Boralex Inc.

Bonjour Mesdames et Messieurs et bienvenue à la conférence téléphonique portant sur les résultats financiers du premier trimestre 2024 de Boralex. Veuillez noter que toutes les lignes sont en mode d'écoute seulement. À la fin de la présentation, il y aura une période de questions-réponses au cours de laquelle les analystes financiers, actionnaires et investisseurs seront invités à poser leurs questions en appuyant sur étoiles 1 et 1 sur leur téléphone. Veuillez également noter que cette conférence est enregistrée. Pour les participants à la webdiffusion, vous pouvez également poser des questions au cours de cette conférence, mais celles-ci obtiendront réponse par courriel après l'appel. Enfin, les représentants des médias qui ont des questions sont invités à contacter directement Camille L'Aventure, conseillère affaires publiques et communications externes, 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 Boralec's first quarter of 2024 financial results conference call. 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 the telephone. Also note that this call 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 L'Aventure, Advisor, Public Affairs and External Communications. Her contact information is provided at the end of the quarterly press release. And I would like to turn the conference over to Stéphane Millot, Vice President, Investor Relations for Boralex. Please go ahead.

Well, thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. So, welcome to Borrellec's first quarter results conference call. Joining me today on the call, Patrick Dacoste, President and Chief Executive Officer, Bruno Guilmette, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and other members of our management and finance teams. So, 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. These documents are all available for consultation at cdarplus.ca. 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. So please note that combined is a 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. So the press release, the MD&A, the consolidated financial statements, and a copy of today's presentations are all posted on the Boralex website at boralex.com under the investor section. If you wish to receive a copy of this document, please contact me directly. So Mr. Dacasse will now start with his comments. 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 first quarter. Boralex had a good start to the year, delivering strong growth overall while continuing the disciplined development of our project. Combined EBITDA for the first quarter was 218 million, up 28 million or 14% over the same quarter last year. We benefited from strong production of wind farms and hydroelectric assets in North America, the commissioning of new assets in France, and our strategy to optimize electricity selling prices in France. Net earnings was 73 million, up 62% compared to the first quarter of 2023. And the AFFO under IFRS was 78 million, up 16%. We continue to strengthen our balance sheet with 575 million in available cash resources and authorized financing, providing significant flexibility to fund our future growth. On the development side, our teams continued to make significant progress in our growth and diversification strategy. Our main project under construction and ready to build progress according to the plan. With our wind project operating in Quebec and Lime King in Scotland, expected to start operating at the end of 2024, as well as our first two battery storage projects in Ontario, Eggersville and Tilbury, expected to be commissioned in 2025. Finally, 239 megawatts of projects were added to our pipeline in the quarter, now representing over 6.7 gigawatts of capacity. Regarding market conditions, I would say the demand for renewable energy remains high, in all our core markets with strong commitments from the government to reduce their carbon footprints and strong demand from corporation too in canada the government has scheduled the adoption of the itc for june 2024 this will have a very positive impact on our project in quebec and in ontario i'm also very pleased to highlight our most recent win announced last week of 125 megawatt storage project in ontario in a very short period of time we became the leader of this technology in ontario and in canada as well we're very proud of our team and there is more to come after our success in the recent rfps Our teams are already preparing responses to upcoming tender in Quebec and in Ontario. In the United States, NYSERDA announced the conclusion of the expedited RFP, but did not publish the list of companies selected. The projects that won are expected to be disclosed as contract or signed. NYSERDA, however, indicated to Boralex that the project it had submitted totaling 240 MW were not selected. Next solicitation is expected to be launched in May 2024. Boralex will review the request for information document and will establish its strategy for this request for proposals. In Europe, our team are also working on the upcoming RFPs in France and in the UK. I will now rapidly cover the main variances in our portfolio of projects and growth paths. The change in the pipeline was mainly due to the addition of solar and storage projects in North America in the early stage, the addition of solar and wind projects in Europe in the early stage, and the transition from the early stage to the advanced stage of storage projects totaling 525 MW in North America. In total, our pipeline in early, mid and advanced stages projects now comprises projects totaling 5.8 GW of wind, solar and storage projects. There were not a lot of change in our growth path during the first quarter, except the commissioning of a 21 MW wind project in France. I won't go in detail through the progress made in our growth and diversification strategic direction, as I have already talked about the major highlights. on the customer strategic direction we continue to have advanced discussion with different corporations in france as the demand for renewable energy contracted at attractive price remains high this complete my part i will let bruno cover the financial portion in more detail and we'll be back later for the question period bruno thank you patrick good morning everyone