Good afternoon, and welcome to Hannon Armstrong's conference call on its Q3 2021 financial results. Leadership will be utilizing a slide presentation for this call, which is now available for download on the company's investor relations page at investors.hannonarmstrong.com. Today's call is being recorded, and we have allocated 30 minutes for prepared remarks and Q&A. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. If you need operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. At this time, I would like to turn the conference call over to Chad Reed, Vice President, Investor Relations, and ESG for the company. Thank you. You may proceed, Mr. Reed.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome. Earlier this afternoon, Hannon Armstrong distributed a press release detailing our Q3 2021 results, a copy of which is available on our website. This conference call is being webcast live on the investor relations page of our website, where a replay will be available later today. Before the call begins, I would like to remind you that some of the comments made in the course of this call are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The company claims the protections of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in such sections.
The forward-looking statements made in this call are subject to the risks and uncertainties described in the Risk Factors section of the company's Form 10-K and other filings with the SEC. Actual results may differ materially from those described during the call. In addition, all forward-looking statements are made as of today, and the company does not undertake any responsibility to update any forward-looking statements based on new circumstances or revised expectations. During this call, we will primarily discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe help investors gain a meaningful understanding of our core financial results and guidance. A presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures is available on our posted earnings release and slide presentation.
Joining me on today's call are Jeff Eckel, the company's Chairman and CEO, and Jeff Lipson, our CFO and COO. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Jeff, who will begin on slide three. Jeff?
Thanks, Chad, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, we're reporting strong results for the Q3, with distributable earnings of $0.41 per share, a 14% increase year over year, and distributable net investment income of $32 million, a 79% increase year over year. Continuation of our programmatic investment relationship with Sunrun, which I will discuss in the subsequent slide. 45% growth of our portfolio year over year to $3.2 billion, and 28% growth in our managed assets to $8.2 billion. Declaration of a $0.35 per share dividend. Starting this quarter, we will highlight the Carbon Count of one transaction in order to generate a more understanding of this important metric.
As a reminder, CarbonCount measures the efficiency with which capital is used to reduce carbon emissions, something the financial industry needs to pay attention to, but does not currently. As a reference point, the average investment this quarter has a CarbonCount of 0.3 metric tons of greenhouse gas reduced per $1,000 of investment. Our featured transaction has a CarbonCount of 2.7, nine times more efficient than the average. This is a behind the meter energy as a service investment in digital controls for HVAC at a top retailer. This is part of a larger programmatic client relationship, an example of the power of digitization in the electric sector to save customers money and reduce carbon.
While every investment we make improves our climate future, not every investment is equally efficient at doing so, and we believe this level of rigor is where the market needs to go. A few words on the legislative efforts in Washington. Both the proposed infrastructure and reconciliation bills are positive for our business. The biggest positives are the extension of tax credits for renewables and expansion of the tax credits to storage and EV charging. However, the more important aspect of the tax credit would be their conversion to direct pay, which potentially expands our ability to participate in more slices of the capital stack. We hope to have more to say in Q4 when the legislation is presumably finalized. Finally, and fortunately, our business success does not depend on either bill passing.
Turning to slide four, we provide an update on our more than $3 billion 12-month pipeline and provide a bit more color on our client base. I will go through a few examples of the more than 30 programmatic clients who drive our pipeline in the behind the meter, grid-connected, and sustainable infrastructure markets. We are adding clients each year as the climate solutions market grows. The behind the meter market continues to be the majority of the pipeline and has the largest number of clients, more than 20.
These clients range from Ameresco, for whom we have financed close to $1 billion of assets in over 35 projects since 2001, to residential solar firms, SunPower and Sunrun, all the way to Summit Ridge, a community solar company for whom we've closed over $250 million of transactions since 2019. A note on the solar portion of the behind the meter pipeline. It remains relatively strong despite well-recognized supply chain issues. Because behind the meter projects offset the retail price of electricity and not the wholesale price, they can better manage the higher costs the industry is facing. Turning to the grid-connected pipeline, we have more than 15 clients in the wind and solar markets, including ENGIE and Clearway, and the pipeline remains at about the same level as last quarter.
We are seeing some projects experience delays due to panel availability and the need to rework projects due to cost increases. Fortunately, we have not seen cancellations in our pipeline, but some transactions have indeed moved out in time. The transactions impacted the most are those with fixed PPA prices, but with costs which are not yet locked down, and also those involving smaller developers. Over time, we believe increases in PPA prices that we are seeing will restore balance to the market. The sustainable infrastructure market is the newest market for us and as a result, has the fewest clients and smallest pipeline. We continue to see great upside in this market, transaction volume, transaction size, and eventually growth in the client base. Climate resiliency is going to be a big business because unfortunately, the weather is becoming more extreme.
Building on the diversity of our clients theme, slide five highlights an underappreciated strength of our business model, the diversity of our markets. As you can see, 2021 has been dominated by behind the meter investments, while 2020 was majority grid connected. In each of these markets, there are multiple, generally uncorrelated asset classes. In any given period, any one of these asset classes may produce investment opportunities while others may not. This diversity in our origination platform and the breadth of our client base provides assurances that despite one asset class facing challenges like grid-connected solar this year, we should continue to find attractive climate solution investments.
Bottom line, each of the markets we invest in are important to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and we are built to invest across multiple markets and asset classes in order to increase the stability of the business, a result we continue to demonstrate. On slide six, we provide some more detail on our more than $200 million investment with Sunrun in a portfolio of operating residential solar leases. This is our sixth investment with Sunrun, and we believe the useful example of what we mean by a programmatic relationship. In addition to the attractive risk-adjusted return, this investment has long-term contracted cash flows, geographic diversity, and significant average customer savings relative to the customer's utility bill. Sunrun is also an example of how our client base is evolving into an integrator of multiple technology solutions, adding storage, EV charging, and efficiency into their solar offering.
Now I'll turn it over to Jeff Lipson to detail our portfolio performance and financial results.
Thanks, Jeff. Summarizing our results on slide seven, for the quarter, we recorded distributable earnings per share of $0.41 at a strong quarter of distributable net investment income of $32 million, and another active quarter in our securitization program, recording gain on sale of over $16 million. On a year-to-date basis, we have achieved impressive growth in each of these metrics. In the upper right, we note distributable EPS year-to-date growth was 19%, as growth in equity method investment income and gain on sale primarily drove this result. In addition, as shown on the lower left, distributable net investment income was $95 million year to date, reflecting annual growth of 42%, driven by a larger portfolio and stronger margins. Lastly, our gain on sale from securitized assets was $64 million year to date, representing a 34% increase.
These very significant year-to-date growth rates of 42% in distributable NII and 34% in gain on sale represent the ongoing success of our dual revenue model. Our guidance of 7%-10% compound annual growth in distributable EPS through 2023 remains unchanged. Turning to slide eight, we demonstrate that our margins have improved as we've increased our portfolio yield while decreasing our cost of funds. Over the last three years, despite a competitive investing environment, our portfolio yield has increased by 80 basis points and now sits at 7.6%. Over the same period, our interest expense as a percent of our average debt balance has dropped by 70 basis points to 4.7% as we have optimized our debt platform and taken advantage of tightening corporate debt spreads and the strong bid for credible ESG debt.
As we discussed last quarter, and consistent with most broader markets, the yield for certain climate positive transactions is compressing, although we have not experienced an impact of this trend. To the extent these market pressures were to impact our portfolio yield, we would not expect a significant impact on our margin, as we believe any increases or decreases in our portfolio yield will be generally well correlated with our cost of funds. As the chart indicates, we are already well-positioned, having issued low-cost debt. In summary, we remain confident that over the long term, our margins will be strong and relatively stable given the combination of our diverse investment strategy and attractive debt platform. We expect these margins will facilitate continued strong growth in distributable net investment income.
Turning to slide nine, we detail our $3.2 billion balance sheet portfolio as of the end of the Q3. Our portfolio yield remains steady quarter-over-quarter at 7.6%, and now includes over 260 investments with an average size of $12 million and with a weighted average life of 17 years. With no asset class comprising more than 30% of the portfolio, the diversity of our business remains a persistent strength. Behind the meter assets represent 54% of our portfolio and generate a yield of 8.1%, and grid-connected investments represent 45% of the portfolio with a forward-looking yield of 7.2%.
Turning to slide 10, we note our high-quality assets continued to perform within our expectations in the Q3. this performance is driven in part by the credit quality of our obligors and the structural seniority of our investments, which have a meaningful impact in reducing our exposure to both operating and commodity price risk. Moving to slide 11, we detail our nearly $4 billion balance sheet as of the end of the quarter. In the Q3, we funded $227 million of investments and executed several securitization transactions. The net result was a portfolio balance of $3.2 billion, an increase of 5% from the end of the Q2. Funding expectations of our previously closed transactions is shown on the lower left. We expect these incremental fundings, along with the strong pipeline that Jeff referenced earlier, to contribute to significant growth in revenue.
As of the end of the quarter, we have over $400 million in cash on our balance sheet available to fund upcoming transactions. On slide 12, we highlight our recently launched $100 million CarbonCount commercial paper program, the first CarbonCount-based commercial paper program in the United States. Our program seeks to satisfy the significant interest for credible ESG and carbon reduction exposure among CP investors. Considering this CP program, our balance sheet cash, and our revolving credit facilities, we have over $960 million of potential liquidity sources to support our growth. For the last quarter, our debt-to-equity ratio decreased from 1.9 to 1.6 times, driven in part by the conversion of $136 million of our 2022 convertible notes into common shares.
In addition, we raised $49 million of equity in the Q3 with our ATM program. Our remaining debt includes no material maturities until 2025. In summary, we remain confident our debt platform and liquidity profile will continue to facilitate growth in the portfolio. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Jeff.
Terrific job. Thanks, Jeff. Turning to slide 13, we note a number of ESG accomplishments. With our CarbonCount-based commercial paper program, we're seeking to differentiate debt products based on calculated carbon reductions rather than some green label not related to carbon. As Jeff said, our credibility in reporting carbon impact stands in contrast to the amount of greenwashing going on in the financial services industry today. On the social front, we're excited to meet with the initial cohort of our climate solution scholars from Morgan State and Miami University in the coming weeks to support their interest in the growing climate solutions field.
Finally, we've met with multiple SEC commissioners and their staff on the necessity of mandatory ESG, and especially carbon emission disclosures, so that investors, consumers, and employees have the information they need to evaluate the impact companies they're investing in, buying from, or working for. We'll conclude on slide 14. I'll note three competitive advantages this quarter demonstrated. Our multi-client, multi-asset class investment platform affords us the ability to invest in a wide range of climate solutions, providing stability to the business. Second, our flexible funding platform drives strong and stable margins. Finally, we remain a leader on ESG and continue our advocacy for credible carbon metrics for investment frameworks. To sum up, our growth prospects remain bright and our ability to generate value for both shareholders and stakeholders remains strong. Operator, we'd be glad to take some questions.
We will now begin the Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your touchtone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question, please. Again, to ask a question, please press star one. We will pause here briefly to allow questions to generate. The first question comes from Philip Shen with Roth Capital Partners. Please proceed.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on-
Hi, Phil.
Hey, hey, Jeff and Jeff. First one is around what you're seeing with solar and how that might impact your pipeline, specifically with, you know, projects possibly getting delayed. You know, there's a meaningful amount of module supply that's not hitting the U.S. shores. As you think through the risk there, you know, are you guys working to diversify your end markets to bring in other opportunities, and how do you expect that to kinda play out for you guys ahead? Thanks.
Well, Phil, I think that was really the point around the diversity of our asset classes and our clients. As you know, solar is important, but it is not our sole business. Obviously, the behind the meter market is much more diverse than just solar. You know, I think we may not have anticipated module delays, but we've always anticipated that some markets hit and some don't in any one quarter, in any one year. I certainly hope the solar industry is back on its feet soon, but I'm confident we are fine. One of the reasons Jeff reiterated guidance was exactly to make that point that we're fine.
Fantastic. That said, do you expect the slowdown in your grid-connected and maybe even probably less so resi, but especially with the grid-connected side, solar side. Do you see that real slowdown happening in your business in the coming couple of quarters? Certainly the diversity of end markets is a strength of yours, but I just want to understand if that is a challenge ahead. Thanks.
Well, I think one of the differences that I think the market is seeing is that large established developers, I think SeaWind reported earlier, kind of made this point, are gonna do fine. They might be delayed by a month or a quarter. They're gonna get a priority of what supply is available. Fortunately, you know, Clearway and ENGIE and others in our client base are, you know, large companies. I think the smaller developers are probably gonna be at the end of that line. That should not affect us.
That's great. Okay. Thank you for that, Jeff. One last question here, as it relates to gain on sale. Was wondering if you guys could help us think through what kind of gain on sale we could see in Q4 and in 2022. You know, the level came down a touch in Q3. But any way to help us think through what that could be? Thanks.
Phil, I think last quarter, we had said that gain on sale for 2021 would be greater than $75 million. We'll stick with that expectation for now. As for 2022, we'll have more to say on the Q4 call in terms of our expectations going forward. We did say it'll be greater than $55 million already, but we'll put a finer point on that next quarter.
Okay, great. Thank you both. I'll pass it on.
Thank you, Mr. Shen. The next question comes from Eric Borden with Berenberg Capital Markets. Please proceed.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I was wondering if you could expand on the volumes this quarter. Did you have any new clients that you signed? And then on the total transactions, is it fair to say of the $359 million of the transactions closed in the quarter, $200 was on balance sheet and the remaining $159 was from securitizations? Or is there some equity method investments baked in there as well?
Why don't I take the client question first. And Eric, I think this is the first time you and I have had a chance to talk, so nice to meet you, and thanks for following the business. We don't typically disclose clients every quarter, and who's new and who's not. But over time, you'll start to get a sense of when we add new clients. Today, we mentioned Summit Ridge, but they've been a client since 2019, but we've never talked about them before. We're trying to provide a little more color on the client base, to demonstrate the diversity. We don't really disclose it, but we'll give you information here as the quarters progress.
Eric, on the second part of the question, just to clarify, transactions closed as announced on page three relates specifically only that a transaction has closed, not that it's funded. I don't think you can take that $359 million and fully allocate it to either balance sheet or securitization because some of it has not funded yet. Which is why we provide the supplemental back on page 11 as to how much of this quarter's investments have funded, which was the $167 million. We don't really do any other disclosures other than what's been closed and what's funded. I think that gives you a way to triangulate a primary answer to your question, but we don't give very specific, this is exactly how much was securitized in the quarter.
No, that's helpful. Thank you, guys. Kind of going forward, how should we think about volumes into Q4 and into 2022? How should we think about new opportunities for HASI? Are you currently in conversations to deploy capital into offshore wind projects, kind of given the concerns around higher input costs for onshore? You know, any color there would be really appreciated.
The primary goal we have is to follow the best energy and infrastructure companies into whatever market they develop. We certainly are paying attention to offshore wind. We're paying attention to hydrogen and, of course, storage. Really until our clients start to do those at scale and they become proven, it's not one that's really on our radar. We know who they are, but there's work to do in the industry to get those to pencil out. Frankly, tax credits would help both storage and hydrogen if the reconciliation bill can ever pass.
You know, we're gonna continue to talk about the conventional markets and when we have a market that's more than 100 million of annual volume, that's when we'll start to talk about it on these calls. Until then, we're kind of fiddling around the edges. In terms of volumes for the year, again, the diversity of our asset classes gives us good comfort that we'll be in fine shape for obviously 2021 and 2022.
Perfect. That's all for me. Thank you guys. It was nice to talk to you, Jeff, over the phone.
Thanks.
Thank you, Mr. Borden. The next question comes from Christopher Souther with B. Riley. Please proceed.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question here. The first one, maybe you could touch on how the higher power prices impacted the equity method investment. So can you just walk through which types of projects were impacted, what the total impact was there? You know, what should we be watching for, you know, for further issues there or. And then, you know, further on that, just, you know, are higher prices impacting, you know, the overall kind of portfolio yield or things that you're looking at adding onto the balance sheet? I'm just trying to get a sense of, you know, where that year-end portfolio yield should shake out, given, you know, we almost saw a slight decline here, but you had given kind of a wider range on the last call. Thanks.
Yeah.
Perhaps I'll start and Jeff can add. As a reminder, Chris, on our non-GAAP measure, we take a long-term view as to the yield on an investment and accrue income accordingly. Short-term fluctuations in power prices don't affect the non-GAAP yield on our portfolio. You know, they do affect the underlying projects, but we generally view that as a short-term phenomenon, unless it's something that causes us to change our long-term yield assumption. At the project level, there's a fair amount of hedging going on. In the same way that reductions in power prices don't affect us very much, increases don't affect us very much either. The earnings impacts of higher power prices on the existing portfolio is virtually zero.
Just to build on that, when we do preferred equity in those grid-connected projects, it's a conscious view that we would much rather avoid the negative impacts of $2 gas, persistently low $2 gas, than enjoy the upside of $6 gas. We're willing to make that trade.
Okay. No, understood. So is that, you know, looking forward at some of the project additions, you know, that kind of wide range you'd get kind of trending at kind of the high end given, you know, we're at 7.6 this, you know, at the end of this quarter, or how should we be thinking about, I guess, kind of the Q4?
Well, I think the 7.6 is a portfolio yield on a $3.2 billion portfolio. I think it's fair to assume that the incremental balance sheet investments in the Q4 won't move that number very much at all, just given the relative-
Because they don't all hit the first day of the quarter.
Given the relative size of the portfolio, we're likely to close in an individual quarter, so I wouldn't look for a big change in that number.
Okay, cool. Then, looking at, you know, over 15 clients in the grid-connected pipeline, I'm curious how many of those are ones, you know, that are historically you've done projects with versus, you know, new folks that came out maybe post the ENGIE or Clearway deals?
Well, I think most of them have been existing clients. I mean, we've been in the tax equity deal business for wind projects for a long time. We do a lot of loan business with a variety of clients. I wouldn't call it like a coming out party with ENGIE and Clearway, where people finally realized we existed. You know, there's a few new ones. We'll expect to add a few new ones. Generally, they're clients we've transacted with multiple times.
Okay, that's fair. Then just looking at, you know, the $575 million that have yet to be funded, you know, I think last quarter you had given kind of a graph that looked, you know, at the Q4 as kind of a large quarter for some of those funding, you know, somewhere between $150-$200 million. So I'm curious how much of that do you think is pushed into 2022, given, you know, some of the supply chain, you know, and pricing challenges?
That's still uncertain, Chris. Some of that may fund here in the remaining days of this quarter. Some of it may slip into the Q1. We're not even entirely sure ourselves yet on a couple of these projects.
That's why we collapsed the two, because.
Yeah.
You know, everybody's trying like heck to get these projects to close. This is a tough market for grid-connected developers.
Okay. Understood. Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Christopher. The next question comes from Noah Kaye with Oppenheimer. Please proceed.
Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. You know, I think the pervasive dynamic for this quarter and last quarter, just really robust demand and tight supply, broadly speaking, but certainly for, you know, the renewable sector as well. You know, the cost inflation that we're seeing, whether it's steel or, you know, the labor shortages pushing labor prices up, et cetera, et cetera, just for a very capital-intensive industry. I think the first question here is really about project economics yields for developers potentially getting compressed, and whether that puts any incremental pricing pressure on you as a capital provider. It sounds like that may be the case in the future, but you haven't seen it yet. I just wanna understand how that dynamic is impacting your pricing discussions.
No, I think we've talked about this a few years ago, but one of the reasons I'm so enamored with energy efficiency is the high internal rate of return just in case interest rates went up or supply costs went up. Obviously, that's a big part of our business. You can take the same analogy to the solar business. Yeah, the costs are going up, and solar's always been a bit more challenged. It's. Again, it's you've got the larger developers are gonna do better than the smaller developers. It's a challenge for everybody. I would say they wouldn't be a very good developer if their development fee was getting pressured and they didn't wanna make everybody help share the pain.
Mm-hmm.
We're not obligated to invest in those projects either. If we don't like the return, we won't do it. I would say every developer asks. That's their job.
I think higher PPA prices are part of the
Yeah. It's a counter. Yeah
future economics as well.
Yeah. I mean, we've actually seen PPA prices start to go higher for the first time in forever. Maybe that mitigates a little bit the pressure on you guys as well. I guess sort of the flip side.
The first time in my life.
Yeah
In my life prices are going up. It is pretty crazy. This, the other part of this is just around, you know, yield hunting, in an environment where T- rates stay stubbornly low. We've seen some aggressively priced private equity money, come into some of these, sort of, you know, portfolio deals, some announced publicly. Just your thoughts on, the competitive environment. Again, I know you're well diversified, but, you know, any dynamics to call out there. Well, I think Jeff Lipson did a great job of, yes, we expect yield compression at some point, and what really matters to us is not the gross yield, but the net margin. Some of that same pressure that drives yields down, will benefit us with a correlated cost of capital. I don't know, Jeff, have I-
You said that well. Yeah, exactly.
It's competitive.
I guess.
Always has been.
Yeah. I guess the last one is really around the incentives that are being discussed and have been discussed, right, for many quarters now in a potential reconciliation bill. Just how does that actually impact dynamics of capital financing for projects at this point? I mean, if we're getting close to the finish line and there's a potential for a greatly simplified capital stack in projects, whether it's a direct pay as well as the certainty around the incentives, is that having any impact on some of the business developments for you or for your customers? And do we get kind of any kind of an air pocket potentially, and then once we get clarity, the floodgates open, or is it just not the case at this point?
Working long hours at some of our developer clients doing two models: one under the current tax regime and one under the proposed new one. They would probably be the great beneficiaries of Congress passing and the President signing this into law, so they can only do one model.
Seriously, I think that's what everybody has to do now. Development is a tough business, and this is about as tough an environment as I've seen in a long time.
Yeah. Great. Appreciate the color and for the sake of those analysts, hopefully we get some clarity. Thanks so much.
Good.
Thanks, Noah.
Thank you, Mr. Kaye. The next question comes from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Bank of America. Please proceed.
Hey, guys. This is Anya stepping in for Julien. I guess.
Hey.
First off, I wanted to ask. Hey, how are you? I was wondering, could you talk about the energy efficiency opportunity under the current administration? I know one of your clients has been talking of the RFP activity on federal ESPCs. I'm just wondering, just the potential for you guys to benefit from that trend.
Oh, absolutely. I think there was some expectation of an executive order for the federal ESPC program. Then I think the relevant agency with DOE said, "You know, we really don't need to do an executive order because the prior legislation or authorization said you shall do these." It's already codified for the federal government to do these. It's a market that, you know, we continue to benefit from. As Ameresco or Schneider or Siemens grows, you know, those are our long-term clients we expect to grow as well. I don't mean to eliminate other clients, but those are three that come to mind. It, you know, it'll be good news. It also doesn't happen overnight as...
I didn't listen to Ameresco's call, but I'm sure they're very cautious in good intentions in RFP activity at the federal government may take 12-18 months to produce investable transactions. It doesn't turn overnight, but it's going definitely in the right direction.
Okay, perfect. Thank you. Next, this was a follow-up. Just wanted to follow up on the questions on portfolio yields. It looks like the overall portfolio yield has kind of crept down from 7.7% to 7.6%. Just looking at DG behind the meter investments, that's kind of gone down from to 8.1% a little bit there. I mean, assuming that's driven by the Sunrun investment, that implied yield on the Sunrun deal, do you think that's indicative of current yields sort of in the near future, at least in the resi solar space? Or are you already seeing rising PPA prices, just rising prices helping to adjust for that?
I think the yield movements that you refer to are, in fact, relatively minor. I think that's what we're seeing so far is not anything too significant. We're certainly cognizant of some spread compression, as we talked about. I think it's fair to assume, for example, the Sunrun deal was done at market levels, considering we just did the deal. I think we would sort of stick by the theme that we had talked about in the prepared remarks that we're not seeing yield compression yet. We may see it, and we've already pre-positioned ourselves with tightening cost of funds to offset it.
Okay, great. Thanks. I'll step back in the queue.
Thanks.
Thank you. The next question comes from Ben Kallo with Baird. Please proceed.
Hey, guys, thanks for taking my question. Just maybe on the mix, and sorry if you addressed this. Just going, you know, if I look at, you know, where your mix is now from, you know, resi to community to public sector, and just maybe, like, you know, future opportunities with storage. You called out Ameresco, and they had a big project down there in SoCal Edison. So where are the opportunities and how do we see this progress in your portfolio? And then what does that mean for. I know there was a question about, like, 10 basis points about your portfolio compressing, but how does that change?
Well, I think, Ben, we'll finish the year with an interesting mix of projects across the asset classes. You know, I don't know exactly how to address it other than what we said in the prepared remarks, that we don't control which transactions close in which quarter. They, you know, generally with enough diversity in clients and asset classes, we've, I think, shown over almost eight years that there's enough diversity to produce a good result. Again, that's why Jeff re-emphasized the guidance.
On the 10 basis point, I'm not- Is it-
Oh, go ahead, Ben.
No, just the last question was just about the compression of your yields. Was that the 7.7-7.6?
Sorry, go ahead.
No, no, I was just wondering.
I was-
How we think that trends.
Well, again, as we talked about with Anya, I wouldn't read too much into one quarter coming out 7.7, another subsequent quarter 7.6. You know, especially with rounding, that could be a very, very minor change in the overall yields.
If you securitize things out of the portfolio, they're gonna be lower yielding.
Right.
It's hard to get at the point you're trying to get at through the data we present.
Yeah, the reverse phenomenon, we're maybe holding some things at a lower yield that we'll securitize in the future. So I wouldn't read too much into a 7.7%-7.6% quarter-over-quarter yield movement. I think the broader context of yield, as we mentioned a few times, is how to think about it.
You know, you guys have always been kind of leaders in the space here, and now there's so much capital flowing in, into the space. I hate to ask about competition because you've got it forever. How is it changing right now? Just different people, different entrants into the financing world from everything you do, you know, from solar to wind to efficiency and the future. Thank you.
Thanks, Ben. I think there is more competition, as we've said, in the larger grid-connected projects. We see you know some strong bids and, you know, some of those may not be for us, but frankly, that has not been our bread and butter for the eight years we've been public. We're also seeing, just as there are new providers of capital, there's new clients. We're not at all bashful about our ability to compete with our cost of capital against anybody coming into the market. The question we ask ourselves is that the right price for the deal? If it's not, we have the luxury to not invest in something that we think is not priced correctly. Over time, this all sorts itself out.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you, Ben.
Thanks, Ben.
Thank you, Mr. Kallo. The next question comes from Jeff Osborne with Cowen and Company. Please proceed.
Hey, good afternoon, guys. Most of my questions have been addressed, but just to Jeff Eckel, you had mentioned EV charging in your prepared remarks. Can you just give us an update on EV charging? Have you done any investments there? As the you know build-out happens, hopefully with the reconciliation bill, how you're thinking about tackling that market. Is it more direct, just standalone EV charging? Are you looking at more like corporate fleets with a microgrid solution, solar paired with storage paired with charging?
I think I mentioned in the context of Sunrun, who, you know, announced their partnership with Ford, as, you know, expansion of a home service, also noted the tax credits that will make storage, whether it's integrated or standalone, more economic. It's just positives. You know, we have done EV storage. We haven't, or excuse me, EV projects that's been related to, you know, integrated into other offerings. If there's something notable, we'd be delighted to talk about it. At this point, there's nothing we've disclosed.
Got it. My last question is just one of the, I think the pieces of the reconciliation framework is moving to the cash payment. You know, two-part question. I'm curious what you think that does to, you know, both the SunStrong JV, in terms of lease volume that's coming in the door. Would you anticipate if cash grants are provided directly for consumers that, you know, maybe don't have taxable income, that would have an impact on leases? You know, sort of the counterpoint of that question is, would you consider investing in solar loans directly?
I'll take the last one. We've been reluctant to do direct consumer lending. I'm not sure much has changed in our view on that. There are certainly a lot of great companies doing a great job with it, that it just doesn't feel exactly like our kind of business. In terms of the direct pay, you know, I'd be thrilled to have the opportunity to widen our participation in the capital stack and frankly, make these transactions close more efficiently than they do now with three parties, including tax equity, and maybe get it down to two. We look forward to direct pay.
Got it. Thank you. That's all I had.
Thanks, Jeff.
Thank you, Mr. Osborne. There are no additional questions waiting at this time. I would like to pass the conference back to the management team for closing remarks.
We'll conclude the call now. Thank you.
That concludes the conference call. Thank you for your participation, and enjoy the rest of your day.