expense decreased compared to the year-ago quarter. Financial results were also excellent. While not at the level of last year's Q1's extraordinary performance, we were able to deliver the next best Q1 bottom line results in GRE's history. Looking ahead, we expect solid growth and strong financial results to continue in the second quarter. GENE renewables, or GRU, increased revenue, reflecting our increased services to third-party customers. Additionally, we expanded our resource investment to support our vertically integrated strategy to develop and own solar power generation projects, which led to negative adjusted EBITDA for the segment. Of note, We've moved closer to Notice to Proceed, or NTP, with construction on several projects, and after the end of the quarter, we broke ground on our first project. We are also moving toward gaining site control on more potential community solar and utility-scale solar projects. In this quarter's earnings release, we are disclosing our current development pipeline, which consists of approximately 78 megawatts across 10 projects at different stages of the development process. We intend to continue updating that table on a quarterly basis as we continue to win new projects and move them forward through the development cycle. We are excited about this business opportunity and expect it to drive significant value in the future. Transitioning to our 2023 outlook, we are on target to generate consolidated adjusted EBITDA in the $40 to $50 million range, well above our pre-2022 normalized $25 to $30 million range. In addition, we expect to continue to significantly grow our customer base organically. Looking to the second quarter, with wholesale energy costs stabilized at lower levels relative to the past year, we continue to see an outstanding arbitrage opportunity versus the incumbent utilities. We will continue to exploit this by adding customers, albeit likely at a lower growth rate than we saw in the first quarter. Looking to the full year for GRU, We expect to complete construction on several Genie-owned projects while continuing to evaluate a large pipeline of potential opportunities. As a result, we intend for GRU to become a major national player in the solar generation and consultative energy spaces in years to come. In summary, we continue to deliver strong results in the first quarter and have taken several steps forward in our efforts to generate long-term growth in our emerging renewables businesses. And finally, we continue to fulfill our commitment to return capital to our shareholders. Now, I'll turn the call over to Avi for his discussion of our Q1 financial results.