Boralex Inc.

For participants in the web broadcast, you can also ask questions during this conference, but these will be answered by mail after the call. Finally, media representatives who have questions are invited to contact Camille Laverture, Public Affairs and External Communications Counselor at Boralex at the indicated coordinates at the end of the quarterly communication. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Boralex first quarter of 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. Please note that all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. in which financial analysts, shareholders and investors will be invited to ask their questions by pressing star 1 and 1 on their telephone. Please also note that this conference is being recorded. For webcast participants, you can also ask questions during this conference, but they will be answered by email after the call. Finally, media representatives are invited to contact Camille Lavetier, Advisor, Public Affairs and External Communications at Boralex. Her contact information is provided at the end of the quarterly press release. I would now like to turn the conference over to Stéphane Milot, Vice President, Investor Relations for Boralex. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. So, welcome to Boralex's first quarter resolve conference call. Joining me today on the call, Patrick D'Acostre, our President and Chief Executive Officer. Buzuno Guilmette, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. and other members of our management and finance teams. Mr. Dacoste will begin with comments about market conditions and the highlights of the quarter. Afterwards, Mr. Gilmette will carry on with financial highlights, and then we will be available to answer your questions. As you know, during this call, we will discuss historical as well as forward-looking information. I'm talking about the future. There's a variety of risk factors that have been listed in our different filings with Securit... securities regulators, which can materially change our estimated results. These documents are all available for consultation at CDAR.com. In our webcast presentation document, the disclosed results are presented both on a consolidated basis and on a combined basis. When talking about the results, we generally refer to combined numbers, and referring to cash flow and balance sheet, we generally refer to consolidated numbers. Please note that combined is non-GAAP financial measures and does not have standardized meaning under IFRS. Accordingly, combined may not be comparable to similarly named measure used by other companies. For more details, see the non-IFRS and other financial measures section in the MD&E. The press release, the MD&E, the consolidated financial statements, and a copy of today's presentation are all posted on the BioLex website at biolex.com under the investor section. If you wish to receive a copy of these documents, please contact me. Mr. de Kustman, I'll start with his comments. Please go ahead, Patrick.

Thank you, Stéphane. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure for me to present our results and achievements for the first quarter. Our teams have been very active on the growth and diversification strategic orientations in the quarter. I'm very proud to say we reached six gigawatts of project pipelines by adding 117 MW of wind, 121 MW of solar and 230 MW of storage project in the quarter. Total production increased by 22% in the first quarter compared to 2022. The integration of wind farm acquired in the US, the commissioning of wind and solar farms in France, the favorable wind conditions in France and favorable hydro conditions in North America more than compensated for unfavorable wind conditions in Canada. ABDA for the quarter was 192 million, up 9 million or 5% over 2022, reflecting the contribution from the U.S. acquisition and commissioning of assets as well as high level of electricity prices in France, which more than offset the decrease in production in Canada. Please note that the comparable figure in the first quarter of 2022 included a 16 million positive effect coming from certain feed-in premium contract in France, which was taken out in the third quarter of 2022 after the enactment of the Supplementary Budget Act. Excluding this element, the ABDA growth would have been 15%. We got the same effect on the AFFO level, which would have seen a 7% increase if we exclude the $16 million effect. Finally, we maintained our financial flexibility in the quarter and ended the quarter with a solid balance sheet. Brno will provide further details on this point in this section. I won't go into all the details of market conditions, but in general, I would say that for all markets in which we operate and develop, favorable programs are being discussed or put in place similar to the IRA in the US. The latest one is the ITC in Canada. The federal government announced on March 28, its intention to adopt a series of measures to advance the green economy, including the adoption of the 30% investment tax credit ITC for capital expenditures related to renewable energy production, energy storage, and clean manufacturing. In addition to the ITC, the Canadian government committed to support electrical systems upgrades clean energy investments by indigenous communities and crown corporations and other measures to reduce emissions. In Quebec, on March 31st, Hydro-Québec issued a tender call for 1.5 gigawatts of wind power. The issuance of the tender is part of a larger plan to quadruple wind power capacity over the next 15 years to meet growing energy demand of 25 TWh. I will now rapidly review the main variances in our portfolio of projects and growth paths. The increase in the early stage was mainly due to additions of five new wind projects and four new solar projects in Europe, totaling 163 MW, and two solar projects in North America for a total of 75 MW. The change in the mid-stage was mainly due to progression of one solar project in Europe to the mid-stage phase, adding 11 megawatts, change to the expected capacity of one wind project and one solar project in Europe for a reduction of 12 megawatts, and progression of two wind projects in Europe to the advanced stage. In total, our pipeline now comprises project totaling 4.3 GW of solar and wind project and 1 GW of storage project. In storage, we're waiting for the results of the February auction in Ontario in which we bid 380 MW. We are also preparing for the upcoming bid in September. In the growth path, no project progressed to the secured or ready-to-build phases. We continue to work on the optimization of our solar project in the U.S. and are expecting feedback from NARSERDA in the coming months. Projects in construction are progressing as planned. The two largest ones, APRIT in Quebec and LimeKin in Scotland, are expected to be commissioned in 2024. I won't cover in all details the progress made in our growth and diversification strategic directions, as I have already talked about the major highlights. On the customer strategic direction, we continue to have discussions with numerous corporations in France and the UK. In terms of optimization, I would like to highlight all the work done by our teams to integrate our most recent acquisition in the U.S. the integration is going according to plan. Higher ABDA contribution than expected is mainly due to the differences in production tax credit PTC accounting in IFRS standard versus US GAAP. One last point about optimization. We continue to insource maintenance in Canada. We also continue to optimize our capital structure and strengthen our balance sheet with the early repayment of a $58 million loan in France. This completes my part. I will now let Bruno cover the financial portion in more detail, and we'll be back later for the question period.