Boralex Inc.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the telephone conference on the financial results of the second quarter of 2023 of Boralex. Please note that all lines are in listening mode only. At the end of the presentation, there will be a period of questions and answers during which financial analysts, shareholders and investors will be invited to ask their questions. If you have asked a question, please press the star following the number 1 and 1 on your phone. To cancel your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. You will then hear an automated message informing you that you raised your hand to ask your question. Please also note that this conference is recorded. For web dissemination participants, you can also ask questions during the conference, but these will be answered by mail after the call. Enfin, les représentants des médias qui ont des questions sont invités à contacter directement Camille L'Aventure, conseillère, affaires publiques et communications externes chez Boralex, aux coordonnées indiquées à la fin du communiqué trimestriel. J'aimerais maintenant passer la parole à Stéphane Milot, vice-président relations avec les investisseurs de Boralex. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to Boralek's second quarter of 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. Note that all lines are in a 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. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. Also note that the call is being recorded. For webcast participants, you can also ask your questions during the conference, but they will be answered by email after the call. Finally, media representatives are invited to contact Camille Aventure, 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.

Well, thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. So welcome to Boralex's second quarter resolve conference call. Joining me today on the call, Patrick Dacoste, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Bruno Guilmette, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and other members of our management and finance team. Mr. Dacoste will begin with comments about market conditions and the highlights of the quarter. Afterwards, Mr. Guilmette will carry on with financial highlights and then we'll be available to answer your questions. As you know during this call, we will discuss historical as well as forward-looking information. When talking about the future, there are a variety of risk factors that have been listed in our different filings with securities regulators, which can materially change our estimated results. So these documents are all available for consultation 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 when referring to cash flow and balance sheet, we generally refer to consolidated numbers. Please note that the combined is non-GAAP financial measure and does not have standardized meaning under IFRS. Accordingly, combined may not be comparable to similarly named measures used by other companies. For more details, see the Non-IFRS and Other Financial Measures section in the MD&A. The press release, the MD&A, the consolidated financial statements, and a copy of today's presentations are all posted on the Balex website at balex.com under the Investor sections. If you wish to receive a copy of these documents, please contact me. Mr. Dacasse will now start with his comments, so please go ahead, Patrick.

Thank you Stéphane and good morning everyone. It's a pleasure for me to present our results and achievements for the second quarter. Before going over the highlights of the quarter, I would like to reiterate our strong confidence in the future of our sector. There has been a lot of negative press in the past few months about some parts of our industry, notably the offshore wind sector. Many projects were stopped in this sector because of the important issues with selling price and supply chain. As an integrated developer and operator of onshore wind, solar, hydro and storage technologies, we're not going through some of these issues in the same magnitude. We experience very limited impact on our operations and development activities. Yes, we're facing some challenge, but we have been able through our agility and innovative approach to overcome them. All our projects under construction are delivering the expected returns and we expect the same for upcoming projects. We will continue to develop our business and be a strong contributor to the energy transition. We are more than ever confident we will execute our plan with discipline in markets we know well and are able to adapt rapidly. Going back to the highlights, in the second quarter, our teams continued to make significant progress in our growth and diversification strategy while pursuing our financial discipline. Our balance sheet remains strong with over 300 million in cash resources and authorized financing facilities providing significant flexibility to fund our growth. 369 megawatts of projects were added to our pipeline in the quarter, now representing over 6.2 gigawatts of capacity. We were also selected for 380 MW of storage projects under the Ontario RFP and for 40 MW of wind project in the France latest wind RFP. Total production increased by 28% in the second quarter compared to 2022 as we benefited from contributions from the integration of wind farms we acquired in the US, the commissioning of assets and comparable production in France. This helped offset the impact of unfavorable weather conditions in North America in June. Our business continued to perform well, generating an EBITDA of 143 million, up 10 million or 7% over 2022, reflecting the contribution from the U.S. acquisition and commissioning of assets in France which more than compensated the decrease relating to lower production of our Canadian wind farms. Please note that the comparable figure in the second quarter of 2022 included a 14 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. In general, demand for renewable energy in our markets remains high, creating a positive environment for the operation and the development of our activities. Favorable programs are being discussed or put in place, in particular the ITC in Canada, which is similar to the IRA in the US. Legislative measures were recently published and we are expecting the new law to come into effect by the end of the year. Also, many requests for proposals are planned in the next six months. Hydro-Québec RFP for 1.5 gigawatts, Ontario's second request for proposal for energy storage and capacity, and the NYSERDA solicitation in the state of New York. In France, A 500 megawatt technology neutral tender and two 925 megawatt onshore wind tenders are also expected. UK also restart their RFP program for wind solar. I will now rapidly review the main variances in our portfolio of projects and growth paths. The change in the early stage was mainly due to three factors. First, the addition of two new wind projects, seven new solar projects and one storage project in Europe, and one wind project and one storage project in North America for a total of 369 megawatts. the progression of two energy storage projects that were selected in the Ontario RFP to the secure stage for a reduction of 380 megawatts, and lastly, the progression of two wind projects, two solar projects, and one storage project in Europe to the mid-stage phase for a reduction of 64 megawatts. In the mid-stage, the progression of the 64 megawatts of projects were offset by the change in the expected capacity of one wind project in Europe for a decrease of 10 MW and the progression of one wind project in Europe to the advanced stage phase for a reduction of 52 MW. In total, our pipeline now comprises projects totaling 5.3 GW of wind, solar and storage projects. In the growth path, the secured stage increased with the progression of two energy storage projects selected in the Ontario RFP, totaling 380 megawatts. In the US, we continue to work on the optimization of our solar project and are expecting feedback from NYSERDA in the coming months. In France, the capacity of projects under construction decreased by 32 megawatts. due to the commissioning of two wind farms and a storage unit. I won't cover in detail the progress made in our growth and diversification strategic direction, as I already talked about the major highlights. On the customer strategic direction, we continue to have discussions with numerous corporations in France as the demand for renewable energy contracted at attractive price remain high. In terms of optimization, we internalized the service and maintenance of six U.S. solar power station with a total installed capacity of 200 megawatts. 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. Bruno?