TSE:PIF Polaris Renewable Energy Q4 2025 Earnings Report C$12.44 -0.31 (-2.43%) As of 04:00 PM Eastern ProfileEarnings HistoryForecast Polaris Renewable Energy EPS ResultsActual EPSC$0.39Consensus EPS N/ABeat/MissN/AOne Year Ago EPSN/APolaris Renewable Energy Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$25.57 millionExpected RevenueN/ABeat/MissN/AYoY Revenue GrowthN/APolaris Renewable Energy Announcement DetailsQuarterQ4 2025Date2/19/2026TimeBefore Market OpensConference Call DateThursday, February 19, 2026Conference Call Time10:00AM ETConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptPress ReleaseEarnings HistoryCompany ProfilePowered by Polaris Renewable Energy Q4 2025 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrFebruary 19, 2026 ShareLink copied to clipboard.Key Takeaways Positive Sentiment: Polaris delivered a 6% year-over-year production increase to 810,731 MWh in 2025, driven by strong hydro performance in Peru and Ecuador and the addition of the 26 MW Punta Lima wind farm (42,056 MWh contribution). Positive Sentiment: Financial performance improved with Adjusted EBITDA of $56.5 million, a conservative balance sheet and a consolidated cash balance of $93.2 million, and the company declared a quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share. Positive Sentiment: Capital structure and shareholder returns were advanced through a simplified debt profile, share buybacks (169,800 shares for ~$1.5M in 2025) and stated capacity to deploy capital for growth opportunities. Positive Sentiment: Growth pipeline broadened — ASAP project in Puerto Rico is awaiting PREPA board approval, a strategic ~10 MW co-located solar LOI is expected to go binding by end of March, Polaris passed a Puerto Rico RFP stage (solar + BESS) and signed an exclusivity for ~1,000 MW of projects in Mexico targeting mid‑teens IRRs and 12–15 month construction timelines. Negative Sentiment: Operational headwinds include grid curtailment in the Dominican Republic (3,500 MWh in Q4; ~5,900 MWh for the year, budgeted conservatively at ~10,000 MWh for 2026) and a ~5% generation decline in Nicaragua from geothermal normalization, which could pressure near-term volumes and revenue. AI Generated. May Contain Errors.Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallPolaris Renewable Energy Q4 202500:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xTranscript SectionsPresentationParticipantsPresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Greetings, and welcome to the Polaris Renewable Energy Incorporated Fourth Quarter 2025 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode, and a question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad, and please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Alba Seisdedos Ballesteros, Chief Financial Officer with Polaris Renewable Energy. Ma'am, the floor is yours. Alba BallesterosCFO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:00:38Thank you, Ali. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our 2025 fourth quarter earnings call for Polaris Renewable Energy, Inc. Before we begin, we would like to remind you that in addition to our press release issued earlier today, you can find our financial statements and MD&A on both SEDAR+ and our corporate website at polarisrei.com. Unless noted otherwise, all amounts referred to are denominated in U.S. dollars. We would also like to remind you that 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, Inc., 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. Alba BallesterosCFO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:01:30These risks and uncertainties include the factors discussed in the company's annual information form for the year ended December 31st, 2025. On today's call, I will walk through our operating and financial results for the fourth quarter, 2025, and full 2025 year. We will then turn the call over to Marc, who will provide a review of our 2025 performance and discuss the outlook for our business and growth prospects. Following our comments, we look forward to taking your questions. Overall, 2025 was a year of measurable progress for Polaris. We deliver year-over-year growth in energy production, revenue, and Adjusted EBITDA, solid operational execution and disciplined cost management, a strong operating cash flow generation, materially simplify and optimize capital structure, and continue capital returns to shareholders. Alba BallesterosCFO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:02:22Importantly, we achieved this while maintaining balance sheet strength and financial flexibility, which remains central to our long-term strategy. Starting with operations, for the full year 2025, consolidated energy production totaled 810,731 MWh, compared to 764,756 MWh in 2024, representing a 6% year-over-year increase. This increase reflects the addition of the 26-MW Punta Lima Wind Farm in Puerto Rico, a strong hydrology in Peru and Ecuador, and solid plant availability across our portfolio. The strongest performance over the year was achieved by our hydroelectric projects in Peru and Ecuador. In Peru, favorable hydrology and excellent plant availability led to a 12% increase year-to-date in hydro output for the Peruvian projects, following what had been a historically dry year in 2024. Alba BallesterosCFO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:03:19Our hydroelectric facility in Ecuador also had an exceptional year, producing 19% more energy year-to-date versus 2024, and 26% more energy in the fourth quarter of 2025 versus the comparative period in 2024, thanks to a strong rainfall and an excellent technical performance, resulting in the highest resource availability since operations began. In Puerto Rico, 2025 marked the first year of contribution from Punta Lima, adding 42,056 MWh post-acquisition and strengthening our technology diversification. In Panama, solar generation in the quarter was 5% higher than in the 2024 comparative period. These increases offset lower output from Nicaragua, where expected geothermal normalization and natural steam field decline reduced generation by about 5% in 2025 versus 2024. Alba BallesterosCFO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:04:13Production at our Dominican Republic Canoa I solar facility decreased slightly 2% year-to-date, reflecting efficiency gains from the new panels installed in 2024, which allowed setting grid-wide curtailments, which were 3,500 MWh in the quarter and 5,900 MWh for the year. Overall, our diversified portfolio, spanning geothermal, hydro, solar, and wind across six jurisdictions, continues to demonstrate resilience and stability and remains one of Polaris' structural strengths. From a financial perspective, adjusted EBITDA increased up to $56.5 million, reflecting a 3% increase year-over-year. Despite inflationary pressures and the onboarding of new assets, operating margins continued to perform strongly, benefiting from disciplined cost management. Alba BallesterosCFO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:05:04I would like to highlight that we have already announced that we will be paying a quarterly dividend on February 27 of $0.15 per share to shareholders of record on February 17. Polaris now has a 10-year track record of consistent dividends, having returned approximately $105 million to shareholders in that period. Also, during 2025, under our renewed NCIB program, we repurchased and canceled 169,800 common shares for approximately $1.5 million during the year, of which 80,000 were purchased in Q4 for approximately $0.8 million. Alba BallesterosCFO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:05:42Today, following debt prepayments in Q1 2025 and Punta Lima Wind Farm integration, Polaris has a simplified debt structure, ample liquidity, and the enters the year 2025, with a consolidated cash position of $93.2 million, including restricted cash and an optimized and energy diversified platform for further growth. These positions the company well to deploy capital into expansion opportunities. With that, I will turn the call over to Marc. Thank you. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:06:10Thanks, Alba. So just a few comments about sort of production and guidance on that front for this year. So we, as we messaged, we moved the major maintenance at San Jacinto from end of last year to this year. It has been completed and executed. As expected, no issues with the turbines, which is great. What that means in terms of, call it, total production on a consolidated basis would for our budget for this year, without any new plans, without any acquisitions, so if we just take the existing plants in operation, with that, with the major maintenance there and some curtailment in the Dominican, our consolidated range for the year would be around 775-790 GWh for the year. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:07:07In terms of what we are working on, on the growth side, as people know, we really focused on the ESS project last year because of the size of it, which was, which is very well matched with the excess cash we have on the balance sheet and the profitability of that project. And so we were very focused on that. And what I would say that given the delays in the approval, which I'll get to in a second, we 3-6 months ago really started to call it diversify our development opportunities in some existing jurisdictions as well as some new ones. So, and I think we're going to start to see the fruits of that very shortly. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:08:00In terms of the actual ESS program, we received approval back like in August from the Energy Bureau, and it moved to PREPA, which is the actual contracting agent. It turns out that in Q4, the board was basically not properly constituted to approve it. It is now properly constituted. They do now have a quorum, and our understanding is that the meeting, basically, the first board meeting of PREPA with properly constituted, call it, quorum will be taking place within the week. And we do know that our ESS project is on the docket for such board meeting, amongst other projects. So we're not the only one. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:08:55There, there's numerous projects that they need to get to, given that there's, I would say, been a pause in terms of their approval of projects. So we are expecting that board meeting to happen in the short term, now that they have the quorum. So in addition to that, we do have a non-binding LOI that we signed regarding the acquisition of a small solar project in one of our current jurisdictions. It's not big, but it's strategic. And we would look to be going binding on that by the end of March. So that's on the acquisition front. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:09:37In terms of other development activities, we are participating in an RFP process in Puerto Rico as well, that came out in Q4, which there was a request for qualifications in December, which we successfully passed, and we're now in the RFP process. We're going to be submitting a solar plus BESS with a heavy BESS weighting to it, so it's more dispatchable. And interestingly, despite the PREPA, which has been delayed, I would say that the process in this RFP is moving very quickly. The timeline is very aggressive, and any sort of correspondence is, you know, I would say, responded to very quickly. So, the actual formal timeline that they have published is that they're looking to have contracts signed by June. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:10:32We actually had to submit comments on contracts yesterday. So that is actually moving. So we're very interested in that in Puerto Rico. Also in the same area, I would say that while the Dominican is having issues with curtailment, we do think that opportunities centered around storage will emerge from it, and we will be looking at being, call it, ready for that, and there are things that we're working on there. And then in terms of importantly in other markets, big focus going forward now is Mexico for us. We yesterday signed an exclusivity agreement with a local developer there for which gives us access to approximately 1,000 MW of projects. So we're very happy about that. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:11:32The way that things are working in Mexico is there's, there's different processes that are going to be happening throughout the year. The first one is something called mixed projects, which is, we were actually invited, given the work that we've done last year, so Polaris was invited to participate in, it's called a convocatoria. It's basically a process to, for them to sort of fast track project/signing of contracts. The short-term one, which is we actually have to submit by next Friday, it's for what they call mixed projects, which is where you're, I would call it basically their build, own, operate, transfer, 25-year build, own, operate, transfer projects with CFE, which is, and they're going to be your contracting entity. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:12:17So, we will with this portfolio that we've call it have exclusive rights to, we will definitely be submitting some of those projects in that portfolio for this short-term mixed projects convocatoria by next Friday. Then still short term, but a little bit later, call it Q2 this year, there's going to be a second process, which will be for more traditional private company long-term PPAs, but where they're not BOOTs. So that's expected to be happening in April, May of this year. And so the plan would be to submit more projects from this portfolio into that, as well as likely some other ones that based on conversations with other local developers that are quite interested in partnering with us for that. So. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:13:14And then beyond that, which I would say is more, call it a medium term, is that, there, those are the two most short-term processes, but that doesn't, that's not going to be the end of it. There's going to be more abilities to contract, either directly with CFE or with other. There are numerous sort of approved purchasers of power there, on a wholesale basis. And so, that's we think that that can be back half of the year or sort of early next year in terms of actual contracting. So, so there's going to be a lot happening on the development side this year in Mexico. In addition, another opportunity that is there that we're looking at is behind the meter, given the regulation changes, as well as the pent-up demand from industrial consumers there. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:14:04So, we do have several acquisitions we're looking at and projects we're looking at that are behind the meter, and there, the behind the meter can be up to 20 MW. So you can get some scale in behind the meter projects now in Mexico. So I would say with Mexico, with the call it RFP in Puerto Rico, and with ESS, I would say we are now sitting here with a lot more call it development shots on the net than we had three months ago, and I would anticipate being able to having taking a reasonable success rate. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:14:43Obviously, we're not going to advance all of those, but, but that we should be, you know, having news in the next 3-6 months with, about defining actual projects that, that we're going to be, call it, you know, starting to build both this year, next year and the following year, so that, so that the, connecting the dots on the five-year plan, will be much clearer next 3-6 months. So that's it for the forward remarks. We can open up for questions. Operator00:15:16Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting our question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. Thank you. Our first question is coming from Melissa Dean with National Bank Capital Markets. Your line is live. Melissa DeaneEquity Research Associate at National Bank Capital Markets00:16:00Hey, team. Thanks for taking my question. Just firstly, I wanted to ask you guys about your M&A pipeline. You mentioned a couple opportunities in your prepared remarks. But, yeah, could you just walk us through the pipeline you're seeing in Latin America, and what kind of valuation multiples and IRR you're seeing, if anything's changed since the last time we spoke? And then you also mentioned in your prepared remarks a non-binding LOI that you signed. If you could provide more detail there as well, that would be great. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:16:30Yeah, just on that one, given that it, it's non-binding, we have a press release, but it's, it's not a large project. It's. But it, it, it's reasonably strategic in terms of it's, it's essentially co-located with, with one of our other solar projects. So, I think there's a high degree of likelihood we convert that to a binding deal, but it's. Just think of it as about 10 MW, so it's not huge. But we quite like the economics, and it's, there's just synergies there. So it's a, we think it's a good transaction. In terms of the overall pipeline, I would say, in terms of multiples for the things we're generally looking at, I. It is a range. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:17:17I would say it's maybe 6.5-7 on the low end, 8.5-9 on the high end. But it's, I wouldn't say that it's really increased in terms of our pipeline. And partly that's just because we are in several processes, but we've seen a lot more of what I would call mid to late stage development, which are technically acquisitions, but they're really just us coming in and taking over. That's really increased. And when we look at those, whether it's batteries or solar or the combination of the two, the construction risk and the construction timeline being, call it, we think the risk is relatively low, the timelines are relatively low, that you're all in sort of. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:18:17Multiple on those is just significantly lower than what we're seeing on the acquisition side, that the gap just doesn't justify really going for these acquisitions. It justifies going for, call it, the shovel-ready or six-month shovel-ready type projects, which is what we're seeing in, for sure, Puerto Rico, a couple of the other markets, and for sure Mexico now. So I would say that I wouldn't want people to think there's a ton of M&A activity for this year. I think it's gonna be much more on the late-stage development activity. Melissa DeaneEquity Research Associate at National Bank Capital Markets00:18:55Okay, so you're seeing a stronger skew of potential for, I guess, in development assets than operating or better returns, I guess, right now at this point? Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:19:04Yes, part of that, too, is I would say there's been a real push by off-takers in all the jurisdictions we're seeing that where there's activity to that are forcing developers to basically partner with people with a balance sheet, track record, and ability to put up, you know, LCs or guarantees prior to getting contracts. So the developers can't go all the way to having a PPA at hand and then, you know, selling it to the top bidder. It's just not possible anymore. So they're being forced to basically to come sooner, which is making the economics more attractive for call it, companies like ourselves that do have access to capital. Melissa DeaneEquity Research Associate at National Bank Capital Markets00:19:49Okay, perfect. That's very helpful. Just on the Mexico opportunity that you mentioned, you said, I think 1,000 MW of project availability. You signed an exclusivity agreement. Can you talk about the PPA structures you're seeing in the Mexico market in terms of contract duration and what kind of IRR opportunities you're seeing there as well? Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:20:10Yeah. So the durations are, I'd say, the low end 15, but 20-25 would be, is typical. So, so good, good duration. But the, the way that you are required to have three-hour. Sorry, 30% coverage with, with storage, for three hours, so not four, which is interesting. But, but so you, as long as you have that, you can get capacity. So, so it's not just that they're not just energy PPAs, they're, they're sort of energy plus capacity. So, so you're. And, and I would say that the economics sort of break down, that it's, call it set. Approximately 70% is your energy and 30% is your capacity, but they're both, you know, it's you're actually getting contracted for the capacity for the life of it. You're not having to. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:21:05It's not as if you get a contracted energy price and then you're going spot on the capacity. You're getting that, you're getting both for the life of the contract. In terms of IRRs, I would say for the cleanest sort of CFE, you know, highest credit quality, you're gonna be in the 12-14, and then IRR and then others, you know, we're seeing would bring that to you 13%-16%. So I'd still say you're close, it's mid-teens, maybe 14% is the right number. But strategically for the company, I think what we're really trying to do, so it's not as high as what we see, for instance, in Puerto Rico or call it Dominican or call it Caribbean. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:21:53But we do think that bringing on those megawatts is much more, call it, predictable in terms of timeline. It's much bigger, the market, so we don't need a huge. It's a very small market share that we need to be, call it, material for Polaris. But so the combination, I would say, of call it, megawatts coming from that market, Mexico, on a much more, call it, bankable basis with the much higher impact returns from the Caribbean, is the combination we're looking for. Now, a lot of that, realistically, though, in Mexico, is not going to be shovel-ready until, call it Q4 or Q1 of next year. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:22:39So the timing of it is important too, which is we get the ESS, and that's gonna become this year's big CapEx project, but then we will have something, I would say, in Mexico on the backs of that, but more for next year. Melissa DeaneEquity Research Associate at National Bank Capital Markets00:22:54Okay, understood. Just for those Mexico projects, the construction timeline, I believe, for SO1 and Puerto Rico was 12 months or less. Are you seeing similar construction timelines for Mexico, or could these- Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:23:08Yeah. Melissa DeaneEquity Research Associate at National Bank Capital Markets00:23:08be different quite materially? Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:23:11No, I would say 12-15 months. Similar. Very similar. Melissa DeaneEquity Research Associate at National Bank Capital Markets00:23:20Okay, perfect. I'll hop back in the queue. Thank you. Operator00:23:26Thank you. Our next question is coming from Nicholas Boychuk with ATB Cormark. Your line is live. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:23:35Thanks. Morning, Marc. Just coming back to the Dominican. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:23:37Yeah. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:23:37I'm wondering if you can kind of expand a little bit more on that curtailment issue, specifically how much it, it might impact this year, if there's anything you can do about it. And I know you mentioned that they are looking to do battery energy storage, but it, it feels like that absolutely has to happen here, and I'm curious what signals you're getting from the regulators in the Dominican as to the size and urgency of needing battery energy storage on their grid. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:24:00Yeah, so we were about 6,000 MWh last year. It's hard to gauge exactly where that's gonna land, you know, this year. I think it's a, that's a reasonable number. I think our budget, to be conservative, is we assume sort of 10,000 MWh for this year, and then we think it'll drop because we do. We know that they are taking the storage seriously. Yeah, I don't want to sort of really promise anything on sort of us doing more storage there, though, but we're you know that we're gonna try to be in the mix. I. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:24:39What I can say is that they, we do know they're taking it very seriously, and we, based on what we have heard from them and what we're seeing them do, is that they would agree with our assessment, which is that the best way sort of forward here is to have numerous sites, call it storage is transmission, to absorb that energy in the middle of the day. I mean, and they have very expensive cost energy and need at night. So it's not as if they're, you know, awash in energy from 6 to 10 P.M. They need it. It's that they just have too much during the day. So I don't think there's any disagreement now in terms of the way forward. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:25:29It's just, it's gonna be hard to handicap exactly, you know, what we can do there. So I think sort of short term, call it more curtailment this year, but I do think they'll get their act together such that next year that they will have resolved the situation at some point next year in terms of the actual curtailment. And we're gonna. We'll see what we can do in terms of- And, and I think if, if we can do that, or as long as they do that, I think it is a market you still wanna participate in, in some form or fashion. Yeah. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:26:02Understood. You mentioned there's a couple new relationships with local developers, and it sounds like the activity in that sphere is really picking up. I'm curious if you can expand a little bit on the drivers behind that. Is it as much the lack of capital in the local market where these guys need to partner with someone like yourself? You mentioned that, but I'm curious if there's also a bit of a nationalization and energy sovereignty, and these, you know, regulators are pushing more of this in their market to decouple from things like fossil fuels. And I guess the whole point of the question is trying to figure out, is this the earliest innings of a push like this? Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:26:35Are we gonna see a lot more activity in the coming six, 12, 18 months? Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:26:43So in terms of actual count, I would say that the dynamic that I was mentioning of developers are being sort of forced to talk to companies like us earlier, I would say we're seeing that in every market that we're in, and then that's just, I think that the driving factor is more the whichever the government entity is that's running a process or that's the contracting entity, I think has experiences where the they've just dealt with a lot of developers that couldn't get a project to the finish line. You know, and so that just seems to be a thread in all these markets. So it's not specific to anyone. So I think that's the reason why it's happening. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:27:30I think we're just in a nice position there with cash on the balance sheet and operating track record in the region that, you know, we tick the boxes. And so it was literally just. We started looking at projects, for instance, in Mexico, you know, last January, quietly, and met with a bunch of the different government entities, and it was only because of that that we actually got invited to participate. So we didn't even actually have. When we got the invitation to participate, we didn't have a specific project. We have specific projects now that we're going to be submitting, but we got invited to participate just because of our CV, call it. But no sort of small developers without operating experience were invited. I don't know if I'm answering. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:28:16I think there were several questions in your, in your question, so ask away if I didn't answer them all. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:28:23No, I guess the only other thing is if you're hearing anything about energy sovereignty and the decoupling of fossil fuels? Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:28:32Sorry, energy what? I missed that word, Nick. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:28:35Energy sovereignty. Like, just making sure that these grids are not in any way tied to external markets, like, you know, the U.S. supplying fossil fuels and natural gas and diesel. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:28:48No, I wouldn't. I'm not hearing that. I think they do want to be self-sufficient. I think unfortunately, it's sort of in, on that issue, Nick, I'd say it's almost different for every different market we're looking at. So, for instance, obviously, Puerto Rico is part of the United States, so it's got its own, it's got its own character. Mexico, I would actually say, us being a Canadian company, is quite helpful, there. And DR, I would say it has, where they're at, it has much more to do with, call it, the too much energy in the day, i.e., curtailment issue, is absolutely the driving factor. So I would say there's no common thread on that front in the different markets that we're in. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:29:41Makes sense. And then last for me, just on timing and magnitude of CapEx. So if ESS goes through with this now in quorum board, when do you think that would turn on, and how are you thinking about overall capital availability for that, potentially battery energy storage in the Dominican, these other RFPs in Puerto Rico, your 1,000 MW in Mexico? That's a lot of, you know, irons in the fire. How are you feeling about the balance sheet? Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:30:06Yeah. And so I would also say that we've moved a bit to. Last year, it was, we had one, like, we had other irons in the fire, as you know, but it was, we really were focused on the ESS. So we are, I'm much more, we're more on the, you know, have many more irons in the fire and then to get the optionality for us. I would also say that I am relatively confident that with our cash position, but also still a conservative balance sheet, that our ability to raise, I would say, fixed income capital to top up there is quite significant and at rates that are better than what we did before. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:30:52That can really and those rates can work in all of these markets we're looking at in terms of the growth opportunities. So, we want a lot more irons in the fire, and I think we can fund what we're looking at. So the theory is a bit like, let's get to the point where we have call it too much to do, and then we have to start, you know, paring back and choosing. But I would say this year, it's still most likely, call it a tiny acquisition, ESS. And then call it announcements and, you know, dotting the i's, crossing the t's on CapEx programs that are realistically gonna start maybe Q4, but I'd say more likely starting Q1, Q2, Q3 next year for projects that are coming online. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:31:46So if you call it ESS coming online, Q1, Q2 next year, the rest of it is call it 12 months behind that, and even 12, I would say 12 and 24 months behind that. So you're gonna see sort of a, some clarity on what 2027 is gonna look like, the CapEx this year for 2027 cash flow, but also then having a line of sight on realistically CapEx for 2027 and 2028, for revenue, cash flow in 2028, 2029. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:32:20Okay. Got it. Thank you. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:32:21Everything we're seeing, at least that we're working on, is such that it, it's all, I would say, chunky enough that, that the, call it the numbers that we have in our presentation for where it be in 2029, you know, we're definitely. They're big enough to get there. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:32:39Perfect. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:32:42One add I would say is, I wouldn't say this, let's say, for Puerto Rico or Dominican, but what I would say for Mexico is if there's "too much," quote, unquote, which I don't, you know, I don't think there's going to be. I think we need to assume that there's a certain hit rate, right? If there was, I would say there's a lot of local capital there that is very interested in participating alongside companies like ours. I do think that there's a possi,it's early days, but I do think there's a possibility that you have. You know, we don't need to be 100% of the local sort of SPV. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:33:23If there's a lot of megawatts there, I think we can find relatively attractively priced capital, both on the debt and equity side there. Operator00:33:34Thank you. As we have no further questions on the lines at this time, this will conclude today's Q&A session and today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day, and we thank you for your participation. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:33:57Thank you.Read moreParticipantsExecutivesAlba BallesterosCFOMarc MurnaghanCEOAnalystsMelissa DeaneEquity Research Associate at National Bank Capital MarketsNicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB CormarkPowered by Earnings DocumentsPress Release Polaris Renewable Energy Earnings HeadlinesPolaris Renewable Energy Inc.: Polaris Renewable Energy Announces Q4 and Annual 2025 ResultsFebruary 19, 2026 | finanznachrichten.deAn Intrinsic Calculation For Polaris Renewable Energy Inc. (TSE:PIF) Suggests It's 48% UndervaluedFebruary 14, 2026 | uk.finance.yahoo.comALERT: Drop these 5 stocks before the market opens tomorrow!The Wall Street Journal is already raising the alarm about a potential market crash, and Weiss Ratings research points to the first half of 2026 as a particularly rough stretch for certain holdings. Some of America's most popular stocks could take serious damage as a radical market shift plays out. Analysts at Weiss Ratings have identified five names you may want to remove from your portfolio before this unfolds. If any of these are in your portfolio, now is the time to review your positions.May 7 at 1:00 AM | Weiss Ratings (Ad)Polaris Renewable Energy: Share Price Has Detached From The OutlookDecember 25, 2025 | seekingalpha.comWhat To Expect From Polaris Renewable Energy Inc (TSX:PIF) Q3 2025 EarningsOctober 31, 2025 | finance.yahoo.comPolaris Renewable Energy Inc.: Polaris Renewable Energy Announces Q3 2025 ResultsOctober 30, 2025 | finanznachrichten.deSee More Polaris Renewable Energy Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Polaris Renewable Energy? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Polaris Renewable Energy and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Polaris Renewable EnergyPolaris Infrastructure Inc is engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development and operation of geothermal and hydroelectric energy projects. The company, through its subsidiaries, owns and operates a 72-megawatt capacity geothermal facility (the San Jacinto Project), located in northwest Nicaragua.View Polaris Renewable Energy ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Latest Articles The AI Fear Around Datadog Stock May Have Been Completely WrongAmprius Technologies Ups the Voltage on Forward OutlookWhy Lam Research Still Looks Like a Buy After a 300% RallyIonQ Just Posted a Breakout Quarter—But 1 Problem RemainsSuper Micro Surges Over 20% as Margins Soar, Sales Fall ShortNuts and Bolts AI Play Gains Momentum: Astera Labs Targets RaisedAnheuser-Busch Stock Jumps as Volume Growth Signals Turnaround Upcoming Earnings Brookfield Asset Management (5/8/2026)Enbridge (5/8/2026)Toyota Motor (5/8/2026)Ubiquiti (5/8/2026)Constellation Energy (5/11/2026)Barrick Mining (5/11/2026)Petroleo Brasileiro S.A.- Petrobras (5/11/2026)Simon Property Group (5/11/2026)SEA (5/12/2026)Cisco Systems (5/13/2026) Get 30 Days of MarketBeat All Access for Free Sign up for MarketBeat All Access to gain access to MarketBeat's full suite of research tools. 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PresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Greetings, and welcome to the Polaris Renewable Energy Incorporated Fourth Quarter 2025 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode, and a question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad, and please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Alba Seisdedos Ballesteros, Chief Financial Officer with Polaris Renewable Energy. Ma'am, the floor is yours. Alba BallesterosCFO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:00:38Thank you, Ali. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our 2025 fourth quarter earnings call for Polaris Renewable Energy, Inc. Before we begin, we would like to remind you that in addition to our press release issued earlier today, you can find our financial statements and MD&A on both SEDAR+ and our corporate website at polarisrei.com. Unless noted otherwise, all amounts referred to are denominated in U.S. dollars. We would also like to remind you that 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, Inc., 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. Alba BallesterosCFO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:01:30These risks and uncertainties include the factors discussed in the company's annual information form for the year ended December 31st, 2025. On today's call, I will walk through our operating and financial results for the fourth quarter, 2025, and full 2025 year. We will then turn the call over to Marc, who will provide a review of our 2025 performance and discuss the outlook for our business and growth prospects. Following our comments, we look forward to taking your questions. Overall, 2025 was a year of measurable progress for Polaris. We deliver year-over-year growth in energy production, revenue, and Adjusted EBITDA, solid operational execution and disciplined cost management, a strong operating cash flow generation, materially simplify and optimize capital structure, and continue capital returns to shareholders. Alba BallesterosCFO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:02:22Importantly, we achieved this while maintaining balance sheet strength and financial flexibility, which remains central to our long-term strategy. Starting with operations, for the full year 2025, consolidated energy production totaled 810,731 MWh, compared to 764,756 MWh in 2024, representing a 6% year-over-year increase. This increase reflects the addition of the 26-MW Punta Lima Wind Farm in Puerto Rico, a strong hydrology in Peru and Ecuador, and solid plant availability across our portfolio. The strongest performance over the year was achieved by our hydroelectric projects in Peru and Ecuador. In Peru, favorable hydrology and excellent plant availability led to a 12% increase year-to-date in hydro output for the Peruvian projects, following what had been a historically dry year in 2024. Alba BallesterosCFO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:03:19Our hydroelectric facility in Ecuador also had an exceptional year, producing 19% more energy year-to-date versus 2024, and 26% more energy in the fourth quarter of 2025 versus the comparative period in 2024, thanks to a strong rainfall and an excellent technical performance, resulting in the highest resource availability since operations began. In Puerto Rico, 2025 marked the first year of contribution from Punta Lima, adding 42,056 MWh post-acquisition and strengthening our technology diversification. In Panama, solar generation in the quarter was 5% higher than in the 2024 comparative period. These increases offset lower output from Nicaragua, where expected geothermal normalization and natural steam field decline reduced generation by about 5% in 2025 versus 2024. Alba BallesterosCFO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:04:13Production at our Dominican Republic Canoa I solar facility decreased slightly 2% year-to-date, reflecting efficiency gains from the new panels installed in 2024, which allowed setting grid-wide curtailments, which were 3,500 MWh in the quarter and 5,900 MWh for the year. Overall, our diversified portfolio, spanning geothermal, hydro, solar, and wind across six jurisdictions, continues to demonstrate resilience and stability and remains one of Polaris' structural strengths. From a financial perspective, adjusted EBITDA increased up to $56.5 million, reflecting a 3% increase year-over-year. Despite inflationary pressures and the onboarding of new assets, operating margins continued to perform strongly, benefiting from disciplined cost management. Alba BallesterosCFO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:05:04I would like to highlight that we have already announced that we will be paying a quarterly dividend on February 27 of $0.15 per share to shareholders of record on February 17. Polaris now has a 10-year track record of consistent dividends, having returned approximately $105 million to shareholders in that period. Also, during 2025, under our renewed NCIB program, we repurchased and canceled 169,800 common shares for approximately $1.5 million during the year, of which 80,000 were purchased in Q4 for approximately $0.8 million. Alba BallesterosCFO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:05:42Today, following debt prepayments in Q1 2025 and Punta Lima Wind Farm integration, Polaris has a simplified debt structure, ample liquidity, and the enters the year 2025, with a consolidated cash position of $93.2 million, including restricted cash and an optimized and energy diversified platform for further growth. These positions the company well to deploy capital into expansion opportunities. With that, I will turn the call over to Marc. Thank you. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:06:10Thanks, Alba. So just a few comments about sort of production and guidance on that front for this year. So we, as we messaged, we moved the major maintenance at San Jacinto from end of last year to this year. It has been completed and executed. As expected, no issues with the turbines, which is great. What that means in terms of, call it, total production on a consolidated basis would for our budget for this year, without any new plans, without any acquisitions, so if we just take the existing plants in operation, with that, with the major maintenance there and some curtailment in the Dominican, our consolidated range for the year would be around 775-790 GWh for the year. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:07:07In terms of what we are working on, on the growth side, as people know, we really focused on the ESS project last year because of the size of it, which was, which is very well matched with the excess cash we have on the balance sheet and the profitability of that project. And so we were very focused on that. And what I would say that given the delays in the approval, which I'll get to in a second, we 3-6 months ago really started to call it diversify our development opportunities in some existing jurisdictions as well as some new ones. So, and I think we're going to start to see the fruits of that very shortly. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:08:00In terms of the actual ESS program, we received approval back like in August from the Energy Bureau, and it moved to PREPA, which is the actual contracting agent. It turns out that in Q4, the board was basically not properly constituted to approve it. It is now properly constituted. They do now have a quorum, and our understanding is that the meeting, basically, the first board meeting of PREPA with properly constituted, call it, quorum will be taking place within the week. And we do know that our ESS project is on the docket for such board meeting, amongst other projects. So we're not the only one. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:08:55There, there's numerous projects that they need to get to, given that there's, I would say, been a pause in terms of their approval of projects. So we are expecting that board meeting to happen in the short term, now that they have the quorum. So in addition to that, we do have a non-binding LOI that we signed regarding the acquisition of a small solar project in one of our current jurisdictions. It's not big, but it's strategic. And we would look to be going binding on that by the end of March. So that's on the acquisition front. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:09:37In terms of other development activities, we are participating in an RFP process in Puerto Rico as well, that came out in Q4, which there was a request for qualifications in December, which we successfully passed, and we're now in the RFP process. We're going to be submitting a solar plus BESS with a heavy BESS weighting to it, so it's more dispatchable. And interestingly, despite the PREPA, which has been delayed, I would say that the process in this RFP is moving very quickly. The timeline is very aggressive, and any sort of correspondence is, you know, I would say, responded to very quickly. So, the actual formal timeline that they have published is that they're looking to have contracts signed by June. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:10:32We actually had to submit comments on contracts yesterday. So that is actually moving. So we're very interested in that in Puerto Rico. Also in the same area, I would say that while the Dominican is having issues with curtailment, we do think that opportunities centered around storage will emerge from it, and we will be looking at being, call it, ready for that, and there are things that we're working on there. And then in terms of importantly in other markets, big focus going forward now is Mexico for us. We yesterday signed an exclusivity agreement with a local developer there for which gives us access to approximately 1,000 MW of projects. So we're very happy about that. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:11:32The way that things are working in Mexico is there's, there's different processes that are going to be happening throughout the year. The first one is something called mixed projects, which is, we were actually invited, given the work that we've done last year, so Polaris was invited to participate in, it's called a convocatoria. It's basically a process to, for them to sort of fast track project/signing of contracts. The short-term one, which is we actually have to submit by next Friday, it's for what they call mixed projects, which is where you're, I would call it basically their build, own, operate, transfer, 25-year build, own, operate, transfer projects with CFE, which is, and they're going to be your contracting entity. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:12:17So, we will with this portfolio that we've call it have exclusive rights to, we will definitely be submitting some of those projects in that portfolio for this short-term mixed projects convocatoria by next Friday. Then still short term, but a little bit later, call it Q2 this year, there's going to be a second process, which will be for more traditional private company long-term PPAs, but where they're not BOOTs. So that's expected to be happening in April, May of this year. And so the plan would be to submit more projects from this portfolio into that, as well as likely some other ones that based on conversations with other local developers that are quite interested in partnering with us for that. So. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:13:14And then beyond that, which I would say is more, call it a medium term, is that, there, those are the two most short-term processes, but that doesn't, that's not going to be the end of it. There's going to be more abilities to contract, either directly with CFE or with other. There are numerous sort of approved purchasers of power there, on a wholesale basis. And so, that's we think that that can be back half of the year or sort of early next year in terms of actual contracting. So, so there's going to be a lot happening on the development side this year in Mexico. In addition, another opportunity that is there that we're looking at is behind the meter, given the regulation changes, as well as the pent-up demand from industrial consumers there. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:14:04So, we do have several acquisitions we're looking at and projects we're looking at that are behind the meter, and there, the behind the meter can be up to 20 MW. So you can get some scale in behind the meter projects now in Mexico. So I would say with Mexico, with the call it RFP in Puerto Rico, and with ESS, I would say we are now sitting here with a lot more call it development shots on the net than we had three months ago, and I would anticipate being able to having taking a reasonable success rate. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:14:43Obviously, we're not going to advance all of those, but, but that we should be, you know, having news in the next 3-6 months with, about defining actual projects that, that we're going to be, call it, you know, starting to build both this year, next year and the following year, so that, so that the, connecting the dots on the five-year plan, will be much clearer next 3-6 months. So that's it for the forward remarks. We can open up for questions. Operator00:15:16Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting our question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. Thank you. Our first question is coming from Melissa Dean with National Bank Capital Markets. Your line is live. Melissa DeaneEquity Research Associate at National Bank Capital Markets00:16:00Hey, team. Thanks for taking my question. Just firstly, I wanted to ask you guys about your M&A pipeline. You mentioned a couple opportunities in your prepared remarks. But, yeah, could you just walk us through the pipeline you're seeing in Latin America, and what kind of valuation multiples and IRR you're seeing, if anything's changed since the last time we spoke? And then you also mentioned in your prepared remarks a non-binding LOI that you signed. If you could provide more detail there as well, that would be great. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:16:30Yeah, just on that one, given that it, it's non-binding, we have a press release, but it's, it's not a large project. It's. But it, it, it's reasonably strategic in terms of it's, it's essentially co-located with, with one of our other solar projects. So, I think there's a high degree of likelihood we convert that to a binding deal, but it's. Just think of it as about 10 MW, so it's not huge. But we quite like the economics, and it's, there's just synergies there. So it's a, we think it's a good transaction. In terms of the overall pipeline, I would say, in terms of multiples for the things we're generally looking at, I. It is a range. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:17:17I would say it's maybe 6.5-7 on the low end, 8.5-9 on the high end. But it's, I wouldn't say that it's really increased in terms of our pipeline. And partly that's just because we are in several processes, but we've seen a lot more of what I would call mid to late stage development, which are technically acquisitions, but they're really just us coming in and taking over. That's really increased. And when we look at those, whether it's batteries or solar or the combination of the two, the construction risk and the construction timeline being, call it, we think the risk is relatively low, the timelines are relatively low, that you're all in sort of. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:18:17Multiple on those is just significantly lower than what we're seeing on the acquisition side, that the gap just doesn't justify really going for these acquisitions. It justifies going for, call it, the shovel-ready or six-month shovel-ready type projects, which is what we're seeing in, for sure, Puerto Rico, a couple of the other markets, and for sure Mexico now. So I would say that I wouldn't want people to think there's a ton of M&A activity for this year. I think it's gonna be much more on the late-stage development activity. Melissa DeaneEquity Research Associate at National Bank Capital Markets00:18:55Okay, so you're seeing a stronger skew of potential for, I guess, in development assets than operating or better returns, I guess, right now at this point? Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:19:04Yes, part of that, too, is I would say there's been a real push by off-takers in all the jurisdictions we're seeing that where there's activity to that are forcing developers to basically partner with people with a balance sheet, track record, and ability to put up, you know, LCs or guarantees prior to getting contracts. So the developers can't go all the way to having a PPA at hand and then, you know, selling it to the top bidder. It's just not possible anymore. So they're being forced to basically to come sooner, which is making the economics more attractive for call it, companies like ourselves that do have access to capital. Melissa DeaneEquity Research Associate at National Bank Capital Markets00:19:49Okay, perfect. That's very helpful. Just on the Mexico opportunity that you mentioned, you said, I think 1,000 MW of project availability. You signed an exclusivity agreement. Can you talk about the PPA structures you're seeing in the Mexico market in terms of contract duration and what kind of IRR opportunities you're seeing there as well? Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:20:10Yeah. So the durations are, I'd say, the low end 15, but 20-25 would be, is typical. So, so good, good duration. But the, the way that you are required to have three-hour. Sorry, 30% coverage with, with storage, for three hours, so not four, which is interesting. But, but so you, as long as you have that, you can get capacity. So, so it's not just that they're not just energy PPAs, they're, they're sort of energy plus capacity. So, so you're. And, and I would say that the economics sort of break down, that it's, call it set. Approximately 70% is your energy and 30% is your capacity, but they're both, you know, it's you're actually getting contracted for the capacity for the life of it. You're not having to. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:21:05It's not as if you get a contracted energy price and then you're going spot on the capacity. You're getting that, you're getting both for the life of the contract. In terms of IRRs, I would say for the cleanest sort of CFE, you know, highest credit quality, you're gonna be in the 12-14, and then IRR and then others, you know, we're seeing would bring that to you 13%-16%. So I'd still say you're close, it's mid-teens, maybe 14% is the right number. But strategically for the company, I think what we're really trying to do, so it's not as high as what we see, for instance, in Puerto Rico or call it Dominican or call it Caribbean. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:21:53But we do think that bringing on those megawatts is much more, call it, predictable in terms of timeline. It's much bigger, the market, so we don't need a huge. It's a very small market share that we need to be, call it, material for Polaris. But so the combination, I would say, of call it, megawatts coming from that market, Mexico, on a much more, call it, bankable basis with the much higher impact returns from the Caribbean, is the combination we're looking for. Now, a lot of that, realistically, though, in Mexico, is not going to be shovel-ready until, call it Q4 or Q1 of next year. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:22:39So the timing of it is important too, which is we get the ESS, and that's gonna become this year's big CapEx project, but then we will have something, I would say, in Mexico on the backs of that, but more for next year. Melissa DeaneEquity Research Associate at National Bank Capital Markets00:22:54Okay, understood. Just for those Mexico projects, the construction timeline, I believe, for SO1 and Puerto Rico was 12 months or less. Are you seeing similar construction timelines for Mexico, or could these- Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:23:08Yeah. Melissa DeaneEquity Research Associate at National Bank Capital Markets00:23:08be different quite materially? Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:23:11No, I would say 12-15 months. Similar. Very similar. Melissa DeaneEquity Research Associate at National Bank Capital Markets00:23:20Okay, perfect. I'll hop back in the queue. Thank you. Operator00:23:26Thank you. Our next question is coming from Nicholas Boychuk with ATB Cormark. Your line is live. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:23:35Thanks. Morning, Marc. Just coming back to the Dominican. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:23:37Yeah. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:23:37I'm wondering if you can kind of expand a little bit more on that curtailment issue, specifically how much it, it might impact this year, if there's anything you can do about it. And I know you mentioned that they are looking to do battery energy storage, but it, it feels like that absolutely has to happen here, and I'm curious what signals you're getting from the regulators in the Dominican as to the size and urgency of needing battery energy storage on their grid. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:24:00Yeah, so we were about 6,000 MWh last year. It's hard to gauge exactly where that's gonna land, you know, this year. I think it's a, that's a reasonable number. I think our budget, to be conservative, is we assume sort of 10,000 MWh for this year, and then we think it'll drop because we do. We know that they are taking the storage seriously. Yeah, I don't want to sort of really promise anything on sort of us doing more storage there, though, but we're you know that we're gonna try to be in the mix. I. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:24:39What I can say is that they, we do know they're taking it very seriously, and we, based on what we have heard from them and what we're seeing them do, is that they would agree with our assessment, which is that the best way sort of forward here is to have numerous sites, call it storage is transmission, to absorb that energy in the middle of the day. I mean, and they have very expensive cost energy and need at night. So it's not as if they're, you know, awash in energy from 6 to 10 P.M. They need it. It's that they just have too much during the day. So I don't think there's any disagreement now in terms of the way forward. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:25:29It's just, it's gonna be hard to handicap exactly, you know, what we can do there. So I think sort of short term, call it more curtailment this year, but I do think they'll get their act together such that next year that they will have resolved the situation at some point next year in terms of the actual curtailment. And we're gonna. We'll see what we can do in terms of- And, and I think if, if we can do that, or as long as they do that, I think it is a market you still wanna participate in, in some form or fashion. Yeah. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:26:02Understood. You mentioned there's a couple new relationships with local developers, and it sounds like the activity in that sphere is really picking up. I'm curious if you can expand a little bit on the drivers behind that. Is it as much the lack of capital in the local market where these guys need to partner with someone like yourself? You mentioned that, but I'm curious if there's also a bit of a nationalization and energy sovereignty, and these, you know, regulators are pushing more of this in their market to decouple from things like fossil fuels. And I guess the whole point of the question is trying to figure out, is this the earliest innings of a push like this? Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:26:35Are we gonna see a lot more activity in the coming six, 12, 18 months? Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:26:43So in terms of actual count, I would say that the dynamic that I was mentioning of developers are being sort of forced to talk to companies like us earlier, I would say we're seeing that in every market that we're in, and then that's just, I think that the driving factor is more the whichever the government entity is that's running a process or that's the contracting entity, I think has experiences where the they've just dealt with a lot of developers that couldn't get a project to the finish line. You know, and so that just seems to be a thread in all these markets. So it's not specific to anyone. So I think that's the reason why it's happening. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:27:30I think we're just in a nice position there with cash on the balance sheet and operating track record in the region that, you know, we tick the boxes. And so it was literally just. We started looking at projects, for instance, in Mexico, you know, last January, quietly, and met with a bunch of the different government entities, and it was only because of that that we actually got invited to participate. So we didn't even actually have. When we got the invitation to participate, we didn't have a specific project. We have specific projects now that we're going to be submitting, but we got invited to participate just because of our CV, call it. But no sort of small developers without operating experience were invited. I don't know if I'm answering. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:28:16I think there were several questions in your, in your question, so ask away if I didn't answer them all. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:28:23No, I guess the only other thing is if you're hearing anything about energy sovereignty and the decoupling of fossil fuels? Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:28:32Sorry, energy what? I missed that word, Nick. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:28:35Energy sovereignty. Like, just making sure that these grids are not in any way tied to external markets, like, you know, the U.S. supplying fossil fuels and natural gas and diesel. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:28:48No, I wouldn't. I'm not hearing that. I think they do want to be self-sufficient. I think unfortunately, it's sort of in, on that issue, Nick, I'd say it's almost different for every different market we're looking at. So, for instance, obviously, Puerto Rico is part of the United States, so it's got its own, it's got its own character. Mexico, I would actually say, us being a Canadian company, is quite helpful, there. And DR, I would say it has, where they're at, it has much more to do with, call it, the too much energy in the day, i.e., curtailment issue, is absolutely the driving factor. So I would say there's no common thread on that front in the different markets that we're in. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:29:41Makes sense. And then last for me, just on timing and magnitude of CapEx. So if ESS goes through with this now in quorum board, when do you think that would turn on, and how are you thinking about overall capital availability for that, potentially battery energy storage in the Dominican, these other RFPs in Puerto Rico, your 1,000 MW in Mexico? That's a lot of, you know, irons in the fire. How are you feeling about the balance sheet? Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:30:06Yeah. And so I would also say that we've moved a bit to. Last year, it was, we had one, like, we had other irons in the fire, as you know, but it was, we really were focused on the ESS. So we are, I'm much more, we're more on the, you know, have many more irons in the fire and then to get the optionality for us. I would also say that I am relatively confident that with our cash position, but also still a conservative balance sheet, that our ability to raise, I would say, fixed income capital to top up there is quite significant and at rates that are better than what we did before. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:30:52That can really and those rates can work in all of these markets we're looking at in terms of the growth opportunities. So, we want a lot more irons in the fire, and I think we can fund what we're looking at. So the theory is a bit like, let's get to the point where we have call it too much to do, and then we have to start, you know, paring back and choosing. But I would say this year, it's still most likely, call it a tiny acquisition, ESS. And then call it announcements and, you know, dotting the i's, crossing the t's on CapEx programs that are realistically gonna start maybe Q4, but I'd say more likely starting Q1, Q2, Q3 next year for projects that are coming online. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:31:46So if you call it ESS coming online, Q1, Q2 next year, the rest of it is call it 12 months behind that, and even 12, I would say 12 and 24 months behind that. So you're gonna see sort of a, some clarity on what 2027 is gonna look like, the CapEx this year for 2027 cash flow, but also then having a line of sight on realistically CapEx for 2027 and 2028, for revenue, cash flow in 2028, 2029. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:32:20Okay. Got it. Thank you. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:32:21Everything we're seeing, at least that we're working on, is such that it, it's all, I would say, chunky enough that, that the, call it the numbers that we have in our presentation for where it be in 2029, you know, we're definitely. They're big enough to get there. Nicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB Cormark00:32:39Perfect. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:32:42One add I would say is, I wouldn't say this, let's say, for Puerto Rico or Dominican, but what I would say for Mexico is if there's "too much," quote, unquote, which I don't, you know, I don't think there's going to be. I think we need to assume that there's a certain hit rate, right? If there was, I would say there's a lot of local capital there that is very interested in participating alongside companies like ours. I do think that there's a possi,it's early days, but I do think there's a possibility that you have. You know, we don't need to be 100% of the local sort of SPV. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:33:23If there's a lot of megawatts there, I think we can find relatively attractively priced capital, both on the debt and equity side there. Operator00:33:34Thank you. As we have no further questions on the lines at this time, this will conclude today's Q&A session and today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day, and we thank you for your participation. Marc MurnaghanCEO at Polaris Renewable Energy00:33:57Thank you.Read moreParticipantsExecutivesAlba BallesterosCFOMarc MurnaghanCEOAnalystsMelissa DeaneEquity Research Associate at National Bank Capital MarketsNicholas BoychukDirector Institutional Equity Research at ATB CormarkPowered by