Clearway Energy, Inc. Q3 FY2020 Earnings Call

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the operator. Today's conference will start shortly. In the meantime, your lines will be placed on hold. We appreciate your patience. Thank you for joining us for the Clearway Energy third Quarter 2010 Earnings Call. After the presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session, and we will provide instructions on how to participate at the right time. Thank you, Mr. Chris Sotos, President and CEO of Clearway Energy. You may begin.

Good morning. Let me first thank you for taking the time to join today's call. Joining me this morning is Chad Plotkin, our Chief Financial Officer, Akil Marsh, our Investor Relations Manager, and Craig Cornelius, President and CEO of Clearway Energy Group. Craig will be available for the Q&A portion of our presentation. Before we begin, I would like to quickly note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements which are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. Actual results may differ materially. Please review the Safe Harbor in today's presentation, as well as the risk factors in our SEC filings. In addition, we will refer to both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. For information regarding our non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please refer to today’s presentation. Turning to Page four for the third quarter of 2020, Clearway achieved CAFD of $171 million for a total of $265 million year-to-date. These results were within our expected sensitivity ranges. Today, the effects of COVID remain minor with our teams maintaining safe and reliable operations through this difficult time. Clearway is announcing an increase in our quarterly dividend by 1.8% to $0.318 cents per share in the fourth quarter of 2020 and continues to see dividend per share growth at the upper end of our 5% to 8% long-term growth rate through 2021. As I will go into more detail later in this presentation, Clearway has committed to invest approximately $450 million in new growth during 2020. This is comprised of today's announcement encompassing total growth investments of approximately $108 million, generating $13.8 million of average asset CAFD over a five-year period, and our previous growth investments totaling $339 million, which generated approximately $36 million of average asset CAFD over a five-year period. In tandem with these accretive acquisitions, Clearway has also raised capital efficiently. We raised $24 million in equity during the quarter through the ATM program for a total of $63 million year-to-date. We also refinanced and upsized several non-recourse debt facilities, releasing $96 million of new capital available for capital allocation at the corporate level. Additionally, all cash trapped to the PG&E situation has been released. As a result, we have sufficient capital to fund all of the currently committed investments. With this activity, we are updating our pro forma CAFD for 2021 to $71 per share, which supports our target EPS growth and an 80%-85% payout ratio through 2021 at the high end of the growth range, as well as already positioning the company for growth beyond 2021. This trajectory factors in the financings and contributions of the committed growth we just discussed and does not include any additional growth opportunities. Regarding new growth, we continue to advance the opportunity set with Clearway Group, including the formal dropdown offer, the investment opportunity in partnerships comprising 1.6 gigawatts of projects, comprised of 1.2 gigawatts of new projects, and increased interest in Mesquite Star with an expected capital commitment in the range of $230 million to $240 million, subject to negotiation by CWEN's Independent Directors. In addition, and also working with CEG, we are in the early stages of structuring additional portfolio opportunities of 1.1 gigawatts with 2021 to 2023 commercial operation dates with the anticipation of making a commitment in the first half of 2021. All in all, 2020 has been a very successful growth year for CWEN with sufficient pro forma CAFD growth to achieve the high end of our long-term dividend growth target in 2021. Turning to page five, I want to highlight our execution this year in new investments. In 2020, we have already disclosed that we have closed or committed to invest nearly $340 million of investments representing around $36 million of annual CAFD contribution on a five-year basis, leading to a CAFD yield of roughly 9.8% with a weighted average life of 13 years contracted excluding the Black Star project at Marsh Landing. Looking at the right side of the page, today we're announcing an additional $108 million of investments with $44 million invested to acquire residual interest in our distributed generation partnerships, as well as the contracts associated with these assets. This investment is expected to raise approximately $5.3 million of CAFD with a CAFD yield of 12.2%. We've also committed to acquire a 160-megawatt land for a wind farm, upon commercial completion and repowering expected by the end of this year for $64 million. This asset, which is unlevered, has been designed around the commercial profile optimizing the balanced risk-return in the CAFD market and has less contracted than is typical for projects, with approximately 30% hedged over 12 years. Our revenue contract position is supplemented by a contracted stream of reliable PTC PAYGO cash flows. Considering those factors, we believe the expected $8.5 million in CAFD generation and an unlevered 13.2% CAFD yield make for an attractive investment profile. It takes into account the project's higher merchant position. As you can see in the investments listed on this page, I want to emphasize our continuing focus on accretion, while the CAFD yield these dropdowns create from our sponsor are helpful, they match with the profile of investments which takes into account the upfront cash flow weighted in the case of the distributed generation partnerships investment and the merchant cash flows of Langford. Moving to the future dropdown structure discussed on the next page, I would suggest the yields on this structure will be more aligned with what we have executed in the past for similar types of assets while still providing for meaningful accretion on a highly diversified portfolio. Turning to page six, I want to provide a high-level overview of our CAFD outlook that Chad will have more detail on in his part of the presentation. We are announcing 2021 guidance of $325 million, resulting in a $61 CAFD per share. We also update our current pro forma CAFD outlook to $345 million, leading to a CAFD per share of $71. These numbers do not include the dropdown opportunity for the new partnership investments, as listed on the right side of the page. The strapped opportunity is well diversified, comprising six new assets, as well as increased ownership in Mesquite Star with a greater than 14-year CAFD weighted average contract life, further diversifying Clearway Energy in the storage with 395MW, 1,580 megawatt hours of collocated storage in Hawaii and California. As we indicated on our last call, all goes to provide more transparency to our shareholders regarding the capital needs of the business. As such, we anticipate, subject to the independent directors and investment required for this portfolio of between $230 million and $240 million. As mentioned on the last slide, given the structure and asset mix overall, we would anticipate the yields on this investment to be commensurate with the risk-adjusted profile of the substantial and diversified portfolio we're still working through the structure and other terms and conditions of the transaction with our CEG colleagues. I want to emphasize that while our ownership percentage will be approximately 50% for most of the assets, this is not a financing structure and tends to provide capital to Clearway. Rather, working with CEG as our anticipated partner, we are focused on optimizing ownership in these assets that allows for appropriate returns for Clearway as well as an accretive yield on a diversified contracted basis. We are also allowing CEG to develop more assets at their target investment returns. When concluded, these assets will contribute beyond the dollars to one CAFD per share pro forma outlook. This partnership platform, we intend to continue to utilize in the future and as such will be followed by an additional 1.1-gigawatt portfolio offer in the first half of 2021. At Clearway Energy, we are excited about this new structure, which allows us to continue our growth trajectory at attractive accretive and further diversified CAFD yields. With that, I will turn the session over to Chad.

Thank you, Chris. Turning to slide eight for the third quarter, Clearway is reporting adjusted EBITDA of $312 million and cash available for distribution or CAFD of $171 million. Clearway has now realized $853 million of adjusted EBITDA and $265 million of CAFD year-to-date. During the quarter, the company benefited from strong availability in the Conventional segment as our California-based gas plants performed exceptionally well during the key summer months. This was especially evident during the extreme heat wave across the West Coast where our California plants demonstrated their value as critical reliability resources in the state. While the conventional performance in the quarter was a welcome response to the challenging West Coast weather conditions, the company's renewable portfolio did not benefit from the environmental and weather-related events. As noted in the appendix section of the presentation, the solar projects were especially challenged as the fires on the West Coast resulted in significant impacts and weaker radiance, leading to production below 95% of expectations between August and September. Additionally, wind production during the quarter across the portfolio achieved 92% of expectations, with strong results in August offset by weaker results in July and September. As a company, we continue to closely monitor the business impacts related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Consistent with what we indicated last quarter, the company's projects have maintained safe and reliable operations, but we have observed a reduction in volumetric sales in the Thermal segment, which continued into the third quarter. Though this impact is not material from a consolidated company perspective, we do currently anticipate the volumetric degradation to continue into next year, which I will discuss momentarily when walking through forward financial expectations. Lastly, and providing an offset to these items, CAFD results in the quarter were favorably impacted by the timing of project-level debt service due to recent refinancing. Overall, while CAFD performance year-to-date is moderately below expectations, since results are within the company's sensitivity ranges, we are maintaining CAFD guidance of $310 million. Now moving to capital formation, inclusive of the DG Partnerships HoldCo refinancing completed this week, the company raised $96 million in new corporate capital through the upsizing of several non-recourse financing, at an effective weighted average interest cost of 3.3%. Additionally, we continue to prudently utilize the ATM program, having raised an additional $24 million during the quarter. This brings the total equity capital raised under the program year-to-date to $63 million. With the release of the $168 million in trapped PG&E project-related distributions and $75 million previously raised through the residential solar portfolio sale in May that was used to acquire the remaining interest in repowering 1.0, the company is well positioned from a cash perspective. With these combined resources and the fact that the company's corporate revolver is completely undrawn, Clearway is essentially fully capitalized to accretively fund all committed growth made year-to-date, while also preserving significant flexibility for new growth. There is no requirement for any incremental new permanent capital, except for new growth, including the recent dropdown offer of the partnership investment opportunity. Turning to slide nine to discuss the company's updated pro forma CAFD outlook and 2021 expectations, in order to aid understanding of the various moves in our CAFD expectations, we provide a bridge commencing with our prior pro forma CAFD outlook of $340 million. First, due to the refinancing and upsizing of the non-recourse project debt facilities that provided $96 million in additional capital, CAFD has reduced by approximately $9 million due to additional principal and interest from these transactions. Next, we are factoring in $22 million of new asset-level CAFD from recent growth investments that were otherwise excluded from the prior pro forma outlook. This contribution is based on the expected five-year average CAFD profiles for these projects and includes Mesquite Star in today's announcement of Langford wind and the remaining interest in the DG Partnerships. Next, while the company has had success in the identification of additional operational improvements, we are now factoring in around a $6 million budgetary impact that will reduce annual CAFD expectations. This relates to increased costs associated with our overall insurance program and adjustments relative to support services under the MSA with Clearway Group and other back-office requirements. Additionally, and consistent with the approach we have communicated to you around budgeting for renewable energy production, we factored into our statistical modeling additional historical data, which had a modest effect on expected P50 median production estimates across the portfolio. With these changes, we are raising our pro forma CAFD outlook to an approximate $345 million or an amount that continues to support our ability to deliver on dividend growth within our payout ratio targets. Moving to 2021 expectations, because our conveyance of our pro forma CAFD outlook is based on the five-year average asset CAFD profile for new investments, current year results will be affected by the timing of when a project reaches COD and the shape of the project cash flow profile. In this regard, we anticipate a $17 million timing in 2021 related to the company's growth investments. Lastly, while we believe these are all temporary variances, we do foresee further impact in 2021 of approximately $5 million due to COVID-19 related matters. This includes lower volumes at the Thermal segment and the impact from California State taxes resulting from Assembly Bill 85 that was enacted at the end of June, which suspended the company's ability to utilize state net operating losses for the next three years. With these adjustments, Clearway is initiating 2021 CAFD guidance of $325 million. As noted, CAFD guidance in the company's pro forma outlook is based on P50 renewable production expectations for the full year. Importantly, it also only factors in the committed and funded growth year-to-date, providing for additional upside to expectations upon the execution of new transactions such as the 1.6-gigawatt partnership investments. With that, I'll turn the call back to Chris for closing remarks.

Thank you, Chad. Turning to page 11. I wanted to take a moment to not only list what we have executed in 2020 but rather to provide an overview of what we as a company are focused on. First, after coming out of the PG&E situation, as we had indicated, we have resumed increasing the dividend. One, with long-term targets, while maintaining our credit metrics and providing CAFD within our sensitivity ranges. Second, we executed on a variety of growth investments to further diversify our portfolio and acquire accretive assets that drive our CAFD per share to a level that will support ongoing dividend growth within our payout ratio objectives. Third, we are working closely with our CEG colleagues to create an investment structure with equity partners who will provide a structure that emphasizes diversified contracted assets at accretive CAFD yields, but also increases the transparency around the capital required. We believe that this will allow us to establish a more consistent timeframe of drop-down expectations in the future. All this leads to an updated pro forma CAFD of $345 million or more importantly, a $71 per share, which supports our long-term dividend growth rate at the high end of our targeted range for 2021, as well as growth beyond 2021. Thank you. Operator, please open the lines for questions.

Thank you, sir. Our first question comes from Julien Dumoulin Smith from Bank of America. Your line is open.

Hi, I am stepping in for Julien, so good morning. Sir, just wanted to ask given the scarcity situation in California, could you talk about how you expect resource adequacy prices to trend, and also is there potential to lock in longer tenors when you recontracted through thermal assets?

Oh sure, this is Chris Sotos. I think in terms of pricing, obviously we will have to see where it turns out, but I definitely think what we saw in California would lead to higher pricing for resource adequacy. I also think the probability of being able to contract for a longer tenor is higher, but I think as I've said consistently throughout the years and also in our last quarter, I think that pace is going to really pick up in 2021 in terms of discussions around recontracting. So I would not say there is any new information since the last quarter we talked about, but I think what has occurred is helpful for pricing and contracts.

Okay, great. And then also could I ask about just on CAFD yields and the latest announcements too, kind of put out there to go with projects that have had pretty high CAFD yields. How should we think about future growth projects that you announced in terms of CAFD yields? How much opportunity is there to maintain those levels?

So, I think these levels are difficult, and I tried to address in my comments some of it is due to Langford, obviously having a less hedged position than typical, even though with the structure, obviously, contracted cash flows. From our view and looking at the latest dropdown offer that we are working with our CEG colleagues and an equity partner on, that’s about a 14-year weighted average CAFD life for contracts. So I don’t think that type of CAFD level will be achievable. If you look back in our history, you've seen kind of things, let's say in the 9% range in terms of CAFD yield. Once again, I don't want to negotiate here on the phone, but I think that type of range probably is more probable than the ranges that you see in the latest dropdowns that we announced today.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Sure.

Our next question comes from the line of Angie Storozynski from Seaport Global. Your line is open.

Good morning. So I just as a follow-up to this question that we just heard. So I understand that you're saying that this new partnership with CEG is not a financing partnership, but you will be presented accepting some additional development and/or construction risk. So can you at least tell us if there would be some incremental CAFD versus third-party acquisition or acquisitions of operating projects that would be paying for that incremental risk that you're assuming?

Sure. Just to make sure we're clear. There isn't any incremental risk. We're not taking development risk. These are projects that are through the development cycle. Just to clarify, the partnership is going to be with the third-party. CEG is the current developer with whom we are working together to finalize that partnership. So, CEG is still acting as the developer and operator, similar to dropdowns we've had before.

But there are some projects, right? I mean if I understand correctly, okay, even if they're fully developed, you would be providing financing for some of them before they start commercial operations, right? So at the very least you would be assuming some construction risk?

No, we really deploy capital at the COD, acquisition operation date. So I don't think it would be any different than what we've done historically.

Okay. I understand. Now moving on, you said that you've adjusted some of your expectations of regarding renewable power production volumes to basically reflect the last five years of data. Now it looks like we're going to have La Niña continuing into next year. Is that something that could materially impact your especially wind production levels in 2021?

Chad, on that.

So yes, Angie, maybe to take this in two steps. So I think one of the things we've done consistently that we talked about just on the first point is just as a matter of sort of prudency as we collect more historical data, we rolled that out through our modeling, and in some instances it increases expected P50 and project, in some instances it can reduce it. I would say in total, given the dollars, we're not talking about material moves overall, but we're just always trying to be honest with how we evaluate that. I think on the La Niña media piece, look, I'm not going to venture to guess exactly how weather will do. I've seen some data points suggesting you could have stronger production through the course of next year as a result of it, but from our perspective, I'd like to see what shows up relative to expectations and then how that is dispersed geographically as well.

Okay, thank you. And last question on the lower thermal units that you said we have could persist through 21 or into 21. I mean, just can you give us an example? Is it just some of these projects supporting hotels or something like that, hence there is some sensitivity to volumes?

Precisely, Angie. In our San Francisco operations, that tends to be more volumetric, and I'm sure as everyone is aware, hotel occupancy in San Francisco is lower due to COVID, so it is exactly that.

Our next question comes from the line of David Fleishman from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning. All right. Just I was hoping you could maybe provide a little bit more color on the $17 million of timing related to the growth investments when we think about the bridge from your pro forma to 2021. And really just how it compares to the five-year CAFD. Is it fair to kind of think the pro forma is using almost a year three average and it's a little bit below and then it becomes a little bit above your smart five or is it just something with kind of more the first year of operation where you guys take a little bit more conservative approach?

Chad, you want to go ahead?

Yes, David. It's a good question. I think if you look at the appendix slide, page 17, we've tried to show that bridge on most of that has picked up over the next two years. So you are correct; if I look at it on a five-year average basis, you may have a pickup in a couple of years that are a little bit higher versus the next couple of years, like in 2024 and 2025 at major slope down a little bit. Most of the delta, especially for this year as you move into 2022, has to do with the expected timing of expected COD days and the corresponding point, and we want to provide the number relative to how we've looked at underwriting the investment, but importantly, our capital outlay doesn't occur until we get to the COD date. So it is important to remember that our capital is not exposed until that point either, and I think the big driver on this one would be in our growth profile. A lot of that is related to the timing of Pinnacle, just given what we've seen in the observation of construction timelines. We're looking at a second-half in-service date, which has obviously delayed some of our original expectations as well.

Okay, thank you. That makes a lot of sense. And then just a couple of other quick questions on the line for the project. I think I heard in the earlier prepared remarks that the 65% that isn't contracted under 12-year PPAs is related to pay-go financing. I just wanted to clarify how that works. Is that just you receive a portion of the value of the production tax credit from a tax equity investor?

Yes, but to be a little bit more precise. The 65% on the revenue means you can think about it as basically two cash flows, obviously. Revenue from the asset, about which 35% is hedged and 65% is open. The PAYGO, which is contracted from a cash perspective, is obviously subject to P50 risk in terms of production. So when we look at the combined basis, the contracted cash flows are subject to hitting the P50 for the PTC, the payroll structure, and then also 35% of revenue with about 65% of revenue being open, not necessarily just PTC.

Okay, understood. And then my last kind of just CAFD shaping question: in prior PowerPoints, there used to be a slide related to distributed generation and how the CAFD trajectory changes over time. As part of the partnership that you acquired, did you effectively take out the tax equity component that was reducing it over time, or is that still kind of a structure where there's kind of five-year step changes?

You should still expect a step change, to be fair; we did not take out the tax equity.

Our next question comes from the line of Colin Rusch from Oppenheimer, your line is open.

Thanks so much, guys. As we see increased amounts of liquidity in the market and availability of capital pretty widespread, are you seeing any change in dynamics in terms of the competitive landscape, both at the development level or at the project acquisition level?

At the project acquisition level, I think there we are seeing tightness in terms of CAFD yields. I think, once again, when you look for the right intersection of where we can bid and add value to maintain our accretion. But I do think given the current capital markets liquidity, you probably are seeing tightness in terms of where third-party assets are trading. Chad, if you don't mind addressing the development side.

Yes, hi, Colin. I think for some parties, tax equity available is clearly an issue. We've observed that among some competitors needing to elect to move projects out in time or otherwise being challenged in their tax equity financing options. We've been pleased to be in a situation where every project we intend to take into construction, including those you’ve seen cited in these partnership investment opportunities, have been able to secure tax equity commitments from interested investors. We're finding that there is some preference for quality in terms of sponsorship and project composition, which we benefit from in a market where there is some scarcity in terms of tax equity. In terms of construction debt and term debt, the markets remain as robust as we've ever seen them, both in terms of demand and the cost of financing that we're able to secure. That helps us to propel further developing growth and also to be able to offer truly attractive investment profiles for the cash equity interests that show up in Clearway. On project M&A, I think what we've seen is a desire on the part of smaller developers from whom we might buy pre-construction assets to see the election outcomes play out and what that might mean for timelines they need to develop in. Fortunately, we’ve engaged selectively in some situations like that and have also been able to propel growth in our organic development pipeline, which the disclosures indicate actually grew substantially in the prior quarter. So whether project M&A is available to us or not, we actually feel quite confident about the ability to deliver a pipeline that will support a 5% to 8% dividend per share growth.

Great. And then just, I mean you're looking at how the industry is responding to the lower-cost capital at really low cost batteries, like really low cost batteries being available. Are you guys seeing different types of opportunities in terms of increased distributed assets, different sorts of configurations and the ability to serve load with the newer technologies that are available? As you look at the development opportunity and is there an opportunity for some increased spread capture to emerge as you guys are probably a little bit more comfortable with some of those technologies than other firms?

Would you like me to take that one, Chris?

Yes, please.

Okay. Yes, I think right now, Colin, our focus is more on central station storage solutions than behind-the-meter on-site storage solutions, commensurate with the pipeline we are developing. In our operating assets, we do have smaller scale distributed solar projects being deployed, some of them in markets like Massachusetts that are paired with storage. But most of our focus on storage is in the combination of new construction projects, like those you see cited in the 1.6-gigawatt partnership investment opportunity. In the case of the Daggett Solar Project, we will be building more storage at a single solar site than I think has been deployed before this year in CAISO, and projects like that in the future as well as opportunities for hybridization or retrofitting of solar and storage into our existing operating fleet, including wind projects. Some of that same value capture you referred to is achievable in essentially interconnected storage resources, whether there is a stand-alone storage ITC or the need to pair storage with solar. We're bullish on the opportunity to deploy in that kind of format at some scale foreseeably in the future.

There are no further questions at this time, please continue.

Well, thank you everyone for attending, and I look forward to talking in February. Everyone stay safe. Thank you.

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