Clearway Energy Q1 2026 Earnings Report

Clearway Energy EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$1.35
• Consensus EPS: -$0.45
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.90
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Clearway Energy Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $354.00 million
• Expected Revenue: $340.75 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$13.25 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Clearway Energy Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2026
• Date: 5/7/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, May 7, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Clearway Energy (NYSE:CWEN) (NYSE: CWEN) is an independent power generation and energy infrastructure company that owns and operates a diversified portfolio of renewable and conventional energy assets in the United States. Its business is focused on producing electricity and selling energy, capacity and related services under long-term agreements with utilities, municipalities, commercial and industrial customers, and other counterparties.

The company’s renewable portfolio includes wind and solar generation facilities, along with battery storage assets. Clearway also owns conventional power generation facilities, including natural gas-fired plants, and district energy systems that provide services such as steam and chilled water. This combination of assets gives the company exposure to both renewable power development and established power markets.

Clearway Energy was formed from the former NRG Yield business and adopted its current name in 2018. The company is sponsored by Clearway Energy Group, an energy infrastructure platform that develops and manages renewable and conventional power assets. Its projects are located across various regions of the United States, serving electricity markets and customers through contracted and merchant arrangements.

Clearway Energy Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Clearway reaffirmed 2026 CAFD guidance, reiterated a 2027 CAFD per share target of $2.70+ and said it now expects to deploy ~20% more corporate capital through 2026–2029 (raising the 2026–2029 plan to $3 billion), and is targeting the top end or better of its 2030 CAFD per share range of $2.90–$3.10.
• Positive Sentiment: Significant progress on co‑located digital infrastructure: equipment purchases, a design/delivery partnership with Quanta & Blattner, PPAs and interconnection activity — Clearway says first load could be served as soon as 2028 and a single complex could represent a >$1 billion capital opportunity, providing upside to targets.
• Positive Sentiment: Fleet optimization is advancing: new Texas wind PPAs (with more expected), a repowering program (~$600M corporate capital at 11–12% CAFD yields), and the Cardinal acquisition closed with an expected CAFD yield in excess of 12%, all boosting cash‑flow visibility.
• Neutral Sentiment: Q1 results: adjusted EBITDA of $257M and CAFD of $70M with solar/battery and flexible generation in line, but wind was below budget due to weather and a Vestas turbine enhancement program at Alta; management nonetheless reaffirmed full‑year 2026 CAFD guidance of $470M–$510M.
• Positive Sentiment: Capital allocation and funding moves: shareholders approved share‑class simplification to a single public security to increase float/liquidity, and the funding plan prioritizes retained CAFD, corporate debt (target leverage ~4–4.5x with ~45% debt on incremental funding) and accretive equity issuance while lowering payout ratio toward the 70s.

Presentation

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by. My name is Janice, and I'll be the operator assisting today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Clearway Energy Inc first quarter 2026 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a Q&A session. If you would like to ask questions during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. I would now like to turn the conference over to Akil Marsh. Please go ahead.

[Akil Marsh, Senior Director of Investor Relations at Clearway Energy Inc]

Thank you for taking the time to join Clearway Energy Inc's first quarter call. With me today are Craig Cornelius, the company's President and CEO, and Sarah Rubenstein, the company's CFO. In addition, we have other members of the management team in the room to answer your questions if needed. Before we begin, I'd like to quickly note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements which are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. Actual results may differ materially. Please review the safe harbor in today's presentation as well as the risk factors in our SEC filings. In addition, we will refer to both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. For information regarding our non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please refer to today's presentation.

[Akil Marsh, Senior Director of Investor Relations at Clearway Energy Inc]

In particular, please note that we may refer to both offered and committed transactions in today's oral presentation and also may discuss such transactions during the question and answer portion of today's conference. Please refer to the Safe Harbor in today's presentation for a description of categories of potential transactions and related risks, contingencies, and uncertainties. With that, I'll hand it off to Craig.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Thanks, good evening, everyone. I'll begin on slide five, where we outline our business update. Clearway remains firmly on track to deliver best-in-class growth in the near and long term. We are reiterating our 2026 CAFD guidance and our 2027 CAFD per share target of $2.70 or better, which continues to be supported by execution across all our growth pathways. What has evolved meaningfully since our November update is the scale and visibility of growth investments we now see in the medium and long term. Based on work completed over the last several months, we now expect to deploy 20% more corporate capital between 2026 and 2029 relative to our prior outlook. This increase reflects successful commercialization outcomes and stronger execution across our enterprise.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Power demand tied to co-located digital infrastructure continues to represent a growth opportunity that we're advancing deliberately. Progress includes new equipment purchases, a design and delivery partnership with our friends at Quanta and Blattner, and ongoing engagement with hyperscaler customers across multiple complexes in our development program. While we remain disciplined in what we'll move forward on and when, these developments increase our confidence that digital infrastructure campuses will represent a sizable long-term growth opportunity that is additive to our existing robust outlook. In parallel, we've also strengthened our capital allocation framework during the quarter with the approval of the share class simplification proposal.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Taking these factors together, we are now increasing our focus towards delivering the top end or better of the 2030 CAFD per share target range of $2.90-$3.10 per share that we set just six months ago, reflecting the potential growth investment visibility that we achieved in recent months. The continued success heightens our confidence that we'll be able to set a growth target in 2031 later this year that translates to the top end of our 5%-8%+ long-term growth range in 2031. Turning to slide six. Fleet optimization remains one of our most capital-efficient growth pathways, and we continue to make meaningful progress on two fronts: revenue enhancements in our existing Texas wind fleet and our repowering program.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Starting with our Texas fleet, during the quarter, a previously awarded PPA with a hyperscaler has now been executed. We expect two additional awarded PPAs to be executed later this year. These contracts extend contracted tenors across three operating assets and significantly enhance long-term revenue and cash flow visibility. Turning to repowerings, our program continues to move forward on schedule. From a capital perspective, we continue to expect to deploy approximately $600 million of corporate capital across the repowering program at 11%-12% CAFD yields, while extending asset lives and improving the quality and durability of cash flows well into the next decade. Overall, these fleet enhancements further solidify the pathway to potentially exceed our 2030 financial objectives. Turning to slide seven. During the quarter, we seamlessly closed the Cardinal acquisition, formerly referred to as Deriva.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

We continue to expect a CAFD yield in excess of 12% on the transaction, and the acquired assets are performing in line with expectations. Cardinal is highly complementary to Clearway's existing fleet, along with presenting clear avenues for upside value creation. Looking ahead, we continue to evaluate additional M&A opportunities with discipline. At a high level, our core requirements include near-term accretion and long-term CAFD yields of approximately 10.5% or better. A strong strategic fit with upside value creation potential and deal sizing that aligns with our broader capital allocation framework. Importantly, potential future M&A remains upside to our existing targets rather than a requirement to achieve them. Turning to slide eight. For the 2026 and 2027 vintages, we are 100% commercialized on sponsor-enabled growth projects, with construction progressing as planned.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

In the 2028 COD vintage, we've made substantial progress as well, with contracts signed or awarded for over 70% of the megawatts we plan to bring online, putting us well-placed to achieve the top end or better of our 2030 target from investments planned for 2028. Turning to slide nine. We are also confident in the strength of our 2029 COD vintage as a key driver of our long-term growth outlook. Our development pipeline for that vintage is sizable and diverse, underscoring both the scale of the opportunity and the depth of our execution capabilities. Within the 2029 pipeline, we have advanced priority projects that total over 4 GW and include an approximately 2 GW solar plus storage project in the late stages of development.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Importantly, what our enterprise is developing in the 2029 COD vintage has meaningfully more capacity than is required to meet our 2030 financial objectives. This provides resiliency and optionality as we continue to progress commercialization, allowing us to be selective and disciplined while preserving upside. Turning to slide 10. Since November, we've materially increased our line of sight to investment opportunities in the near term, with total corporate capital deployment over the 2026-2029 period now expected to be $3 billion. The green portion of the chart represents committed and identified investments, while the darker blue shade represents future late-stage growth opportunities that we expect to identify on future earnings calls as commercialization progresses. This increasing visibility provides us with conviction that we can achieve the top end or better of our 2030 target.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

The capital plan outlined on this slide excludes further upside from third-party M&A or co-located digital infrastructure investments that we may execute on from a position of strength. Turning to slide 11. We have confidence not just in meeting our 2030 target, but in achieving the top end or better, given the visible and abundant growth outlook discussed earlier and illustrated in this walk. Starting from our reaffirmed 2027 target, the investments already committed and identified across the 2027 through 2029 COD vintages provide a clear path to meeting our 2030 target, with future growth investments enabling us to get to the top end or better of the target. This presented walk incorporates conservative assumptions around corporate financing and our base portfolio, consistent with our historical practice of underpromising and over-delivering in the way we set long-term objectives for the enterprise.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

In our flexible generation fleet, we assume long-term market price outcomes grounded in a conservative set of assumptions around California's regulations and market design. If long-term pricing of capacity and energy attributes from those facilities is consistent with historical equilibrium prices, that would lead to CAFD per share above the target range in 2030 and beyond. As always, future and uncommitted third-party acquisitions are not included in our long-term goals, and the emerging opportunity set for co-located digital infrastructure investments would also present upside opportunity relative to these goals. Taken together, this robust outlook allows us to now aim for the top end or better of the 2030 CAFD per share target range of $2.90-$3.10 that we set just six months ago. Turning to slide 12.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

During the quarter, we also made tangible progress across several fronts in our business program in digital infrastructure assets. We are increasingly optimistic that our incumbency, our preexisting development assets, and natural advantages as a developer operator of mission-critical power assets will position Clearway to be a mainstay provider of power and powered land to satisfy our country's needs in this domain. Our acceleration of work during the past quarter included progress across site development, commercialization, and delivery preparation that together sets the stage for construction of differentiated and large-scale co-located generation and powered land for data centers later in this decade. We completed equipment purchases for the first phase of generation at our complex in Wyoming and are targeting first load served as soon as 2028.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

We established a design and delivery partnership with our longtime friends at Quanta and Blattner, who are now advancing our work across the three complexes in our pipeline. We signed PPAs with a data center development entity and entered the queue for a priority interconnection position at our complex in MISO. Our preparation of our Montana complex is also now coming into view, with first generation targeted for 2030 or sooner and 500 MW of PPAs now signed and awarded. Across all of the complexes we have in development, we are seeing active and constructive engagement from our country's largest hyperscalers, who see in Clearway a partner they can trust to deliver powered land that they need at scale and with a generation mix that addresses their goals. As a reminder, the co-located digital infrastructure opportunity represents incremental upside to our goals.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Illustratively, one complex alone could provide Clearway with a $1 billion or greater capital deployment opportunity weighted towards 2030 and beyond. As always, any upside investment would be aligned with our stringent underwriting criteria for near and long-term value creation. Turning to slide 13. Based on our strongly accelerating development activity in our historical core business, we see potential for at least $1 billion of corporate capital deployment in 2030, which in turn could allow for us to sustain the high end of 5%-8%+ CAFD per share growth into 2031. Our sizable 4 GW of 2030 vintage projects under development across our enterprise are strategically positioned, qualified for tax credits, and represent volumes in excess of what's needed to achieve our financial objectives.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

On top of this, we have conviction that part of one or more of the co-located data center complexes will eventually be commercialized, providing an upside investment opportunity. Taken together, the progress we are making across Clearway's multiple redundant growth pathways reinforces our confidence in the results that Clearway's best-in-class growth engine will deliver for years to come. With that, I'll turn the call over to Sarah, who will walk through our financial summary.

[Sarah Rubenstein, CFO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Thanks, Craig. Turning to slide 15, I'll cover our first quarter financial results and our reaffirmed outlook for 2026. For the first quarter, Clearway delivered adjusted EBITDA of $257 million and CAFD or free cash flow of $70 million. From an operating perspective, our solar and battery suite had strong performance across the portfolio and delivered results in line with budgeted expectations. The same was true in our flexible generation segment, which delivered solid operational execution during the first quarter. In our wind suite, resource was lower than budgeted expectations in certain regions due to lower wind resource and availability, with the most meaningful impact coming from Alta. The first four months of the year have seen meteorological conditions that have led to below average resource levels for the wind industry across the Western U.S. compared to historical norms.

[Sarah Rubenstein, CFO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Also evident in our first quarter results was the impact on availability from a turbine enhancement program that Vestas North America is executing at Alta 2, 3, 4, and 5. We initiated the program in 2025 in conjunction with establishing a performance-based contract mechanism with a goal of returning those units to their historical availability levels of 95%+ in the second half of 2026. Moving to the full year outlook, we are reaffirming our full year 2026 CAFD guidance range of $470 million-$510 million as we continue to believe we are well positioned to meet our 2026 financial objectives based on growth commitments tracking on schedule and expected operational performance for the remainder of the year.

[Sarah Rubenstein, CFO at Clearway Energy Inc]

As per our usual practice, the guidance range reflects the potential distribution of outcomes tied to operating performance, energy pricing, and the timing of growth, in addition to assuming P50 resource for the remainder of the year. As always, our P50 resource expectation within our guidance assumes normalized weather conditions consistent with long-term historical averages. Turning to slide 16, as disclosed last week, our share class simplification proposal was approved at our annual meeting, reflecting investors' clear preference for simplification and a more straightforward public structure. The simplification eliminates complexity by moving to one publicly traded security and positions us to broaden shareholder depth. Consistent with what's shown on the slide, we expect that one class of publicly traded shares will have higher average daily trading volumes, and the larger public float will make it a more attractive security for public investors.

[Sarah Rubenstein, CFO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Lastly, the simplification allows for greater flexibility to support our capital funding strategy. To meet our long-term CAFD per share and payout ratio goals, the efficient deployment of accretive capital is a key part of our strategy. Our core strategy to support the funding of growth for Clearway continues to include enhancing our position of strength over time by lowering our payout ratio to fund more growth with retained cash flows, while also utilizing corporate debt as a funding source. As we noted in past quarters, the issuance of equity, only when accretive, will also be a funding tool to ensure we prudently meet our financial objectives.

[Sarah Rubenstein, CFO at Clearway Energy Inc]

While a core reason for implementing the simplification proposal was to honor investor feedback and simplify our public structure, a larger public float with greater trading liquidity has the second-order impact of putting the platform in an improved position to utilize equity to fund attractive growth while ensuring equity is issued without price disturbance. Overall, we view this simplification as value-enhancing for shareholders and supportive of our long-term financial objectives. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Craig.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Thanks, Sarah. To recap, we entered 2026 with a clear set of objectives, which I'm pleased we're on track to achieve. We are on pace to deliver our 2027 CAFD per share target, and beyond 2027, we have increasing line of sight towards achieving the top end or better of our 2030 CAFD per share target. Equally important, we are building durability into that growth with our prudent funding strategy and long-term payout ratio objectives. Beyond 2030, our work is increasingly focused on extending the growth runway for our enterprise well into the next decade.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Over the coming quarters, specifically as part of our third quarter earnings update, we plan to advance initiatives that will enable us to roll forward our explicit CAFD per share growth target into 2031, targeting the high end of 5%-8% annual growth from the midpoint of our 2030 target. This includes continued advancement of our traditional development pipeline, as well as thoughtful commercialization of gigawatt-scale energy complexes to serve data center demand, which will present upside to the goals that we set based on our planned progression of our historical core business. In summary, we believe Clearway is executing extremely well and is laying a foundation for durable long-term value creation. With that, operator, we are ready to take questions.

[Operator]

At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Justin Clare of Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.

[Justin Clare, Analyst at Roth Capital Partners]

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking our questions here. I wanted to just start out on the digital infrastructure here, and wondering if you could just speak to the potential timing in which you think you could make the first investment in digital infrastructure. It looks like these projects are potentially moving a little bit faster than expected. The Wyoming Data Center could begin operating in 2028. Is there a possibility that Clearway could make an investment in that 2028 timeframe, or what do you think the most likely scenario is?

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Yeah, the possibility does exist. I think we're in the fortunate position, Justin, of having just a broadening array of opportunities that are being advanced by the Clearway Group sponsor entity in historical core business, as you saw, where grid-tied projects that serve both utilities and corporate or hyperscaler customers are maturing in our pipeline and in the position to enable CWEN to deploy the amount of capital that it would plan to deploy to hit the top end of its targets in the medium and long term. These digital infrastructure campuses put us in the position to augment a core business pipeline that's already in great health relative to the goals that we set for the CWEN entity.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

What we will be doing over the course of the next few years is making a determination in any given vintage around what is optimal as a complementary additional fit for CWEN, assessing its position in capital markets, and determining what's really going to be most value accretive for the shareholders of Clearway Energy Inc in terms of investment tempo and fleet composition. The acceleration of opportunity around those digital infrastructure campuses really just puts us in the fortunate position that we can think about accumulating a fleet of significant size. The time that each individual asset may find its way into Clearway Energy Inc is ultimately gonna be paced by what's most accretive to the public entity.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Yes, it's possible that some of the first investments in generating technology that would go into those campuses could be available to CWEN as soon as the end of 2028. It will be alongside other investment opportunities in the core business.

[Justin Clare, Analyst at Roth Capital Partners]

Got it. Okay. That's really helpful. Just following up, how should we think about the relative attractiveness, you know, based on what you're seeing today in the digital infrastructure assets relative to traditional utility scale investments? You know, would you anticipate CAFD yields to be similar, or are there meaningful differences? Are there any other factors that you're considering in terms of the relative attractiveness? One could be just the size of investment, could be quite substantial, and there could be benefits there. Maybe you just help us understand that.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

You know, I think it's still early for us to, you know, speak specifically to, you know, the individual structure that could be employed for deployment of capital by CWEN into infrastructure of this kind. It will vary from one complex to another and from one customer to another. The way that we're generally thinking about it is that we are looking to fashion projects which exhibit the same technical and commercial characteristics as those we routinely build for other grid-tied settings. When we present Clearway Energy Inc with an opportunity to deploy capital into those complexes, we aim to present it with an opportunity to deploy that capital with a similar risk profile, a similar tenor, a similar CAFD yield, a similar long-term risk-adjusted return proposition.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

There very well may be additional infrastructure that is developed and transferred either to a partner utility or to the hyperscaler technology company themselves as part of one of these sizable complexes. We most certainly aim for the total scope of the complex to present ample opportunities for CWEN to deploy its capital with a risk profile and a return similar to what it sees from the grid-tied projects we prepare for it.

[Justin Clare, Analyst at Roth Capital Partners]

Okay. makes sense. I appreciate it. Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question is coming from the line of Mark Jarvi of CIBC. Please go ahead.

[Mark Jarvi, Analyst at CIBC]

Yeah, thanks. Craig, you mentioned the word tempo, investment tempo. Just to clear, you're not short of investment opportunities and ability to deploy capital. When you think about the medium-term targets, and you're tracking at or above the 8% level through 2030, what holds you back from trying to push that above the 8% and maybe closer to 10% on the upper end of the range? Is it funding that you just don't wanna get ahead of yourself on? Is there anything else that you would say would sort of temper expectations for you guys right now?

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Yeah. Thanks for asking the question, Mark. I mean, I think you know that what's put our company in the great standing that it enjoys is that we put one foot in front of the other and make our growth happen through a progressive evolution and capital allocation framework and deployment of capital. When we think about the velocity of new investments in CAFD per share growth, we think first and foremost around the capital allocation framework we've set, which aims to maintain a prudent leverage ratio between 4x and 4.5x, drive the payout ratio in the business down into the 70%s as we approach the end of the decade.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

And to have the pace of growth matched with our public investors' appetite for that growth. You are absolutely right that we want to be thoughtful about the pace that we present new investment opportunities for CWEN so that the extent to which it accesses equity markets is entirely digestible. We are very proud of the way that we approached that work over the last year where there was no noticeable price disturbance for the amount of equity that we did issue through the ATM. We are also proud of how the simplification proposal that has now been adopted and effectuated should allow that kind of equity issuance through at the market instruments to happen in a way that, as Sarah noted, will not disturb share price.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

There's still, you know, a very reasonable pace that we think makes sense from a crawl, walk, run perspective. We don't intend to rush things. The opportunity set as we build it out at the Clearway Group level gives us the ability to really pace things based on a speed that feels most comfortable for our public investors. In terms of the actual result in CAFD per share levels, certainly, other factors in the overall portfolio and the refinancing of our future debt maturities will also be factors that present themselves over time as we continue to extend contracts on our existing fleet and we roll maturities. Again, I think our track record of planning that prudently and then beating those assumptions on the upside is well demonstrated.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

I think our hope would be that each year, we build a pace that we think is sensible. We match it to appetite from our public equity investors and bondholders, for forming capital for new growth investments. As our fleet continues to mature over time, we harden the base volume of CAFD and the CAFD per share it contributes, and we continue to drive upwards to the top end or better of each new target range that we set. I think, you know, I think really it's about making sure that we're deliberate in the pace that we approach both the bond and equity issuances that are needed to fund the growth of the business. We feel quite good about continuing the track record we have, which makes each new issuance well-received.

[Mark Jarvi, Analyst at CIBC]

Makes sense. Just to follow up on that, like it does feel like the market is receptive to the strategy and the execution and the plan you put ahead there so the ATM does not seem like a headwind for you right now. As you look ahead on continuing to accelerate the growth, expand on the growth, is there anything else beyond just maybe, like, going a little hard on the ATM that you're contemplating selective asset sales, any other thing in the corporate structure like hybrid securities? Or do you wanna kinda keep it very much plain vanilla capital structure for this point?

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

You know, when we look out through the plan to deliver, you know, up to the top end or better of our business plan just through our core business, the quantity of equity that would need to be issued in any given year is not a tremendously large number. It's digestible and consistent with what you see premium growth utilities, who we aim to emulate, routinely issuing through instruments like that. We don't right now see a need to undertake the use of some other structure for raising capital that is more exotic than that. You know, I think, as we contemplate, you know, larger upside opportunities that we've denoted here that would be most likely to materialize further out in the kind of 2029, 2030 and beyond timeframe, we'll be a bigger company.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

The size of our float will be larger. The amount of the retained CAFD in the business will be greater. The amount of leverage capacity in it will also be greater. Those things all work in a mutually reinforcing way that, you know, should hopefully allow us to continue to grow above scale without needing to look beyond the vanilla instruments we use today to fund that growth. Certainly we'll be thoughtful about what's available in the market at that time, and the way that we'll choose to fund growth will be informed by the same virtues of prudence and capital formation and risk avoidance and capital structure that have put us here.

[Mark Jarvi, Analyst at CIBC]

Sounds good. Thanks for the time tonight.

[Operator]

Your next question is coming from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

[Hannah Velásquez, Analyst at Jefferies]

Hey, everyone. This is Hannah Velásquez on for Julien Dumoulin-Smith. Thanks for the update and congrats on the quarter. Just to kick off with my question, I had a follow-up on the data center opportunity or rather the large complex. I understand you're targeting a mix of resources across renewables and conventional. I don't know what the right word is, but overbuilding, I suppose, your renewables? I've heard or I've read that if you were to, say, provide solar to cover your data center need because of the 25% capacity factor call it, you would need a 4x overbuild on solar in that example. Is that the right way to think of it? If so, does that imply that Clearway Group would perhaps bias more towards conventional?

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

You know, It's an interesting ratio that you're referencing. It's, I don't think that that's really representative of the way that we've been designing these complexes, or the way that we've engaged with customers for the generation they provide. You know, I think the way that we've looked at these, we've first with respect to the role of the gas generation, I think we're proud of the pragmatic perspective we've maintained really since the inception of Clearway and its predecessor incarnation as NRG Yield, where we've seen that gas generation and renewables and now storage together can play a very complementary set of roles in a generation stack.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

The way that they get mixed together, most definitely varies from one location to another, based on whether you've got a system that peaks in the winter, or a system that peaks in the summer, or the relative resource attributes in NCF, Net Capacity Factor, of one technology or another. I think that's what you see in the design of the different complexes that we're building where you might see more or less solar nameplate capacity or more or less natural gas fueled nameplate capacity in one location or another. We most definitely are not looking at, I guess what your term was, kind of like an overbuild ratio like that.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

The way this sort of works out is that we're identifying what the least cost best fit technology is in a location, assessing local site constraints, determining how much generation that technology can provide during the 24 hours of the day in any 12-month period. After determining what is cost-effective and consistent with land use expectations in that community and at the federal level, making sure that there is an appropriately sized gas or battery generator at that location to assure that we can provide firm supply to the data center at that location or to the load serving entity that's going to play a vital role in balancing the system. I would not say that rule of thumb is really something we see.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

You know, for example, in the case of the Montana complex, I'd say, you know, you would not see that kind of a ratio of a solar generator to gas capacity.

[Hannah Velásquez, Analyst at Jefferies]

Got it. Thank you. Just as my follow-up, perhaps on the tax equity or the health of the tax equity capital markets. I know this has been a common theme for the past couple of months, is there anything to comment there? We have heard that a few of the larger institutional tax equity investors have paused in response to some of the FEOC ambiguity. Is that impacting your sponsor in any way? I know perhaps Clearway Group is good about a domestic first strategy in terms of procurement, anything to comment there and perhaps even if it's the impact is overstated amongst the market. Thank you.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Yeah. Thanks for the question. You know, I'm not in a position necessarily to address the broad market, but I can address our experience. I'm really proud to say I don't think we've been executing with tighter financing at size at any point in our history. For us anyway, the markets for project debt, for construction debt, for tax equity, tax credit transfer are the most robust we've ever seen them. We are organizing extremely efficient financing. The size of the projects that we are now organizing financing for, which are principally pointed to the 2028 vintage because everything that we'd financed for or everything that's sort of pointed to 2027 is largely complete already in financing, are some of the biggest projects that we've ever financed.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

We just closed a billion-dollar tax equity facility that's the largest we've ever closed. The banking community likes doing work with us because the projects we put together exhibit a nice risk-adjusted profile, and they trust us with their capital. I think part of the other reason why we're on such good footing is that the safe harbor program we built for Clearway, I think, is really at the top of the industry in terms of its level of organization and rigor and planning. I think the projects that we're completing now don't need to comply with the foreign entity of concern requirements that you're noting might have been difficult for some because of when we safe harbored those projects. The equipment we purchase would comply anyway.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

The combination of our domestic first supply chain, the planning we had for safe harboring and just the quality of Clearway as a sponsor all mean it's been actually a very routine and robust period of time for us in financing projects. The last thing I'll note, just because you did ask about safe harbor, is that I think we're really proud of the way that we've planned that program for our development pipeline well out into the 2030s. The same planning that put us in a position to be routinely financing projects right now for completion in 2027 and 2028 has put us in a position to look out well past 2030 with projects that will be eligible for tax credits and compliant with existing statute and guidance.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

All in all, our finance team is doing a tremendous job. They've already organized billions of dollars in financing this year, which is committed and have billions more to go. This is really the best financing environment we've ever seen.

[Hannah Velásquez, Analyst at Jefferies]

Got it. Thank you, and congrats again.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Thank you.

[Operator]

I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask question, press star then one on your telephone keypad. Your next question is coming from the line of Heidi Hauch of BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

[Heidi Hauch, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Hi, good afternoon. Congrats on the update here. I just wanna ask yet another question on the digital infrastructure projects. I guess, just thinking about what we're hearing is, you know, natural gas projects, especially today, are more expensive and complicated to build, you know, just given EPC constraints and equipment constraints. How should we think about, you know, the return premium that Clearway Group would need to earn on these complexes relative to the complexes that are kind of renewables only? Is it possible or should we think that, you know, some of that premium it trickles down to, you know, a higher CAFD yield on those specific natural gas complexes? Thank you.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Yeah. I think the thing that I think you've noted at the end in using the word complex probably becomes the most important word for purposes of Clearway's investment opportunity. Our goal is to have the novelty and scale of these facilities to give the combination of Clearway Group and Clearway Energy Inc an investment opportunity that produces great risk-adjusted returns. We are focused as much on longevity and risk in structure as we are on the nominal return that a project can produce. We're thinking about both of those together.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

As far as the gas generator in most of these complexes go, it remains still quite possible that the owner of that gas generation wouldn't be a Clearway company or affiliate, but instead a utility who's interconnecting the full basket of resources or the technology company themselves. What entity owns the firming gas generation, I think, is something that's kind of a reflection of which entity is gonna be in the best position to balance the co-located load and generation. You know, we think of our role here as assembling a set of generator technologies that can allow someone to run at a very high level of reliability, some very important digital computation infrastructure, not to own a gas plant per se.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

In all of these cases, some type of gas generation, either there at the site or delivered through the system is pretty vital to balancing it. You know, there's certainly a value proposition for both Clearway Group and Clearway Energy Inc as a source of long-term capital in providing that kind of firming generation. Whether that is something that CWEN ultimately sees in the form of a very long-dated, low-risk return or a premium return, I think, is something that we will sort through in the future. What we are focused on today is creating these projects so that we have the opportunity to have that kind of thoughtful engagement, and we're doing very good at that right now.

[Heidi Hauch, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Great. That's very helpful. Just going to, you know, this updated corporate funding strategy, I guess how would you, how would you think through as we go into 2030+, and even if there's a potential that you target that 1.7 GW of incremental growth to 2029, that's not currently in the $3 billion plan. I mean, we saw or we're seeing, you know, you upping your investment that, then in tandem upping, you know, external equity, accretive equity. How should we think about funding kind of the next leg of growth? Do you expect that, if you did pursue incremental growth for 2029, for example, you'd have more retained cash flow or more debt capacity, relative?

[Heidi Hauch, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

I guess just like why not increase the percentage coming from corporate debt or the nominal amount coming from corporate debt and retained cash flow as you're increasing your full investment target?

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Yeah.

[Heidi Hauch, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Thank you.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Yeah. I think I understand your question, and I can sort of address it from the standpoint of basic principles. Then, Sarah, I'll turn to you, and you can maybe share an example of the way that we think about how incremental increases in corporate capital investment opportunity would be capitalized as we grow. I think, we're most definitely going to follow, as the corporate capital deployment opportunity set grows the same algorithm that we've communicated, for years. We look first to retain cash flow as a preferred first source of capital for investment and growth. Then second to the bond markets and debt capital within a prudently managed capital structure.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

You know, we've talked about 4x-4.5x as that prudent leverage ratio that we look to maintain as a business, and that is a ratio that has been our range really going back for, really I think the entirety of our life as a public enterprise. As we grow our fleet, both that amount of retained cash flow, especially into 2030 and beyond, will be growing. As you note, our debt capacity, if managed to sort of that midpoint, of that leverage ratio, for example, will be growing also, and we will certainly most definitely plan to make use of those sources of funding, first.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Beyond that, there's some once those have been utilized, some basic formulaic relationship between the dollars of new corporate capital that we could deploy and the fraction of those that would be funded from debt or equity. Maybe to that end, Sarah, I'll turn to you to just sort of provide a basic rule of thumb.

[Sarah Rubenstein, CFO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Sure. Sounds good. I think, you know, to Craig's point, the amount of capital that we plan to deploy to meet our 2030 target has, you know, already assumed that we'll use all available retained CAFD. Then we will fund the amount that we're able to through the issuance of corporate debt, which within our leverage ratio looks like about 45%. That means for the incremental investment above, you know, sort of the baseline that we've indicated we'll need to get, you know, to our target range, which was that $2.5 billion of corporate capital that we already talked about.

[Sarah Rubenstein, CFO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Once we get above that, we're, you know, we're able to issue corporate debt at about that 45%, but the balance of that 55% is going to have to come through the issuance of equity. But that, you know, because we're talking about achieving, you know, above the high end of the range, you know, we believe we'll be able to do that from a position of strength without causing significant, you know, disruption to the price.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

That last point is really the most important point, which is that we're in the really fortunate position to have an opportunity set for Clearway Energy Inc that allows us to think about setting our sights, you know, above the long-term goals we'd articulated just six months ago. To the extent that we're thinking about in a measured way, one quarter after another, one year after another, increasing the tempo or the scale of corporate capital deployment, we'd be doing that because it's evident that the cost of that funding makes each new investment accretive, that our public investors welcome the proposition of our deploying that extra capital and issuing the securities that we need to issue to fund that. It's not a necessity.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

We feel really fortunate to be in the position we're in, where that's a choice we can make rather than an obligation. It's something that we can move through one step at a time. I think we're not gonna be surprising anybody with that because, you know, really your question is oriented around a time vintage that's three to four years from now, and we will all be able to get there together one step at a time.

[Heidi Hauch, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Great. Very helpful. Thank you.

[Operator]

There's no other question in queue. That concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the conference back over to Craig Cornelius for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

[Craig Cornelius, President and CEO at Clearway Energy Inc]

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today and for your ongoing support of Clearway. We're proud of the work we're doing to deliver new generating capacity in markets across our country with an array of diverse energy resources that are critical to the country's needs. Operator, you may close the call.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Akil Marsh, Senior Director of Investor Relations
• Craig Cornelius, President and CEO
• Sarah Rubenstein, CFO

Analysts

• Hannah Velásquez, Analyst at Jefferies
• Heidi Hauch, Analyst at BNP Paribas
• Justin Clare, Analyst at Roth Capital Partners
• Mark Jarvi, Analyst at CIBC