Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Polaris Renewable Energy fourth quarter 2024 conference call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and we will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Anton Jelic, Chief Financial Officer. Sir, the floor is yours.
Thanks, Matthew. Welcome, everyone, to the 2024 year-end earnings call for Polaris Renewable Energy. In addition to our press releases 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. I'd also like to remind you that comments made during the call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation regarding the future performance of Polaris and its subsidiaries. These statements are current expectations and, as such, are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. These risks and uncertainties include the factors discussed in the company's Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31st, 2024.
I'm joined, as always, this morning by Marc Murnaghan, CEO, and Yumey Fernandez, our Director of Finance. At this time, I'll walk you through our financial highlights. Power generation: consolidated power production for the year was 764,756 MWh versus 800,951 MWh in 2023. While in Q4, we saw 195,797 MWh generated compared to 192,820 MWh last year. For Nicaragua, in the fourth quarter of 2024, production was 116,400 MWh, higher compared to the same period last year at 112,195 MWh. Sorry, higher. My apologies. Higher. Consolidated power production in Peru for the three months ended December 31st was in line with the comparative period in 2024. At our Dominican Republic Canoa 1 solar facility, we produced 14,315 MWh in the three months ended December 31st. This is a 12% increase versus the fourth quarter in 2023, despite lower irradiation going to increase productivity of the new solar panels.
For Ecuador, in the fourth quarter of 2024, average production of 6,395 MWh was lower than the comparative period in 2023. In Panama, Vista Hermosa Solar Park production of 4,389 MWh is marginally lower than the same period last year. Revenue was $18.8 million during the three months ended December 31st compared to $18.7 million in the same period last year and $75.8 million for the full year compared to $78.5 million in 2023. Net earnings for the year was $3 million compared to earnings of $11.7 million for the full year 2023. Adjusted EBITDA of $55 million for the year compared to $57.7 million for the same period last year. Net cash from operating activities for the 12 months ended December 31st was $35.1 million, lower than the $44 million for the same period in 2023.
Net cash used in investing activities for the 12 months ended December 31st was $3.3 million compared to $11.4 million in the same period in 2023. The net cash from finance activities for the 12 months ended December 31st of $27.7 million was largely impacted by the issuance of green bonds for $175 million in December 2024. Normalizing for the effect of the green bonds, the cash used in finance activities in 2024 would have been comparable to the $27.7 million net cash outflow from financing activities in 2023. Finally, dividends. I would like to highlight that we have already announced we will be paying a quarterly dividend on February 28th of $0.15 per share. With that, I'll turn the call over to Marc, who will elaborate on Polaris's annual results as well as on future business matters. Thank you.
Thanks, Anton. Okay. In terms of the results, I would highlight that in Q4, year-over-year, Nicaragua was actually up year-over-year, which is quite important. The way we've been running the field is that the binary is not at full capacity. It's at about 8 MW instead of 10 MW, which we implemented earlier last year. With that, I would say the field is showing very good stabilization. Actually, the steam in Q4 was up year-over-year. We are quite happy with how that stabilized. We may get back to looking at moving that up later this year, just depending on how the wells perform in the first half of the year. We are quite happy with that.
Peru, Q4 was quite strong, which is nice to see because Q3, which is the dry season in Peru, was actually a very dry season. The rains came and the production was very good in Q4 for Peru. That has continued on this year so far. It does seem that the rainy season is back and in full force, which is great. As well, in Dominican, that was up given the panel replacement. We do expect to have sort of a full year of the benefits of the panel replacement this year. Hopefully we can get a little bit closer or to the budget that we had when we did that. We are seeing the benefits of that. I would say it's generally tracking in terms of the efficiencies that we were looking for. Irradiation in the quarter was lower year-over-year.
The actual sort of conversion efficiency was very close to what we predicted when we did the replacement program. Lastly, in terms of the actual historical results, I would say that if you look at 2024 versus 2023, when you add our op costs and our G&A costs, they are actually down year-over-year. Again, in an inflationary environment, I would say we are keeping our eyes on the cost control and doing a very good job at that. In terms of what we are looking for for the current year, with the operating assets in place, let us call it flattish in terms of production. We do think Nicaragua will be running at a level very similar to where it was at in Q4. I think our numbers for the year, including major maintenance, which this year we are doing major maintenance in November.
We're budgeting between 460,000 MWh-470,000 MWh for the year, which would be similar to last year and running, call it flat to Q4. Very similar for the other assets, although we would look to Peru being somewhat higher this year, back to more normal levels. You can take that. What will be additive is that we did receive approval from the local regulators in Puerto Rico, which we needed for our acquisition of Punta Lima Wind Farm. We needed the approval for the change of control, which we've received. We are now moving to closing, which we would expect will happen before the end of this quarter. You should see, call it three quarters, pardon me, of contribution from that acquisition this year. In terms of, call it growth beyond that, really, I'll start with the organic.
On the backs of closing the Punta Lima, we hope to be undertaking something that we think is very interesting, which is grid-connected storage programs that they're looking to implement on the island. That would likely be our first project there, would be brownfield as it would be on the site. I would say, as I sit here now, we would be shifting, call it in terms of brownfield opportunities, shifting a little bit from the Dominican to Puerto Rico as soon as we close. We should be able to be giving more color on what that opportunity looks like in terms of the capital outlay and the timing. It should be coming actually quite quickly. Pay attention to those updates shortly. In the DR, the DR is still there. It's just happening a little bit slower.
We still think that solar plus storage, and storage is the key here, is going to remain an important organic part of our organic growth going forward. We're really just trying to work out the regulations as to how it all gets paid for in terms of energy versus capacity. It is coming. It's needed. They really need it. We're ready to go. We're just positioning ourselves with that. It's just likely a little bit slower. That's on, call it, organic growth of existing properties. In terms of M&A, pipeline is robust as it always has been. What I would say, though, is now, I think the multiple gap, call it, between what we trade at and what an operating asset, a good operating asset with a reasonable contract life on it, there's always been a multiple gap.
I would say that that multiple gap is lower than it's ever been for numerous reasons. There still is a gap, but it's much smaller. That's encouraging. Given that we completed the bond offering in Q4 last year, we actually have some dry powder in terms of capital from that to put it to work. I think that combination bodes well for, call it, something in the back half of the year on the M&A side to complement what we're looking at on the organic side. In terms of what is the capital we have, I think it's just at December 31, we showed, I think, $217 million of consolidated cash. That's prior to paying out the three loans that we paid out.
After paying that out, the way to look at it, the pro forma cash on the balance sheet is about $100 million. If you earmark 20 for the Punta Lima transaction, that would leave us with about $80 million of consolidated cash on the balance sheet after closing Punta Lima and after repaying all the debt, which for us is a very healthy level. I think we can do a fair amount of damage with that. That is really what we're going to be focused on in the next three to six months here. With that, I'll open it up for questions.
Certainly. Everyone at this time will be conducting a question and answer session. If you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone at this time. We do ask that while posing your question, please pick up your handset if you're listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone. Your first question is coming from Nick Wojcik from Cormark Securities. Your line is live.
Thanks. Good morning, Marc. On that organic opportunity in Puerto Rico that you just mentioned, can you expand a little bit more maybe on potential magnitude? How much you could add to this site, how much the interconnect can afford for you to add in batteries, and the pace at which you think you could maybe get that developed?
Yeah. One of the nice things about the project is that there's somewhat of an overbuilt interconnect relative to the project. The transmission line is over, let's call it, 130 MW relative to a 26 MW wind farm. The substation, if we were to stage it a little bit, is about 40 MW. Okay? Just on that alone, if we were to, call it, optimize, if the first phase was trying to optimize the 40 MW substation, based on what we're looking at in terms of, and just to add a bit, it's really a grid stabilization program and, call it, energy shifting program that they're looking at doing there. You're not really even connecting into the renewable plant. It's literally just a battery connected to the grid that they dispatch as they want to. It's technically simpler.
The first phase, we would be limited to the 40 MW substation until such time as we, call it, added capacity to that. If all we did was use that theoretical, call it, not theoretical, the 40 MW, if that's the first phase, and based on capacity prices that are being sort of discussed, we would be anywhere from, if we could max that out, sort of $15 million-$20 million of EBITDA for us, which would be material. I probably need 60 days to really dot the i's and cross the t's on that. That is what we're looking at. I would say that's material. They're nice long-term contracts. Obviously, it's in U.S. dollars. That, I think, is about a 12-month build cycle. Again, it's not an operating asset.
In terms of, I would put that as even lower than constructing a solar plant, right? In terms of risk, 12 months, so reasonably quickly, reasonably low risk. We could do that with the cash on our balance sheet right now, for sure. I think to the extent that, and the numbers we're seeing is that they, on a consolidated basis there, would like to probably do more of it. We would need to increase the capacity of the substation, which that would be more of a 12-month, or sorry, call it, I'd say an 18-month to 24-month timeline. You could look to potentially double it there, double those numbers. In terms of when you would have clarity on that, it would probably be within 12 months.
I would say there's also a smaller.
It's not as big of an opportunity. If you were to double the EBITDA numbers, obviously those for us are very material. Call it the, I would put an opportunity in terms of timing in there that would be actually adding some solar, but then backing it up with, backing the solar up with storage so that you can be delivering energy, call it, between 6:00 and 12:00 P.M., which is when they really want it, not in the middle of the day. We've had conversations, and they're very amenable to discussing that probably in 6 months to 12 months. That would not be big. I think that's an additional brownfield organic, call it, opportunity we're going to look at there.
Okay. Obviously, $15 million-$20 million, that is a meaningful EBITDA pickup. Given that it's more of an infrastructure, it sounds like, asset, should we be thinking that this comes at a lower return on invested capital? Is the incremental CapEx going to be high for this, or is this going to be a very attractive growth opportunity for you?
Yeah. I do not have any numbers in the deck. I would say, at least as we are looking at it, it would be the best sort of return on capital we have in our, call it, pipeline of both organic and acquisitions. That is it at this point in time. Yeah.
On that M&A front, I know the pipeline's still active, like you said. Given geopolitical issues that are happening, obviously, U.S., but also now with Ecuador, are you thinking differently about where you would want to expand and what that fuel type or technology would have to be? Are you shifting maybe more towards now certain markets versus others? I know it's obviously going to be USD-denominated, but any color there would be interesting to hear.
I don't know if we've really shifted where. Yeah, I would say Ecuador is not on our list right now, that's for sure. We are looking at some things in Panama that are contracted, and that's what we would want to see there. We are looking at DR. We are even starting to see some other opportunities in Puerto Rico. Those would be the three that we're looking at of the current portfolio. There are a few other markets that we are looking at, all in USD, all in the region. I would say that there is a bit of a domino effect to what's happening in the U.S., but in a good way for us, in the sense that one, we're looking at an asset that has some ownership, I believe, by a U.S. company. They're for sure doing some consolidating at home, shall we say.
I think that that is actually, I don't see that many negative impacts to what's happening in the U.S., thus. Now we're starting to see some potential, call it, positives for us on the acquisition side. Because capital, a lot of whether it was through the loan programs or the grants or the tax equity thing, that's what fuels the U.S. assets. If people have commitments that they've made or projects they've made, and if that's at all in jeopardy, you're starting to retrench a little. They're going to have to take care of that first. I think that's going to open up opportunities where we are. We're seeing literally one just as of yesterday that's quite interesting. I think it's a net positive for us.
Okay. That's good to hear. Then last from me, obviously, you've got this cash balance. You've renewed the NCIB. Should we be thinking at all about the dividends or are these growth opportunities just so attractive that it isn't worth allocating capital to a divvy?
Yeah. I would say they're so attractive. That takes precedence. I think we can do both, grow quickly, and potentially, call it, increase the, call it, returns to shareholders. Obviously, we got a $0.60 U.S. annual dividend. We are buying back a very small amount of stock. My preference still would be to increase the dividend. I think we could do that. I think that's what we will look at. I think the only gating, it's not even a gating item. If the growth comes at us really quickly, it's more back end on the dividend increases. If it's slower, we probably get to the dividend increases sooner. We are just trying to balance those two things. I really think we can do both.
Okay. That's awesome. Thanks, Marc.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Rupert Merer from National Bank. Your line is live.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. You talked a little about the stability that you're seeing in Nicaragua, but you are going to do some major maintenance and contemplate some future enhancements. I'm wondering, can you talk to us about the maintenance program? What does that look like? What's the length of time and the cost? What could your future enhancements look like?
We actually call it major maintenance, but we do that every 18 months, Rupert. There are two turbines. Every 18 months, we take one of the two turbines down for a period of two to three weeks. The actual hard cash cost of that is around $500,000 in terms of outlay of cash. The bigger cost is your downtime, which is about typically, I'd say it's 7,000 MWh-8,000 MWh as to what you lose. That was in the numbers. Of note, last 2024 had major maintenance in it, but 2023 did not, just because of the 18-month cycle. We will be doing it again in November. The numbers I gave you, though, include a major maintenance in it in terms of production for the year.
Right. What could your.
In other words, that is net downtime for major maintenance.
Right. Got it. What kind of enhancements could you look at in the future? Are you still considering the addition of the solar panels in Nicaragua? And how many?
In terms of solar panels, we have the ability to do it. But based on we've just put that on hold because of Puerto Rico, and there is an openness to discuss that in terms of the PPA price. There it is much higher. It's higher there than it is in Nicaragua. If we can do something there, which I will know, I'd say in the next 6 months to 12 months, the difference is so big that it's worth waiting. We are waiting to see if we can do something in Puerto Rico. If not, we can do something in Nicaragua. If we did Nicaragua, that would be an enhancement. In terms of really what we can do in Nicaragua, aside from drilling wells, I would say there's no big enhancements.
I think potentially we can move the binary up a little bit later this year. Potentially, we can, we've got one of our wells that's closed, 93. We've really just been running pretty much most of last year with that well closed. Potentially, we can open it a little bit more. Potentially, we can move the binary up. Those are all non-capital outlay type sort of enhancements. I would say really the biggest enhancements we can make are drilling. I wouldn't say that that's in our near-term future.
Okay. Great. Secondly, you're considering some larger M&A deals. As you say, pro forma has a fair amount of liquidity available. When you're looking at acquisitions, do you contemplate working with partners? A lot of your peers will have partial ownership of projects. Or do asset sell-downs? Are you in discussion with potential partners on maybe getting into some larger deals?
Yeah, historically, we're 100%. I would say I don't have a problem with, let's just say, being partnered with somebody 50/50 on something. We wouldn't want to be a, we can't be a 40%, call it, financial partner, though. That's definitely not us. We are looking at some things on a 50/50 basis right now with other actual strategic players. Yeah, we are looking at it, and we would look at it. I would even say we're looking at some things with more, call it, they're strategic in the sense that they're more local. There are benefits at times to partnering with some strong local groups. That is also something that's of interest to us. We have two or three things of those that we're looking at right now.
All right. Very good. I'll leave it there. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Aaron Dunn from Keystone Financial. Your line is live.
Hi there. Thanks for taking my call. Just wondering, can you walk us through what you would expect maybe the CapEx to be for 2025, roughly, just relative to what it was last year?
It's really going to come down to, I would say, first, let me divide between maintenance, sustaining CapEx, and growth CapEx. In terms of maintenance CapEx, we're going to be in the, I would say, $1.5 million-$1.75 million range for just sustaining CapEx. That includes the maintenance program. In terms of growth, until we close the Puerto Rico, that's going to likely be, so I can't comment on acquisitions. There's nothing I can give you there. In terms of the organic, I would say that the actual CapEx, $30 million-$40 million.
$30 million-$40 million.
Yeah. Hopefully, I would say, a lot more sort of specificity on that within 60 days.
Okay. Most of primarily that growth is sort of coming from Puerto Rico expansion there, potentially?
That's what we're anticipating, yes.
Right. Okay. Looking at the Dominican Republic, the storage, so that's going to be delayed. As of your last presentation, the COD was Q3 2025. Do you have any sense for what type of delay you'd be looking at there? Are you looking at 2026 or even potentially later?
Yeah. I would say I would guide you construction, the CapEx outlay of 2026, 12-month, call it, execution. So 2027 revenue.
2027. Okay. Thank you. In terms of M&A, with the valuation spread being more narrow, does that open up larger opportunities for you? Is that changing the way that you're approaching acquisitions, or is it just kind of opening up more of the same opportunities?
I would not say. I would say we are looking at larger anyways because we have to as a company. We already would have moved the size range up, and we already were doing that. I would say sort of $5 million, even the low end, up to $25 million. We had done some smaller ones before. We will not do that again. That already was part of the plan in terms of upsizing. I would say that we are now seeing even the larger ones come in in terms of multiples, which is great.
Good. Okay. That's all I had. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Shawn Kravetz from Esplanade Capital. Your line is live.
Thank you. My questions have been answered. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Kirk Wilson from Beacon Securities. Your line is live.
Good morning, gentlemen. Same. Most of my questions have been answered, but I do have one more here. Just looking at Panama on the solar parks there, I see the firm rights for 2025 were not awarded. Can you give us some color on pricing that we should be looking at for the Vista Hermosa parks?
Yeah. 60-70 for this year. It's tough. It's going to become very gas price dependent. I would also say that we are going to look to potentially, there's some commercial contracts that we could look to do instead. Those would be in that range as well. I think that is an indication, obviously, as to where those people think the market's going to be this year. I would say if nat gas goes back to $2 an MCF, you're probably in the 50-60. You could almost add about $10 a megawatt-hour for every dollar per MCF more than that range. You sort of have to sensitize it to the gas price, which I'm not an expert in that, but 60-70 is probably realistic.
Excellent. Thanks, Marc.
Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Steve Ka mmermayer from Clarus Securities. Your line is live.
Thanks. Good morning, guys. Most of my questions have been answered here. Just on the acquisition front, I mean, you say you have the $80 million there from the green bond, looking at taking some bigger swings possibly. You're getting to a bigger size here. What size do you think, production-wise, do you need to get to before one of the bigger players maybe comes in and takes a look at you just based on where you're trading versus their multiples?
I mean, that's a tough one for me to answer, Steve, but I would say I think part of the reason we've always been targeting people to the $80 million-$100 million of EBITDA number is I think that at the low end, you're getting into people's range. Also, that is just a much more diversified portfolio. I think diversification is not just a size thing. I think we do need to get our portfolio more diversified such that it's not just the public markets that want to see a diversified portfolio. It's the strategics. By that, I mean both strategics as well as financial infrastructure funds. In that range, I would say we're diversified enough for a much broader audience to take an interest.
Okay. No, that's great. With the green bond, you paid down a bunch of the debt. I think you paid down the Brookfield as well. Would there be an appetite for them to partner on something larger with you now that you have the cash? Perhaps maybe they want to put in some debt as well. Have you had those conversations, or we're way too early for that?
I'd say they would be interested in lending money as long as it's bigger. We did that $25 was very small for them. It would have to be three, four times that, probably, on the lending side. In terms of partnering, I wouldn't expect it.
Okay. No, that's great.
Just given that's a bridge that's probably too big. That gap is too big in terms of who we're looking at.
Right. Actually, I was thinking more on the debt side to partner.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that it was a good relationship. I think they're happy with how we performed. I think it would have to be part of a bigger transaction. They could provide a nice sort of sliver of capital on a bigger transaction, for sure.
Okay. Good. Thanks. That's all I had.
Thank you.
Thank you. That completes our Q&A session. Everyone, this concludes today's event. You may disconnect at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.