Boralex Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Boralex First Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. Please 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 by pressing star 1 and 1 on their telephone. Please also note that today's conference is being recorded. For webcast participants, you can also ask questions during the conference, but they will be answered by email after the call. Finally, media representatives are invited to contact Camille Aventure, Senior Advisor, Public Affairs and External Communications at Boralex. Her contact information is provided at the end of the quarterly press release. And I would now like to turn the conference over to Colleen Desiomo, Director, Investor Relations for Boralex. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to BrailleX first quarter results conference call. On today's call, Patrick Dicot, our president and chief executive officer, will provide an update of our business. Afterwards, Bruno Guilmette, our executive vice president and chief financial officer, will present the financial highlights of the quarter. Then we will be able to answer your questions. 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, which can materially change our estimated results. These documents are all available for consultation on SEDAR. In our webcast presentation, the disclosed results are both on a consolidated and a combined basis. Please note that combined is a non-GAAP financial measure and does not have standardized meaning under IFRS. For more details, see the Non-IFRS and other financial measures section in the MD&A. Mr. Decote will now start with his comments. Please go ahead, Patrick.

Thank you, Colleen, and good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure for me to present our results and achievements for the first quarter of 2025. This quarter, we observed significant variability in resource availability impacting our financial results. the strong performance of our wind assets in Canada only partially offset unfavorable wind conditions in France. Total combined production was down 1% in the first quarter compared to 2024. EBITDA on a combined basis was 199 million, which is a decrease of 19 million compared to Q1 2024. This change is due to a lower wind resource in France and anticipated lower power prices in short-term contract for wind farm in France than in the same period of 2024. Bruno will cover later in more detail our first quarter financial results. During this first quarter, we continue to make strong progress toward our growth and diversification strategy. particularly with the commissioning of our Lionkin wind farm in Scotland, our first operating asset in the United Kingdom, an important milestone in a very promising market for Boralex. We now have over 3.2 gigawatts of assets in operation in our four key geographies, and 660 megawatt of project in construction and ready to build phase with commercial operations planned in 2025 and 2026 looking ahead we look forward to present our 2025 2030 strategic plan at our investor day which will be held in june on june 17 in toronto We're very positive on the future of our business and will continue to be ambitious in our growth and diversification strategies. Regarding market conditions, the demand for renewable energy in our targeted markets remains high, driven by different factors, such as favorable government incentives, population growth, industrial and digital expansion, creating new opportunities for our development activities. In Canada, following their recent victory in the federal election, the Liberal Party, led by Mark Carney, has committed to maintain the Clean Energy Investment Tax Credit and doubling the Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program to $10 billion. Consequently, Quebec and Ontario remain strong potential growth markets for Boralex. our local expertise and good relationships with First Nations and communities provide a solid foundation for preparing upcoming bids in both geographies. In the United States, ongoing uncertainty surrounding potential policy changes and the implementation of tariff has led to near-term upward pressure and economic volatility in the first quarter of 2025. Still, power demand in the United States remains strong, driven by growth in U.S. manufacturing and the expansion of data centers. is therefore particularly important to stay focused on our long-term strategy of growth in the u.s market as we believe that renewable energy projects particularly solar and non-shore wind project are well positioned to meet this rising demand in new york state the government will have to rely more heavily on onshore renewable energy to meet its climate goals, following a federal order to stop the development of offshore wind facilities. In this market, we're still waiting for the final results of the NYSERDA 2024 request for proposals expected to be announced in the coming weeks. While I have already highlighted the operation of our Limekin wind farm, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Boralex UK team for their hard work and effort in bringing this project to completion. The successful commissioning of Limekin is also due to the valuable consultation work with local communities carried out by our team, who has been present on the ground since the first stages of the project. The operation of Lime Kiln enables us to strengthen our strategic position in the UK, where we have strong growth ambitions for the coming years. We are now preparing ourselves to submit bids in the next AR7 RFP expected this summer. During the first quarter, we also continued to progress with construction of our project in Canada. The commissioning of our APWIT project is expected this summer. Nearly all of the 34 turbines are now installed. Despite the later than anticipated start of operation and cost overruns, the internal rate of return of the project remains in line with our targeted range. In Ontario, the construction of our two battery storage projects, Ayersville and Tilbury, are advancing as planned, with commissioning scheduled by the end of this year, 2025. Our Dénèges Sud project wind farm is also progressing on schedule with commissioning planned for the end of 26 or beginning of 27. In France, we also have three projects under construction, all located in the region Hauts-de-France. Project Fontaine-les-Boulans and Febvin-Palfard, totaling 29 megawatts, will start operating in the coming months, while Les Sans-Mancodé project just entered the construction phase with the commissioning scheduled next year. With these projects, Boralex Strangshank is positioned in this historically significant region where the company operates more than 500 megawatts. I will now rapidly review the main variances in our portfolio of projects under development and growth path. The increase in the pipeline was mainly due to the addition of wind and solar projects in Europe and North America in early stage. The increase in capacity of wind and solar projects in Europe and North America in early and mid stage And in total, our pipeline of early, mid, and advanced stage projects now consists of project totaling nearly 7.1 gigawatts of wind, solar, and storage projects. In the first quarter, the gross pass represents a capacity of 887 megawatts, a decrease of 104 megawatts compared to the previous quarter, mainly explained by the transition to operational phase of the Limekin wind farm. 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?