Polaris Renewable Energy Inc.

and we will open for questions following the presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your phone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Anton Jelic, CFO at Polaris. Anton, over to you.

Thanks, Jenny. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our call. In addition to our press releases issued earlier today, You can find our financial statements and MD&A on both CDAR Plus and our corporate website, PolarisREI.com. Unless noted otherwise, all amounts referred to are denominated in U.S. dollars. I'd like to remind you the comments made during this call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation regarding the future performance of Polaris Renewable Energy and its subsidiaries. These statements are current expectations and as such are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. These risks and uncertainties include the factors discussed in the company's annual information form for the year ended December 31st, 2023. I'm joined this morning as always by Mark Murnaghan. At this time, I'll walk through our financial highlights. Power generation. During the three months ended June 30th, 2024, per hour production was 186,887 megawatt hours compared to 209,982 megawatt hours in the three months ended June 2023. For Nicaragua in the second quarter of 2024, production was 114,046 megawatt hours lower compared to the same period last year at 131,529 MWh. Consolidated production in Peru for the three months ended June 30th was also slightly lower at 42,374 MWh than the comparative period last year, which totaled 51,986 MWh. At our Dominican Republic Canola 1 solar facility, we produced 14,613 megawatt hours in the three months ended June 2024. This is higher than the second quarter of 2023, reflecting enhanced productivity from the newly installed panels. For Ecuador, the second quarter of 2024, average production of 11,253 megawatt hours was in line with production in the comparative period last year. And finally, in Panama, Vista Hermosa Solar Park production of 4,600 MWh was greater than our management expectations with minimal comparative to 2023, given the facility went COD at the beginning of Q2 last year. Revenue. Revenue was $18,700,000 during the three months ended June 30th, 2024, compared to 20.8 million in the same period in 2023. Net earnings. Net earnings attributable to the owners was $985,000 for the quarter compared to $4.6 million for the same period in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $13.3 million for the three months ended June 30th compared to $15.7 million for the same period last year. Sorry, that was a decrease to $13.3 million. Cash generation. Net cash from operating activities for the three and six months under June 30th was lower than the comparative period last year, mainly due to lower cash received from Nicaragua as expected due to scheduled downtime for major maintenance of the facility during Q2, as well as recognition of unearned revenue in Peru. Net cash used in investing activities for the three and six months under June 30th was considerably lower when compared to the same periods in 2023. While the cash usage in the current year relates to the Canola One optimization project and the major maintenance of the geothermal facility in Nicaragua, cash usage in investing activities in the same period of 2023 related to disbursements linked to projects such as the construction of the binary unit in Nicaragua and the completion of the Vista Hermosa solar park in Panama. Net cash used in financing activities for the three and six months ended June 30th, 2024 and 2023 are comparable. And finally, dividend. I'd like to highlight that we have also announced once again, we will be paying a quarterly dividend on August 23rd of 15 cents per share to shareholders of record on August 12th. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark who will elaborate on our quarterly results as well as current business matters. Thanks.

Thanks, Anton. So, yeah, as Anton mentioned, I would say consolidated production was generally in line in all of the countries except for Peru. Peru was slightly below, and that was just lower hydrology, which I'll get into in a second. In terms of San Jacinto, Nicaragua was in line, given that we did do major maintenance in April. So that was that was planned major maintenance and so the results I would say were right in line with our expectations given that major maintenance was completed on time on budget and it's just worthy to note that there were no issues with the turbine whatsoever so everything was good to go and we didn't encounter any issues there from a turbine perspective, which is great, which does support the fact that we've moved to 18-month intervals instead of 12-month intervals in terms of the major maintenance for each turbine. Now into Peru, as I mentioned, it was a bit lower. Really what happened is the dry season came just a little bit earlier this year than normally. So that's the reason for the lower numbers in Peru. I would say incidentally, even though it's only a month, but July is marginally ahead of expectations and budget. So it's at least the dry season is not necessarily looking drier than normal. It's just that the season started earlier than it normally does. In terms of the Dominican, It was, we were above in the same period last year principally or all given the replacement program that we started earlier in the year. We were only about 55% done on average through the quarter, but it did help our numbers for sure as we expected. The actual solar irradiation from Q2 this year compared to Q2 last year was lower. So we likely would have had even higher if it was the same. So just a quarter, the resource was a little bit lower. Otherwise, I think we would have been sort of probably another 1,000, 752,000 megawatt hours in the Dominican had it been the same to try to do a comparable year over year. And then lastly, Panama was... production was in line, but somewhat stronger prices than we were expecting. And so that helped the numbers for the quarter as well. In terms of the projects and the initiatives, Kanoa, the panel replacement is going according to schedule. We should be completed by next week. And that's been done essentially on time on budget. And so we should expect to start to see, call it the full benefits of that starting now. So we look forward to seeing those results in the next few quarters. In terms of the The larger project at Kanoa, as I mentioned on the last call, we have received the environmental permit to include batteries. We remain in the process with the regulator to amend the concession, but we do think we are getting very close to achieving that. We've had some positive back and forth, and so we are moving that forward and hope to have that approval of the amendment this quarter, such that we can move forward and and get the down payments on the equipment placed. And once we have that, we think it would be about 12 months from there. And I would say that panel prices continue the trajectory that they've been on, which is positive. And I would say same comment for the batteries. In terms of... acquisitions which I did mention on the last call. We continue to these continue to move forward. We continue to progress on them and we are working hard and hopefully we get something across the finish line in the near term. So that is that remains a key focus. So the combination of what we're working on the expansion of Kanoa plus acquisitions. We think those really are the two main initiatives that we're working on at this time in terms of the growth. And we think that that really ties things together in terms of the capital allocation plan. And we are hopefully really shifting the focus to renewables plus storage as opposed to just renewables. And financially, we're well positioned to do this given our cash position and low leverage. I would just quickly mention that we will be planning on extending the normal course issuer bid, which we put in place about 12 months ago. So we will extend that and we may look to do opportunistic purchases every now and then over the next 12 months. And lastly, I discussed a green bond before. Really for us, this is a Q4 target for this year, which we continue to look towards. The ability to repay, at least in part or in whole, the San Jacinto loan. is January of next year, so we think Q4 is good timing to do something whereby we could have a part of the proceeds to repay that as well as a part of proceeds to fund growth initiatives. is a good blend in terms of use of proceeds. It's the right timing. And so we look forward to trying to execute on that at Q4 this year. And with that, we think we can significantly increase our cash flow per share without the need to raise any equity. We can continue to grow the business and diversify. And so that's really the big strategic imperatives at this point in time that we're looking to execute on in the back half of the year. So that's it for us. We can open up for questions.