Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the AES Corporation second quarter 2022 financial review call. My name is Irene, and I will be coordinating this event. If you would like to ask a question on today's call, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. I would like to turn the conference over to our host, Susan Harcourt, Vice President of Investor Relations. Susan, please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator. Good morning, and welcome to our second quarter 2022 financial review call. Our press release presentation and related financial information are available on our website at AES.com. Today, we will be making forward-looking statements. There are many factors that may cause future results to differ materially from these statements, which are discussed in our most recent 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC. Reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures can be found on our website, along with the presentation. Joining me this morning are Andrés Gluski, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Steve Coughlin, our Chief Financial Officer, and other senior members of our management team. With that, I will turn the call over to Andrés.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our second quarter 2022 financial review call. As you have seen from our earnings release, we reported second quarter Adjusted EPS of $0.34, which was in line with our expectations and consistent with our historical quarterly earnings profile. Our CFO, Steve Coughlin, will discuss our financial results in more detail. Based on our year-to-date results and outlook for the second half of the year, we are reaffirming our 2022 guidance and our expectation for annualized growth in Adjusted EPS and parent free cash flow of 7%-9% through 2025.
I would also note that our guidance and expectations do not include any benefit from proposed U.S. climate legislation, which we see as a meaningful source of potential upside as it would drive additional demand for renewables and energy storage and accelerate the development of green hydrogen projects in the U.S. This morning, I will discuss our strategy in the context of two broad themes. First, our resilience to macroeconomic volatility, including high inflation, high commodity prices, fluctuations in foreign currency, and ongoing supply chain constraints. Second, continued strong demand for renewables, particularly from corporate and industrial customers. With this backdrop in mind, I will discuss the robustness of our business and also review our disciplined approach to growth, both of which provide us with full confidence in our ability to hit our financial and strategic goals this year and beyond. Beginning with our resilience on Slide 4.
As a result of the transformation of our portfolio over the last 10 years, our financial results this quarter were insulated from the impacts of rising inflation, depreciating US dollar, and volatile commodity prices. We do not expect any of these factors to have any impact on our full-year results. As I have discussed on previous calls, 85% of our Adjusted pretax contribution is derived from long-term contracts for generation and our regulated utilities. For the 15% of our earnings that is not derived from long-term contracts or utilities, such as our legacy AES Southland business in California, or the 10% that is not denominated in US dollars, we have largely hedged both exposures. In some cases, our strong contractual arrangements have allowed for additional upside. Throughout 2022, we have signed agreements to redirect excess LNG from Panama to international customers.
The benefits of these agreements will accrue through the remainder of the year, and we have the potential to sign similar agreements next year, depending on market conditions. Turning to construction and supply chains on Slide 5. Our strategic sourcing and ability to execute on our commitments are key competitive advantages, and we expect to complete all of the projects in our 10.5 GW backlog with no cancellations or significant changes. We take a proactive approach to working with our suppliers, and as a result, we had all of the solar panels required for our 2022 projects in country earlier this year. More recently, we worked to quickly resume imports following the Biden administration's June executive order, and none of our suppliers' panels have been stopped by customs this year.
We also took decisive steps to further decrease solar panel supply risk by creating a more robust U.S. supply chain. In June, we launched the U.S. Solar Buyer Consortium, along with three other solar developers, to significantly drive the expansion of domestic solar manufacturing. Collectively, we committed to purchasing more than $6 billion of solar panels from manufacturers that can supply up to 7 GW of solar modules per year made in the U.S.A. starting from 2024. Therefore, despite industry-wide supply chain challenges, we do not anticipate any major delays to our U.S. renewables backlog of 5.9 GW. I would note that only two projects have been shifted from 2022 to 2023, and these were moved as a result of changes requested by customers. With no impact on our guidance and expectations for this year or next.
In addition, we recently broke ground on the largest utility-scale solar plus storage project in the state of Hawaii. Across the state, we have more renewable projects under development and or under construction than anyone else. As you can see on Slide 6, we anticipate completing 1.8 GW of new renewable globally this year, 4.6 GW next year, for a total of 6.4 GW by the end of 2023. Turning to Slide 7. Looking to our future growth, we continue to see strong demand for renewables from our key customer groups. Despite increases in the cost of renewables resulting from inflation and supply chain constraints, the far greater increase in the cost of fossil fuels has made renewable energy even more price competitive. As a result, demand from corporate customers has never been higher.
Far this year, we have signed or been awarded 1.6 GW of long-term renewable PPAs, the majority of which have been negotiated on a bilateral basis. For full year 2022, we continue to expect to reach a total of 4.5 GW-5.5 GW. As shown on Slide 8, we now have a backlog of 10.5 GW, all of which is expected to come online through 2025. Turning to Slide 9. I'd like to note that we currently have 13.7 GW of renewables in operation. This backlog of projects in construction or with signed PPAs represent more than 75% growth in our installed renewable capacity over the next four years.
Including additional PPAs we expect to sign, by 2025, our portfolio will grow to almost 50 GW, of which 77% will be renewables. We also expect to have completely exited coal at that time. As we scale up in renewables, we continue to complement our portfolio with innovative businesses and solutions, which require the best talent in order to deliver on our commitments. Earlier this week, Fast Company recognized AES in their top 10 rankings of Best Workplaces for Innovators, and as the winner in the category of Best Workplaces for Early Career Innovators. We are very proud of receiving this recognition and our innovative teams and their many accomplishments. Additionally, although we don't have any specific announcements to make today, we continue to make good progress on our two large green hydrogen projects in the U.S. and Chile.
These projects include the integration of electrolyzers and renewables and have the potential to provide significant new sources of growth. I will provide additional updates in the coming months. In the meantime, we launched a 2.5 MW pilot project in Chile. This project will be a hydrogen fueling station and will produce up to 1 metric ton of green hydrogen per day. Finally, turning to Slide 10. Growth opportunities at our U.S. utilities represent one of the key drivers of our overall 7%-9% annual growth in earnings and cash flow. This growth also advances our objective of increasing the proportion of our earnings from the U.S. to 50%. As a reminder, in both Indiana and Ohio, we have the lowest residential rates in each state, providing a great runway for growth and investment while keeping rates affordable for our customers.
Through 2025, we expect to invest a total of $4 billion in new renewables generation, transmission, modernization, and smart grid at our U.S. utilities. These investments will improve our customers' experience and translate to average annual rate base growth of 9%, which is at the high end of growth projections for U.S. utilities. We expect the earnings from these core businesses to grow in line with the rate base. At AES Ohio, we are currently awaiting the commission's decision on our distribution rate case. As a reminder, we see significant opportunity to invest to improve reliability and strengthen AES Ohio's balance sheet while remaining cost competitive. With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Steve Coughlin.
Thank you, Andrés, and Good morning, everyone. Today, I will discuss our second quarter results, 2022 parent capital allocation, and 2022 guidance. Turning to our financial results for the quarter, beginning on Slide 12. I'm pleased to share that we had a good second quarter in line with our expectations, which keeps us well on track for our full- year guidance. Adjusted EPS was $0.34 versus $0.31 last year, driven by growth in our core business segments, higher margins primarily at AES Andes, and a lower Adjusted Tax Rate. These positive contributions were partially offset by the higher share count as a result of the accounting adjustment we made for our equity units, higher parent interest expense related to growth funding, and one-time outages at select thermal businesses.
These outages were primarily driven by turbine manufacturer component defects, and the plants impacted are now all back online. There are two additional points I would like to highlight from the second quarter. First, we successfully closed several non-recourse subsidiary financings, extending tenors at very attractive rates and expanding facilities that support our renewables growth. And second, our collections and days sales outstanding in all of our businesses remain strong, reflecting our predominantly investment-grade rated customer base. Turning to Slide 13. Adjusted pretax contribution or PTC was $304 million for the quarter, which was relatively flat year-over-year, consistent with the drivers I just discussed. I'll cover the performance of our strategic business units or SBUs in more detail over the next four slides, beginning on Slide 14.
In the US and utilities SBU, lower PTC was driven primarily by outages at AES Southland and AES Indiana, as well as lower contributions from AES Clean Energy due to increased investment in renewables development. Contributions from new clean energy project commissionings will be more skewed to the second half of the year. Higher PTC at our South America SBU was mostly driven by higher contributions from AES Andes, resulting from our increased ownership as well as higher margins, but partially offset by the outages I previously mentioned. Higher PTC at our Mexico, Central America, and Caribbean, or MCAC SBU, primarily reflects favorable market conditions caused by better hydrology in Panama. As Andrés discussed, the reduced need for thermal generation in Panama has allowed us to sell our excess LNG on the international market at higher prices, which will serve as a positive driver in the remainder of the year.
Finally, in Eurasia, while our business performance has been very strong, the lower PTC reflects higher interest expense coming from additional non-recourse debt at one of our Eurasia holdcos. Now to Slide 18. We are on track to achieve our full- year 2022 Adjusted EPS guidance range of $0.55-$0.65. Our typical quarterly earnings profile is more heavily weighted toward Q3 and Q4, with about two-thirds of our earnings occurring in the second half of the year. We continue to expect a similar profile this year as we grow more in the U.S., where earnings are higher in the second half based on solar generation profiles, utility demand seasonality, the commissioning of more new projects in the third and fourth quarters, and higher demand at Southland in the peak cooling months in Southern California.
Growth in the year to go will be primarily driven by contributions from new businesses, including 1.4 GW of projects in our backlog coming online over the next six months, as well as further accretion from our increased ownership of AES Andes, higher LNG revenues, and growth at our US utilities. We are also reaffirming our expected 7%-9% average annual growth target through 2025 based on our expected growth in renewables, energy storage, and US utilities. Our guidance also assumes the recycling of capital from many of our thermal businesses into those three growth areas across our portfolio. Now to our 2022 parent capital allocation plan on Slide 19. Sources reflect approximately $1.6 billion of total discretionary cash, including $900 million of parent free cash flow.
Due to timing uncertainty around our planned asset sales, we are now expecting to achieve the lower end of our $500 million-$700 million asset sale target within the year, with the remaining sales expected to close in 2023. To fund our strong growth expectations until the asset sales are completed, we plan to issue approximately $200 million of new parent debt, which was already included in the long-term capital allocation plan we laid out earlier this year. On the right-hand side, you can see our planned use of capital. We will return nearly $500 million to shareholders this year. This consists of our common share dividend, including the 5% increase we announced last December and a coupon on the equity units. We plan to invest approximately $1.1 billion in our subsidiaries as we capitalize on attractive opportunities for growth.
About half of these investments are in renewables, reflecting our success in securing new long-term contracts during 2021 and our expectations for 2022. Nearly a quarter of these investments are in our U.S. utilities to fund rate-based growth with a continued focus on grid and fleet modernization. In summary, nearly three-quarters of our investments this year are going to grow AES's renewables businesses and our U.S. utilities, reflecting our commitment to continue executing on AES's portfolio transformation. We have made great progress on our growth investments so far this year and remain on track with our annual investment targets. We will continue to allocate our capital in line with our strategy to lead in renewables, grow our utilities by 9% annually, and to recycle capital out of thermal assets to decarbonize our portfolio. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Andrés.
Thank you, Steve. In summary, our actions and strategy have put us in a strong position to achieve this year's guidance and a 7%-9% annualized growth through 2025. Once again, our portfolio of businesses is proving its resilience to any macroeconomic volatility in the U.S. or internationally. We have signed or been awarded 1.6 GW of new renewable PPAs year to date, and we're targeting 4.5 GW-5.5 GW this year. Our backlog has reached 10.5 GW, and our construction schedule has not been affected by supply chain issues. To further de-risk our supply chain, we have led a consortium to buy up to 7 GW of U.S.-made solar panels annually starting in 2024.
Finally, we see significant upside to our growth, including green hydrogen in the U.S., should the proposed Inflation Reduction Act be approved. With that, I would like to open up the call for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone keypad now. If you wish to withdraw your question, please press star followed by number two. When preparing to ask a question, please ensure your phone is unmuted locally. Our next question comes from Insoo Kim from Goldman Sachs. Insoo, your line is open.
Hey, Thank you. First question, starting off with the IRA bill. Thank you for the comments on the potential upside and all that stuff. I guess, are you inferring that if this bill does pass, as proposed, that you could potentially see upside to your 79% PS growth over the next few years kind of on a taper basis?
Yes. Good morning, Insoo. Look, what we're saying is that there's a number of very good opportunities which would be certainly made more likely by the IRA bill. One of them, for example, is green hydrogen in the U.S. We'd also expect greater demand from utilities and corporate customers as well. It's generally. Rather than say we're gonna exceed that, it certainly would push us towards the higher end if these come true. That, that's how I would think about it.
Okay. You think at that higher end, there's enough visibility of that, if the components of the build bill does pass?
Yes. I mean, I think there'll be discrete projects, you know, potentially in green hydrogen. Also you would see it in the number of renewables that we sign in the U.S.
Got it. My second question on that consortium for domestic panel manufacturing on solar, how should we think about what that does for the projects that get those panels domestically from a cost perspective and just any changes to the return profile for those projects that we should be considering?
Yeah. Well, you know, this starts in 2024. I would say that the major component is the security of supply. You know, as we've seen just this week, you know, having a domestic manufacturing is very beneficial. You'll also see that Fluence came out with an announcement that they're going to manufacture their modules in Utah here in the States. So I'd say, look, it's large enough that it should be cost competitive, and so this would be incorporated, and we have to see what is the market clearing prices here in the U.S. for solar projects. Now, as we talked about in the past, you know, we're most of our projects in the U.S. are bilateral, negotiated with corporate clients. We're not just adding a generic clean kilowatt hours.
We're, you know, also adding other features and more value for our customers. You know, I think this will help us be more cost competitive. The most important factor is that it will insulate us from any sort of trade restrictions in the future on imports of solar panels from Asia. That is, I think, the main benefit.
Understood. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you, Insoo. Our next question comes from David Arcaro from Morgan Stanley. David, you may ask your question.
Oh, Hi. Good morning. Thanks so much for taking my question. I was wondering on the pace of PPA signings here. What's the pace we should expect through the rest of the year? We've seen, I guess, a bit of a slowdown in the second quarter with the uncertainty around the tariff. What's your confidence level right now in still achieving that 4.5 GW-5.5 GW level by the end of the year?
Yeah. Good morning, David. Great question. As I had said on the prior call that we expected this to be more weighted towards the second half of the year because of uncertainties, you know, that we continued to negotiate it with key clients. There was a certain amount of price uncertainty that we had to have cleared, and that has occurred. You know, just as we speak right now, you know, we expect to sign another 500 MW roughly today, and that would bring us up to 2.1. You know, as of again, we expect, you know, sort of breaking news, we expect them to be signing as we speak.
If that occurs, then we would be at 2.1, which is, you know, close to half of the bottom range. We do expect activity to pick up in the second half. We feel confident that we'll be in the range of 4.5-5.5. These are lumpy. You know, you notice that this, it's not like we're signing them in 50 MW increments. If this had occurred one day earlier, you know, the information on the press release and our disclosure would have been different. You know, we expect to sign this morning, and with that, you know, we'd be at 2.1.
Got it. Okay. No, that's great to hear. Sounds like active dialogue going on, obviously. I mean, I just wanted to touch on foreign exchange. You know, we've seen some sizable moves in the foreign exchange rates, but are you seeing or any way you could quantify the potential kind of drag or some impact on future years, and if efforts are kind of underway to look for offsets, and to manage that, any downside exposure there?
Hey, this is Steve. I think you're asking for the longer term, but we are very well hedged through 2023, even a little bit beyond.
Actually, we see some net upside, frankly, this year based on our hedge positions. The other thing to keep in mind is that we're, you know, about 90% of our business is U.S. dollar denominated. Where we're exposed as a limited set of businesses, it's Argentina, it's Brazil, and, you know, Colombia. It's basically a fairly small exposure. You know, I think in fact, in Brazil, we've seen the real appreciate this year. We've had some favorability there. You know, I would say really it's just we have to keep an eye on Argentina. We have ways to mitigate that. We have, you know, expenses in the country of local debt in the country.
It's manageable within the guidance is how I would look at it.
Yeah. I would add also that part of that's Bulgaria.
Yeah.
Which is euros.
Yeah.
If you look at between dollars and euros, you're probably getting to about 95%. You know, we're very much in strong currency. This is a decade of work and the great job that the finance team has done, you know, in shaping our portfolio, but also making sure that the new contracts we sign are primarily in dollars.
Got it. That's helpful. Thanks so much.
Thank you.
Thank you, David. Our next question comes from Durgesh Chopra from Evercore. Durgesh, your line is open.
Hey, Good morning, team. Andrés, breaking news on the 500 MW. Is that with one customer? Congrats, by the way. Is that with one customer or is that multiple customers?
That is one transaction.
Okay. Excellent. Congrats on that. I wanted to kind of dig in a little bit on the alternative minimum tax and how do you think that impacts you and your business? I mean, I think the last time we talked about it, the headwind was offset by credits. Maybe just talk to that. Then Andrés, I'd love to get your views on this transferability concept that is introduced in the bill. How do you think that works?
A, I'll take that on the tax side, Durgesh. Look, it is still somewhat early. The situation is still fluid and moving around. Based on what we know at this point, we don't see any material impact from the 15% global minimum tax in the near term. We'll continue to look into the details and monitor it, and we'll make a final assessment once the bill is finalized. If anything, it would be several years into the future, and I would expect that, you know, we would have offsets and planning activities by that time. Basically, this is like a parallel methodology. We already are subject to the GILTI tax regime. This is just another way of calculating to ensure you reach a minimum.
Again, I don't expect, and our tax team doesn't expect it to impact us over the next few years.
Yes. You know, regarding your question on transferability, you know, this is the being able to sell tax credits, you know, to third parties. We don't see like a major impact, but, you know, we see it as an additional tool in our cash management practices. That's favorable.
Yeah. I mean, it could impact the way tax equity partnerships are structured. Could make it simpler perhaps. We’ve got to see what all the rules are around the transferability first. If anything, it looks that it may make the financing structures simpler to manage and account for.
Got it. Okay. I appreciate it, certainly. You know, thank you for the discussion. Maybe just really quick follow-up, Steve, just that when you say several years out on the alternative minimum tax, is that because of your U.S. businesses are not at that billion-dollar threshold? Is that why it is? Or when you say several years out, what does that mean?
Yeah. You know, there is a billion-dollar test, as you refer to. I don't expect that we would meet that. There's like a three-year, I think, averaging of that. I don't expect we would meet that for several years to come.
Got it. Thanks for the time, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Richard Sunderland from JP Morgan. Richard, your line is open.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for the time today. Starting with the 2H walk, I see $0.08 from new renewables. I'm curious if that, you know, is that pretty locked in given your commentary around only two projects shifting into 2023? I guess similarly on that front, the $0.08 of LNG, U.S. utilities and other, can you break that down to the component pieces and relative line of sight to the U.S. utilities portion given Ohio remains outstanding?
Yeah. The $0.08 of renewables, yeah, I feel very good about both of these buckets, frankly. The renewables is both, you know, the growth in new projects as well as we do have some higher generation out of our hydro portfolio. As you recall, last year was a poor hydro year, so that's in that bucket as well. And then on the utilities and LNG side, as Andrés mentioned, you know, we've been really on the right side of things with the commodities this year. LNG international prices are quite high. We have LNG position, of course, in our MCAC unit, specifically in Panama, where we've had quite a wet year.
We've been able to, you know, not use that gas in Panama and redirect those cargoes and sell them on the international market. While that's not in the year to date, it is a year to go favorability. You know, that's a little over half, I would say, of that $0.08. We've got some additional utility growth baked in for the second half of the year. Those are the two primary components of that $0.08. Frankly, I see potential for even more upside. So that's. I think you asked about Ohio as well. You know, with Ohio, you know, we're as Andrés said in his comments, we don't yet have a decision.
It's not something that we had a material contribution assumed from the new rates this year. You know, certainly we look forward to a decision, continue to expect a constructive outcome, but it's not gonna be a driver one way or the other for this year.
Understood. Appreciate the color there. Thinking broadly about the U.S. green hydrogen opportunity, how do you think this ties in with the existing renewables platform? How could it, you know, expand, I guess, both the demand for new renewables and tie in with some of the, you know, the more complex structured products opportunities you've capitalized on in the past two years?
You know, as we said in the past, you know, we are looking at, you know, partnerships with producers of hydrogen to actually, you know, get more integrated in the whole production chain. What's very interesting is that the problem of producing cheap green hydrogen is very much like supplying 24/7, you know, 100% green energy or, you know, carbon-free energy to data centers. you know, we think we have a leg up here. you know, we're working on this. if the legislation passes, you know, then it's very likely to move forward. That's what we've been waiting for. in the meantime, you know, in Chile we have a different project, which obviously does not depend on this.
That would be much more to supply the local market. You know, we have done a very good job of decarbonizing, you know, the Chilean system and, you know, the mining sector in particular. You know, we feel good about both of these, and these would be significant projects. They would, you know, accelerate the growth of renewables because of the additional demand.
Understood. Very helpful. Just one final cleanup for me. The Southland outage, what led to that and any additional impacts there?
It was actually Southland, also it was the same root cause at Indiana. There were vanes on the turbine compressor unit, I understand. Don't ask me to go into too much detail, but there's a failure of component related to a manufacturing defect. Those units both have replacements in Eagle Valley in Indiana and at our Southland, the new Southland combined cycles in the gas turbine. Those have been replaced. They are both back online at this point.
Understood. Thank you for the time today.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Angie Storozynski from Seaport. Angie, your line is open.
Thank you. I wanted to go back to the Ohio rate case. I understand that it has no impact or the timing of the decision has no impact on 2022, but it will have on 2023. I mean, by all accounts, sounds like you will have to file an ESP, so it might take time, right? The final resolution. There should be an impact in 2023. In that context, I mean, you mentioned that there is an additional optionality around the LNG cargoes that could impact 2023. Is it fair to assume that any impact from that Ohio rate case delay could be mitigated by those, you know, by the shifting of the LNG cargoes also in 2023?
I mean, it certainly could be. We're not necessarily attributing one as an offset to the other, Angie. You know, the issue the staff had already come out and supported a rate increase. The issue at hand was whether, because we've historically had this rate stability charge in place, it's been in place for about 20 years now, whether any new rates could be implemented while that charge is still in place. That's, I think, the fundamental issue being evaluated by the commissioners. If in fact, you know, the rates are frozen, we'll move quickly to file a new ESP, and that will have new riders associated with it. It would be more of a delay than anything.
At that point, the current rate stability charge would stay in place. We would file a new ESP, and then the new rates would be implemented once that ESP is approved. That would take, say, into the middle of next year. Some delay. We're still optimistic based on, you know, our belief in our legal position here that the rate freeze is not
Necessary or if not, should not be required, that the outcome will be in our favor on that. Regardless, you know, we see a path to what we included in our guidance. Just could be a delay if we have to go down the path of the rate freeze as I described, to get that ESP filed.
Yeah. Angie, maybe to describe a little bit the opportunity in Panama. You know, we have hydros, but we also have the LNG regasification terminal. You know, being at Henry Hub prices. You know, of course, Henry Hub prices plus, you know, transportation, liquefaction, regasification. Nonetheless, it's kind of a one-sided bet because we have enough gas to fulfill our contracts. We have the opportunity, if there is a lot of water in the reservoirs, to not burn and therefore ship those cargos to international customers at obviously the international rate. There's a you know, very interesting arbitrage opportunity there. It's a one-sided bet.
If it stops raining or the reservoir levels fall, then we'll just, you know, consume the gas and fulfill our contracts.
How soon are you gonna know that? In a sense, I mean, it's hard to predict hydro conditions, but, I mean, is there like a rainy season that by some month you know?
Yeah. Look, it's been raining a lot, you know, so the rainy season has started. The reservoirs are full, and that's why we're able to make these sell gas to international customers and get that arbitrage. You know, what I'm referring to more really would be 2023. Do these conditions persist, or does, say, 2023 start off being a very dry year? You know, for 2022 we're locked in. It's really a question of will this opportunity repeat in 2023.
Okay. Moving on to the inflation bill. I understand the comments you made about green hydrogen and energy storage. When you actually listen to smaller developers, they are also talking about maybe installing, you know, adding solar PV to existing sites of conventional power assets, retrofitting existing assets with storage facilities. I mean, some changes and repowering of wind farms. I mean, there are some, I would say, secondary benefits from that bill which could also benefit your portfolio. I guess it depends on the age of your contracts, you know, and how heavily they are in the money. Could you talk about, again, benefits or additional benefits that this bill could add.
Yeah.
To existing portfolio?
Well, you know, of course, I think it helps repowering and add-ons. What we'd have to see is that, you know, we already have contracts in these places. The question is, you know, do we negotiate an additional contract from that location based on the report? You know, we've done repowering already. You know, we've been repowering units in California at Mountain View, and also, we've planned to do some in Maryland, you know, at Laurel Mountain. You know, this helps those to happen. You're right, you know, it does. One does have to look at what you have existing and what additional opportunities there are.
You know, since we are on the renewables side pretty much fully contracted, then the question would be, you know, that additional energy, you know, is there an adder that you could add to the same client to keep it simple? Or, you know, what are the opportunities there? you're right, this is a upside that's smaller, so we haven't talked that much about it.
Okay. Lastly, I mean, we saw these media reports about Vietnam and offshore wind. I mean, I don't think that I've ever imagined seeing AES and offshore wind in the same sentence. Could you talk about that opportunity?
Sure. Well, you notice it wasn't our press release, first. I'd say, look, we're in Vietnam, we're helping the Vietnamese come up with a plan to decarbonize their grid. You know, we do have the LNG terminal project there, and we have been, you know, talking about, you know, bringing in energy storage and other renewables, so to eliminate the need for additional coal plants. At this point, I'd say this was, you know, more sort of an exploratory issue. You know, we will be very disciplined and committed to all the goals that we've given, you know, 50% U.S., 50% renewables. Now, whenever we get into a new technology, we obviously have to partner with somebody.
You know, we haven't done any offshore wind because it didn't make sense economically. You know, the markets we're in, like the U.S., there's still plenty of land, and it just really wasn't cost competitive. We have nothing, let's say, against the technology itself. Of course, we would have to partner with somebody who has a long experience. We're not going to get into a new technology in a large scale, you know, on our own, at this time. This is not an announcement from us, and what we guarantee is we're gonna stick to the exact goals that we have given you.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Angie. Our next question comes from Julien Dumoulin-Smith from Bank of America. Julien, your line is open.
Hi, Good morning. It's Paul Zimbardo pinch hitting on this busy morning. Thanks a lot.
Morning.
Wanted to check in. I believe the last long-term guidance you gave for AES Next was breakeven net income by the end of the plan in 2025. Is that still a good assumption, and how could that evolve under the Inflation Reduction Act?
Yeah. Actually, it was 2024, Paul, that I said that. You know, look, you know, Fluence is the largest component of Next, so I can't go into detail. They'll have their call soon, and, you know, we'll talk about their performance. You know, they've been executing on a number of things lately. As Andrés talked about, they're launching their Utah manufacturing facility. They're diversifying their battery supply chain, supply base. You know, we fully expect based on what they've guided to, which is that they'll be, you know, bottom line neutral by 2024. That's very consistent with what we've included in our guidance as well.
You know, I would say, you know, they'll talk about their progress, but we feel good about both what Fluence is doing as well as the levers that AES has, regardless of what happens with Fluence, that portfolio will be neutral and then growing from there.
You know, maybe speak a little bit about the other components like Uplight. As you know, they did the deal with Schneider Electric, so they now have a much, let's say, wider product offering, and you know, very strong strategic partner in Schneider. Then you have 5B, you know, which is the producer of Maverick, the prefab solar. We're seeing a lot of interest in Maverick, where you have the first large scale projects being completed in Chile. We have big projects in Puerto Rico. And you know, we've already done a small project in Panama. What's very important about this product is that it's hurricane wind resistant.
We're seeing a lot of interest in the whole sort of hurricane belt of the Caribbean for this product. There's also been a change of government in Australia. This is an Australian company, so they have very large projects in Australia which are looking very favorably, and that's being sort of hometown champion for this. You know, we feel good about that as well. Overall, you know, we feel that AES Next is fulfilling its mission of really giving us the leading edge technologies and giving us the opportunity to be the first to roll them out.
Okay. Great. Thank you. Just separately, could you please elaborate a little bit on the recent California legislation and how that would impact, either extending, increasing or both the cash flows from the gas assets you have there?
Yeah. No, we feel very optimistic. We have, as I've talked about previously, we've only included Southland legacy businesses. You know, you've got Alamitos, Huntington Beach and Redondo through 2023. You know, it may not be all three plants, but I would say probably at least 2 that we would expect to be extended, possibly for several years. You know, the formal process I would expect in terms of permitting the once-through cooling permits that are needed, et cetera, will likely kick off here in the next 1-2 months. That will run into the first, say, half of next year or through the first half of next year.
As we've done in the past when we've been facing a potential extension, we've looked to do where we've executed contingent capacity contracts, contingent upon the permitting and all that going forward. We'll start looking at commercial opportunities for the extensions once the formal process gets underway in the state. We'll have more certainty next year. I would say we're all very optimistic here that, you know, given the fundamentals of the California system, and, you know, the droughts of the Southwest of the U.S., that additional peak capacity is going to be needed for several years to come. We feel we're in a good position to provide that and that'll provide some upside to our plan.
Great. Thank you both.
Thank you, Paul.
Thank you. Our next question comes from David Peters from Wolfe Research. David, your line is open.
Yeah. Hey, Good morning, everyone. Andrés, I was just wondering if you could comment specifically with respect to the UFLPA. We've heard from some companies here recently that they're seeing issues with panels being stopped recently at the border. Just wondering if you all are seeing this at all, and if not, kinda what you're doing differently, I guess.
Yeah. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, I think it's called. We have not seen any of our panel imports stopped by customs. Excuse me. You know, as you know, we've been on top of this matter for a long time. You know, the polysilicon. You know, first, the panels that we import to the U.S. come from Southeast Asia, ASEAN countries. You know, we have asked the manufacturers, you know, to make sure that there's nothing that comes from western China that could be allegedly using forced labor. Polysilicon, the plan is that, you know, we're starting to use polysilicon coming from Korea, and not China would be the more likely place where there could be allegations of forced labor.
As you know, the making of the, you know, wafers themselves, you know, 95% of that today is still occurring in China. It is. We have to move that supply chain out of China, but it's gonna take some time. You know, the short answer is no, we haven't seen anything and we believe our suppliers are the best place, not gonna have any issues and documentation and, you know, we've been working with them for a long time now. This is nothing new. You know, we have to just see how this develops, but we don't expect any major issues.
Great. Then just one other one on the asset sale target being at the low end, and I guess you're expecting a little less dilution this year as a result too. Can you just give a little bit more of an update on the processes in Vietnam and Jordan and just when are those expected to close, I guess?
Yeah. Look, these have to do with government approvals. You know, we've agreed with our counterpart, it's not a question of price. It's just a question that the government. Well, in case of Vietnam, it's been the government approval of the new operator of the plant. That's taken some time for them to get comfortable with it, and that's why it's dragged on. We do expect resolution by the end of this year. The other case I think you mentioned is Jordan, and that really has to do with some of the lenders, including the U.S. government, signing off on the loans to the new buyers. These have been really just bureaucratic issues, but, you know, the sale price, the buyer, the conditions have all been agreed to.
It has taken longer than we expected.
That's the majority of the $500 million. We feel good. As Andrés said, we'll get there on those by the end of this year. We have been working on additional sales and sell downs of primarily thermal businesses. As we work towards those and the timing around those, some variability, it looks like some of that may happen in, say, the first half of 2023, which is why we said, "Let's focus on $500 million this year. The remaining of the $500 million-$700 million will come in through next year." We have the full billion-dollar target we feel well on track for.
It's just a matter of some timing expectations around what we're doing in the next, say, 12 months or so.
Okay. Thank you, guys.
Thank you.
Yep.
Thank you. We have no further questions. Therefore, I would like to hand back to Susan Harcourt for any closing remarks. Susan, please go ahead.
We thank everybody for joining us on today's call. As always, the IR team will be available to answer any follow-up questions you may have. Thank you, and have a nice day.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this is today's conference call. Thank you for being with us today. Have a lovely day ahead. You may disconnect your lines now.