Boralex Inc. (BLX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Stéphane Milot. I'm the Senior Director of Investor Relations for Boralex. Welcome to our 2021 Investor Day. Since our last Investor Day, in fact, 2 years ago, a lot of changes happened in our industry. And our speakers today will present you an update of our plan and our new 2025 corporate objectives. Our complete executive team is here with us today. So first, we have our President and Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Decostre.

Good morning.

We have our Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Bruno Guilmette.

Hi, everyone.

Our Vice President, Talent and Culture, Marie-Josée Arsenault.

Hello, everyone.

Our Vice President, Public and Corporate Affairs, Julie Cusson.

Good morning, everybody.

Our Vice President, Development, Hugues Girardin; our Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, Pascal Hurtubise.

Good morning.

Our Vice President and Operations North America, Alain Pouliot

Good morning.

And our Vice President and General Manager Boralex Europe, Nicolas Wolff.

Good morning.

All right. So we're very proud and very happy to have the whole team with us today, and we're going to -- before I hand off the mic to our President and CEO, Patrick, I'd just like to highlight a few items here. First question period will be at the end. So our speakers will do their presentations back-to-back, and we'll take the questions at the end. The question period will be a question -- the format will be, you type your question, I get it, and I tell the question to our group, and we answer. Second element also important is that we will release a press release and the document -- the presentation document around 10:15 when our CFO will disclose the financial objectives or corporate objectives for 2025. So with that, we're good to start, and I will ask Patrick Decostre to begin with an introduction of the highlights. So please go ahead, Patrick.

Thank you, Stéphane, and good morning, everyone, again. I'm very excited to be here with you and present to you this updated strategic plan with the introduction of new corporate targets for 2025. Our teams have worked a lot really hard on this plan and has already started the execution phase. I hope you will appreciate the presentation as well as the complementarity and the team spirit of all the members of our executive team here, who will be presenting the plan today. So the agenda for today, just to come back to the previous one, please. The program is the following. I will introduce the context and main lines of our updated strategic plan, then Hugues and Nicolas will cover our vision of North American and European development. Alain will speak about optimization. Julie, Marie-Josée and Pascal will give you an update on ESG. And last but not least, Bruno will disclose our 2025 targets and our financial strategy. I will be back for some closing remarks, and then we'll open the floor for questions. So the team, Stéphane presented to you, but just I want to emphasize that all the members of our team have contributed a lot during the last 2 years of the success of Boralex. But some have contributed for 5 to 6 years; some others, 20 years and even one of us, Hugues, is with us 30 years. So a stable team. with the diversity of experience in investments, in energy, in industrial businesses, diversity of gender, type of leadership and age, quite young, definitely dynamic. And today, you will see how we are working well together. So during the last 2 years, we have worked and concentrated our effort on our strategic plan, the 2019 strategic plan, and I'm very proud of our achievements in the past 2 years. We have added -- next slide, please. We have added important growth with the commissioning of 10 assets and closing 1 acquisition in wind. We then today, we have 382 megawatts of wind in our growth path and close to 2 gigawatts of wind projects in the pipeline. Diversification was executed more rapidly than expected. The percentage of solar in the percentage of presence in the U.S. is higher than what we expected for 2023. This is thanks to the successful bidding in New York State and France in solar project and the closing of the CRE acquisition in the U.S., combined with a significant increase in the pipeline and growth path for solar project. We'll come back That. Good result also for the customer's orientation with the signature of 3 corporate PPAs with high-profile companies and more to come in France. And finally, strong execution optimization with different refinancings, $2.7 billion and maintenance optimization. As you will see, we are keeping these 4 orientations for our updated plan as we believe they are our absolute priorities going to pursue our profitable and disciplined growth. So coming back to the 2023 financial objective. As we mentioned on our most recent quarterly conference call, we currently have a clear path to deliver in advance on all of our 2023 objectives, thanks to the successful execution I just mentioned on the 4 orientations. Strong wind conditions at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020 definitely helped us, but the major contribution came from growth and optimization. As you will also see later on, the contribution from all of our employees who are strongly engaged is another important factor to take into consideration. Now I want to highlight what we call the main plant in the industry. The energy transition is fully underway around the world. Every day, we have news about this commitment, engagement and a major shift from fossil fuel to renewable source is underway. Spurred by innovation, a tide of capital and evolving regulation, business models are developing rapidly forging new possibilities for creating value for us. As companies and investors place decarbonization at the center of their strategy, societal and consumer pressure are opening lots of new opportunities for Boralex. The tide I mentioned is the consequence of the first 4 points on this slide. Action from government, interest from customers, reduction of production costs for renewable and significant interest from financial community. One of the consequence of the growing penetration of renewable in the grids is the need for more flexibility and great resiliency, meaning more storage, more interconnection and more data. Our experience in Europe, where the energy transition is more advanced, is helping us also to have a view of the evolution of the North American market going forward. And finally, I mentioned we have news every day. The pace of change is increasing also. Speaking about cost reduction, this slide is just to illustrate how much over the last 10 years, wind and solar cost has come down. Wind and solar have become competitive against new fossil or new projects. But even they are competitive on fully depreciated coal and new power in some markets depending on the condition. So this opened a lot of opportunity in our market. In this environment, with strong growth potential and increasing competition, our competitive strengths, which differentiate Boralex would be more than ever an important part to pursue profitable and disciplined growth. I will not go through each of these slides. But I invite you to look at it. We have a think about that, and we will emphasize on this for the future. We -- this will help us to differentiate ourselves in the future in the selected market. So coming back, as I mentioned, the 4 strategic direction. We have not changed them. It's still growth, diversification, customers and optimization. We think we were successful with this concentration of our effort for the last 2 years, and it will enable us to be a winning player in the present wave of growth. Another key aspect, and you see it on this slide very clearly is that our updated strategic plan include our corporate and social responsibility strategy and the ESG criteria in all aspects of the strategic direction. We will make this a key differentiator in the future. I will briefly go over changes we made to our 4 strategic directions definition, and we'll let my colleague to go into more details afterwards. Starting with growth. We see increasing demand and want to put effort to accelerate organic growth, knowing the time it takes to develop project. This will not happen overnight, but we will be building a stronger growth engine in order to maximize opportunities in our market. We also intend to make the U.S. our priority market and extend our European presence by targeting a few additional markets after France. And finally, become more proactive and structured with our M&A activities. Concerning diversification, sorry, it will be a strong driver for the future growth of the company and will enable us to achieve a better balance between solar and wind production while starting to build some base in storage. The revenue and cash flow stream would be more complementary globally for Boralex, which is a good thing. We will also accelerate the development of our marketing skills in order to optimize our contract portfolio as well as the development of the skills in the analysis of the risk reward of the different contracts and have a global portfolio management. The customers of orientation, which was very new 2 years ago, we have learned a lot and the environment has changed. And the demand for renewable electricity by electricity-consuming industries has increased because they want to improve their climate footprint, and it's really strong, especially in Europe. I mentioned many times, should we have more electricity not under contract, we would be able to sell it. And we think this will continue on the long term. We think it because we are in relation with customers who wanted to extend the contract. We will be more proactive on this direction given the increasing number of contracts expiring in the coming years. We are confident that we will be able either to renew this expiring contract or to repower the associated wind farm. We are also looking for the possibility to do greenfield project with corporate customers. The demand in Europe is already present for this type of contract. Finally, optimization. It's the last strategic direction, and we still see a lot of possibility to optimize our assets through increasing the availability of the assets. We also continue to see opportunity for more efficient corporate service to support our growth as well as further optimization of our capital structure, and Bruno will come back on this. We take the opportunity. The last segment I want to cover is that we take the opportunity to review Boralex's purpose. It's very important because if you want to build and to change and transform a company and accelerate the growth, you need to have a strong culture. And if you want to change yourself, my view is that you first have to change your perception of yourself. And that's what we have done with the team. And the Boralex purpose, I want to read it to you. It's on our planet where electricity is central to fighting climate change, we have a responsibility to produce it sustainably for future generation. We disclosed it to the team, the extended management team with 85 people on Monday, and I can tell you that they are more engaged than ever to pursue. Finally, we have also reviewed our mission, vision and values. We're not going to all the details and let you the time to read it. But just to confirm that we we have decided to keep the different value, but we have redefined the definition with today's reality. So that closes my introduction. I will now let the floor to Hugues, who will go in details about North American development. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Patrick. [Foreign Language]. I'll start with an overlook of the current presence in North America. Could I have the next -- thank you. For many years now, we have a strong operation and development on 4 Canadian provinces. These 4 Canadian provinces have their own rhythm, but we expect the trend to increase over the upcoming years. Québec, for example, I saw some great improvement, while we also had the announcement of Apuiat that took back a couple of months ago, which was a clear sign that the surplus was over in Québec. That was, in fact, the condition that the government had put together in order to restart renewable energy development. We also saw Québec announcing clearly that wind is the predominant way to develop energy. We also feel like Ontario that has currently a large fleet of nuclear power will have to switch to renewable and the fact that the surplus are now being done in Québec should open up the door to further opportunity down there. We are keeping Alberta development on, and we see currently ongoing renewable demand, and we'll be there to answer those. As for British Columbia, we will keep this market warm. We feel like Site C probably taking a lot of place down there. But again, exportation could change drastically the thing rapidly, and we want to stay active in this market. We have -- as you probably know, we have recently had California, Alabama and Indiana to our platform to the CRE acquisition. We've been able to get our feet wet in getting our first development in California to some form of starting up an extension on the current asset. And I kept the New York asset as a dessert. Please switch to the other slide. New York. If we remember, in 2018, New York was our goal, we decided to focus in this specific area. We have established a solid base in New York, and we have reached our anticipated growth and much more. Over the last 2 years in New York, only we have secured more than 10 more than 1,000 megawatts of projects. 200 megawatts of these projects are under contract, and then recently upgraded to Index REC's contract. We have 820-megawatt ready-to-build project. I can tell you that it's way above our expectation. Despite COVID-19 impact, our team has been able to reserve land, 1,000 megawatt of land over the last 2 years, managed interconnection for 14 projects. Manage the environmental process, and we're very proud to say that over the last couple of days, we've been finding our first Article 94 application for New York 38. We also have been able to secure safe harbor equipment in order to remain competitive. And we have developed a substantial expertise in handling commercial aspects like request for proposal and, of course, securing these 200 megawatts. The team has also been the leader of the M&A that we've done recently with CRE. Our focus in New York approach has been successful. The last 6 months, I've seen an impressive ramp-up in our capacity that exceed our original expectation. We're talking about plus 700 megawatts that's been brought to build-ready status. It makes us very confident about our capacity. Now let's look at the fundamentals of the U.S. market. 3 main aspects: federal policy, state policy and economic. On the federal policy side, we saw Biden Federal goal being established. He intended to spend $2.3 trillion over 8 years to clean transportation, housing and industry. Out of this $2.3 million (sic) [ $2.3 trillion ], $100 billion is going to be dedicated to clean energy, including transmission and renewable. On the state side, we see on a regular basis, adoption or increase of ambitious state renewable portfolio standard. Most of the states are supporting us and the number of states that supports renewable energy keeps going on growing. On the economic side, as mentioned by Patrick, we see wind and solar in many markets that are already significantly less expensive than incumbent. We see coal, gas and nuclear retirement that will continue over -- that will accelerate, I'm sorry. We expect transmission investment to unlock certain area of U.S., and that's a very important statement here. And that connection is the name of the game. Once we're developing originating project, there's 3 fundamental points: location, location and location. So once you get some extra line, an extra transportation line, it open up some possibility to our business. The recent event in California and Texas has opened up a lot of discussion about grid resiliency. And technically speaking, and commercially speaking, a lot of people are currently working on that, and we expect that to -- as a result, we expect many more interconnection lines and storage assets. These are all stuff that really improve our position. So we want to accelerate our U.S. progression and capture this opportunity. Now how do we see our future? 4 points, 4 very easy points. First one, in case significantly greenfield origination, early-stage development. We see 8 to 12 years of development opportunity in U.S. Obtaining real estate interconnection and permitting at the right place and at the right moment is a key element to value creation. We also expect, as mentioned by Patrick, ESG to become more important in the rest of the history. We expect the procurement to involve some of these demand, and we expect that it's going to become an important criteria. We believe that we can respond to this trend and that we will be able to outperform our target and increase our return to greenfield development. Now how do we do that? We want to substantially ramp up our origination capacity. We're talking here about multiplying by 2.5 to 3. That's going to require some tough decision. So one of the -- one we're going to be taking is increasing the number that the average size of our project. We don't have a specific minimum number in terms of megawatt, but we will have some guidance in terms of minimum cash flow. We also want to increase the size of the team, an important way. But as you will see later, we also are geared in order to do that. Boralex will expand its development footprint in a measured and organized manner. We plan to have 2 or 3 states in the short-term basis. It does not include California. I'm talking about 2 extra states. We are currently finalizing our decision on which one we're going to be selecting. Second point, once we're successful increasing the amount of project we generate, we want to have the choice -- the luxury of choice. We want to sell down the lower return project in order to focus on high-value projects, thus increasing the return for Boralex. We want to scale the portfolio to match our internal capacity, and we want to effectively combine organic and inorganic growth. On third one, this should not come as a surprise. We mentioned it earlier. We feel like Canadian market is getting hotter than it was 2 years ago. So we clearly want to increase our resource that we allocated there, mainly in Québec and Ontario. We think that Alberta needs to -- we need to have some complementarity to our project, but mainly our efforts are going to be on Québec and Ontario. We will keep BC warm, as said before. And we also want to make sure that we keep going on fostering agreement with First Nation and other form of partnership. It's been a piece of our success, and it's going to continue being a piece of our success. Fourth one, we want to ramp up and have a more structured M&A team. Boralex throughout his history has always been doing something like 50% M&A acquisition. We did that on a, let's say, ad hoc experience. Now we want to change literally the way we want to do it, and we want to be more structured in the way we organize ourselves. We will remain active in M&A market to acquire projects which are immediately accretive, and provide opportunity for long-term value added such as setting the stage for further growth. CRE is a very good example. Or where we could find O&M optimization or repowering retrofit or some other opportunities that we feel are good to Boralex. We will increase only selected projects that are most complementary to Boralex's existing portfolio. And finally, we will use our M&A team to sell down the excess greenfield project and loop -- and which loops up to point number one. In conclusion, we are expecting a strong demand in North America for many years to come. We expect more interconnection, more location, more possibility. We think it's the right timing for us to be there. So Boralex will materially increase its development effort in specific Canadian provinces and substantially in U.S. And we will continue to build an experienced and agile team. This concludes my part. I will now ask my colleague, Nicolas Wolff, to cover Europe development initiatives.

Thanks, Hugues. Thanks a lot. Good morning. So first of all, I would like to guide you through what has been done, what has been achieved by the team over the past 2 years since the launch of our first strategic plan. So we've installed around 100 megawatts, reaching a global capacity of over 1 gigawatt. We've also started our diversification into solar applications, and we secured 2 new solar projects, and we're currently installing 2 new solar projects as we speak. Regarding the customer segment, we started the corporate PPA processes, and we've closed 3 corporate PPAs using our existing wind farms getting out of support schemes, and we've closed deals with Orange, telecommunication company; with Ocean, retail; and IBM more recently. Now we've also sold our cogeneration plant north of France. So which means that today, we are 100% green, I would say. And over these past 2 years, we've secured also some projects through the auction process, leading us to reach the #2 position in the auction territory. Now when it comes to project pipeline, we've increased the size of our pipeline by around 300 megawatts. So we moved from a situation in June '19 around 1.3 gigawatts up to 1.6 gigawatts today. And despite the COVID constraints, despite basically the difficulties we had to face in 2020, we were able to mature our pipeline, making sure that the project will be going down, becoming more and more mature and ready to be installed. So I think it's quite a success, I would say. Now when it comes to, basically, the situation in France, I would say, if we have a look at the following slide that during the COVID situation, the state -- if you can pass to the other slides, please. Yes, the state, the French state has confirmed our renewable targets. Those targets are called the PPE, it's the annual programmation of the green energy. And as you can see on the left-hand side, those targets are quite ambitious. At the end of the day, we are looking at doubling the wind capacity and multiplying by 4, the solar capacity moving from 10 gigawatts today of wind projects up to 34 in 2028. And from 10 gigawatts of solar projects up to 44 gigawatts in 2028. Of course, we understand that -- the reason we should reach to match those targets is pretty high. But nevertheless, this shows the potential of the French market. Also, what I would like to underline on the right-hand side, are the price levels. So despite the auction process, which started back in 2017, you can see that the prices, although we are still going through a slight decrease, are still pretty good. Because whether we are in the solar field or in the wind field, we are still around EUR 60 per megawatt hour, which is, I think, quite agreeable price level, I would say. Now if you look at the European situation, I would say that we have a combination of very favorable factors. First of all, we are now implementing the EU recovery plan, the EU Green Deal. And as you know, a massive part of the EUR 750 billion are dedicated to the Green Deal to the transition, energetic position. And you can see that together with the electrification of users, this is offering us a lot of opportunities. When we look also at the fossil fuel plants, we can see that there is a progressive closing plant everywhere in Europe. And then also looking at the nuclear situation, we can clearly see today that the nuclear plants are in difficulties, and this is particularly the case in France, where the new generation of the nuclear plant, the EPR, is having great difficulties in matching the budget and reaching an official launch. So all those parameters are leading us to think that the growth potential of the renewable is massive in Europe. And I think through this potential, a lot of interesting business opportunities to be secured. We've also looked at Europe as a main target. So working with [ UI ], we've worked on selecting specific targets in order for us to prioritize those targets. So to do so, we've applied a called multi-criteria filtering system, looking at, for example, the regulations, the growth potential, the grid access auction system, network availability. And thanks to that, we've selected a number of countries. So apart from France and the U.K., which are already 2 existing platforms, we intend to look at Spain regarding solid projects, in particular. Sweden regarding wind projects, in particular. Of course, those targets will be looked at according to a trade-off between risk and reward. And I think it is very important to remain agile in -- on those targets. Now when it comes to our revised strategy, we have organized our strategy through 3 pillars. The first one is to keep on modifying our development practice based on, first of all, competitiveness. And I think this is extremely important when it comes to auction or corporate PPAs. The second target is for us is customer centricity. So we are now building a company around the customer needs, helping us to develop projects, addressing customer needs. And I think we started this route to customer centricity through our corporate PPAs. As I said, we've closed deals with Orange or IBM. We've also looked at extending our offer, especially in the solar field. So apart from solar PV floating, we've also included agrivoltaism. And so we may have mentioned that we've recently closed the deal with [ Seigneurie ]. And this company will enable us to introduce some technology, securing new applications and addressing a new segment in the solar field. The second pillar is diversification. So of course, first of all, we will keep on looking at technological diversification. As mentioned by Patrick, solar project will be a must. And to speed up the solar deployment, we have decided to create a Boralex solar team. So we'll be hiring a reinforced development team addressing solar projects. Secondly, geographical diversification. So our goal is during the forthcoming years to secure a new territory. And then a second territory. So apart from France and the U.K., our goal will be to open at least 1 or 2 additional territories on the European platform. We also intend to use our engineering and innovation team to follow up with new technologies. And I'm thinking about, of course, storage. As you know, we already have some storage applications, but I think we need to keep on selling this part. And also hydrogen, which is today something which attracts a lot of attention, but still to be matured in terms of economical model. Last but not least, the third pillar is related to our asset holding model. And we want to modify our asset holding model to optimize our capital allocation. We will be looking at selecting a long-term partner, a financial partner, supporting us over these coming years. And providing us with additional resources to speed up and fuel, I would say, our deployment in Europe. Now when we have a look at the repowering, as you know, having started the business 10 years ago, we have now some wind farms, slowly but surely exiting from the what we call the classical support schemes. And those projects and are available for reporting. So we have 2 possibilities, 2 options, I would say. We can then reshuffle the project, change the technologies, replacing all wind turbines by new technologies, increasing the output, lowing down the cost of energy and then marketing those production through auctions or corporate PPAs. Or we can also decide according to our modelization to go through what we call lifetime extension. And we can use those projects to secure new corporate PPAs. And this is exactly what we've done with Orange, Ocean or IBM. So as you can see, we have a slow ramp-up, but those wind farms will certainly help us to secure new targets, new direct customers. And I think this is perfectly in line with the ESG targets related to those companies. And we believe that it's a massive market in front of us. So the key takeaways of this European segment. I think we do operate on very attractive markets, supported by massive Green Deal initiative. We have today more than 20 years of experience. We have the skills, the competencies to speed up the earnings growth in Europe. As I said, I think our journey towards customer centricity has started. And as you know, we've already started some PPAs, and we have other new PPAs down the line. Combined to our organic growth, we also intend to look at acquisitions as we did in the past. So we'll have really 2 arms, helping us to deploy the company on the European platform. And in doing so, we believe that, first of all, our diversification strategy will lead us to a more balanced technological mix, solar and wind, towards 2030. And also, we believe that the opening of new territories will spread our commercial and regulatory risk, other barriers and potential markets. Thanks a lot. And now I'll pass the word to Alain. Alain, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Nicolas. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure for me to meet you virtually this morning for the first time. I'm happy to present you element of our strategic orientation, the optimization. So if we go to the recent achievements, one of the main achievements that we have done over the past 2 years is the maintenance optimization for our wind turbines. In total, 623 megawatts in France and North America. So mainly, we in-source all of these tasks, but we did also a special agreement with a supplier. We decided to add value with this option. With the strong growth of in-sourcing, some supplier became more creative and competitive with their offer, and it gave us some opportunity. We did also the upgrade of Buckingham with the installation of new turbines. We doubled the capacity of that hydro facility in Canada, we did the repowering of Cham Longe with the installation of 12 new turbines. Based on that experience, we still have 3 other repowering projects in France in our growth path. Next slide, please. Market trend, the trend we are seeing in the industry now is the consolidation of suppliers, mainly the turbine manufacturer. We need to change our approach with them compared to the past few years. ESG issues also a strong focus on procurement. That will influence the entire chain of supply. And of course, the post-pandemic work will have to be followed, and it will be interesting to see how it's going to change our life. Asset optimization. We will continue to put in place initiatives to optimize the performance of our asset on technical and financial aspect. We will do that, of course, on availability because it's a nice way to optimize our production. To achieve these goals, we will use a mix of in-sourcing, but also negotiation agreement with supplier. We will start also to manage our assets as a portfolio. So we will identify some asset, and we will partially sell a part of these assets to some player with a lower cost of capital. Bruno will explain in more details that strategy in his presentation. Finally, we will continue to simplify and, of course, automate the administrative process of our company. We want to be sure that the company structure is well adapted to execute our strategic plan. There is always room for improvement. We will continue to work on increasing the cost variability and of course, improve the control and analysis of our costs. Finally, we will improve the efficiency of our structure to be sure that it's well adapted to execute our strategic plan. That concludes my part. So Julie Cusson, Marie-Josée Arsenault and Pascal Hurtubise will cover the ESG strategy.

Thank you, Alain. Good morning, everybody, once again. So this morning with my colleague, Pascal and Marie-Josée. We will talk about our corporate social responsibility approach, our recent developments as well as the next steps of this strategy. So I will do the general approach as well as the environment section and Marie-Josée and Pascal will cover the society and governance. So first of all, our approach. So as said in many previous communications, we've always had at Boralex this philosophy, this culture of corporate social responsibility. It was there. It is still there in our DNA, but we were not reporting on it. So last year, what we have done is really to structure this approach. And what we have mentioned in the previous month, is that we took a very rigorous approach. We consulted with many stakeholders and discovered that what was important for them. So 3 pillars which correspond to the E and the S and the G, and 10 priorities have been selected for future development. So if we go to the other slide in terms of the environment, well above complying to different regulations and laws. On the environmental front, we have selected 4 priorities, which are the greenhouse gas emission, the responsible use of resource, the biodiversity as well as adapting to the climate change. And more than just the plan, we already took some actions and acted on it. By example, in regards to GHG emissions, probably the most important initiative is right now, we are working on a quantification of our carbon footprint, going as far as the Scope 3 already in that matter. As well, selling our Blendecques natural gas cogeneration plant was a big step in regards to our GHG mission. On the biodiversity side, we are also right now working on new technology and testing new technology via immunologists, which is in France and we hopefully will have a great result. When we look at what's coming in the next step, we will, as it has been previously with my colleagues, pursue our diversification of geographic as well as technology because we strongly believe that it's a way of adapting ourselves to potential climate change. And as well, we will most of our work on the TCFD. So probably a lot of you know about how important this initiative is. We will analyze what it means for Boralex in the upcoming months. We know that it brings a great structure in terms of the reporting. So this is how we will continue to work on this -- on the E aspect of our pillar strategy. So let's go with Marie-Josée. The floor is yours.

Thanks a lot, Julie. With the pandemic, mental health became a priority of our health and safety program. At Boralex, we held special webcast on it and continually ask our managers to stay close to their teams. A lot of attention was given to the social aspect of CSR in the past year with all the sad events that happened in the world with regards to diversity and inclusion. We've put together trainings on unconscious bias to help our people better understand this matter. In the past year, we also took specific diversity commitment in France and Canada, and signed an historical partnership with the Indonesian, the 200-megawatt wind project, Apuiat, in Québec. We have always had a very close and respectful relationship with the First Nation, and this is another step in the right direction. Next step for social priorities will be to firm up our culture of sustainable performance, a key success factor for the execution of our plan. We will more than ever continue to work on our branding in order to attract and retain talent. And finally, with regards to diversity, we are putting a lot of effort to rapidly come up with targets and training programs as well as improve disclosure on this matter. Now let's talk about employee engagement. Our employee survey is one of many KPIs that provides useful information on the overall status of the organization, just like financial information. Within our organization, engagement is associated with synergy and cooperation, and it aims at measuring our first experience in direct line with our performance and efficiency. We are proud of our 71 engagement index, a 6% point increase from last year despite the pandemic, and a major 13% point increase over 4 years. We are on our way to achieve an Employer of Choice index rate. We have the right talent. They are efficient, engaged and have trust in their managers. It is, therefore, with confidence that I say to you we have the human capital to achieve our strategic ambitions. Pascal, over to you on governance.

Thank you, Marie-Josée. It's interesting to note the turnaround that's been happening at the Board level in recent years. In fact, 5 independent -- 5 of the current independent directors were not with us 3 years ago. So this refreshed Board strongly supports the greater priority that Patrick and the team is putting on ESG matters. Then as an evidence of that is notably the better alignment of executive compensation packages, which we disclose in a more transparent manner. The Board and the HR committee has put objectives on us related to meeting ESG criteria. And they better align the long-term alignment of the management team compensation, which is aligned with the shareholders' expectations and stakeholders' expectations. So -- also to note that recently, we presented ourselves at Boralex to the Solar Energy Industry Association pledge, which aims at putting together protocol against forced labor. So that's a good start and next steps are for us to keep diversity at both the management and board level a priority as we already have, but we'll keep working on that. And expect to have better scores there. And also formalize our current procurement practices, which are somehow in line with the -- or to a great extent, in line with what one might expect from a pure-play player. But we want to formalize them, put them down in writing and make sure that those guidelines are followed across the company. If we could go to the next slide. So what I would like you to remember from this ESG strategy that we're putting in place is that we -- although it was already in our culture to follow what we now know as the ESG criteria. We need to be better structured. We believe in the added value for the plan, of course, but for shareholders of what we've been doing. So now we're putting the structure in place. We hired a first-class Director of ESG, which, of course, will dedicate 100% of her time to the new strategy. We put in place an internal committee that's going to execute or make sure that the strategy is executed properly and fast at the -- across the company. We are working on putting together or finalizing the analysis of our data to establish robust baseline, and then footprint ambitious objectives on the various criteria that we're following. And then it's -- and then report back on that. We need to better disclose, and we want to better disclose what we do and what we'll be doing. Through our analysis of the third-party scoring sheets on Boralex either from the ISS, CSA or board games of this where we realized that we do better than what we're looked at from the outside, but we'll have better disclosure. We'll report back, report, report and report. So that's the level of importance that we're putting to this strategy in every aspect of our strategic thinking and planning. So, if we don't want the game to go to overtime, I'll pass the park to Bruno at this point.

Thank you, Pascal. And welcome, everyone, to this presentation, this Investor Day. It's really appreciated that you're taking the time. And I've noted that we have people joining us from at least 7 different countries. So thank you all for being here today. And after all these very interesting presentations from my colleague on the potential in our markets and our ability to capture that value, I feel a little bit like the dessert at the end of a good meal. You know what you want -- you know you want to see the menu, but you've already had a lot of content, a lot to eat. So let's get on to the financial content. On this slide, the nick name I gave to this slide is Track Record because it shows the strong historical growth in revenues, EBITDA, AFFO, both for the last 5 years and also since the launch of our previous plan 2 years ago. As a reminder, we had set in June 2019, 5-year targets, and we have already reached or have clear line of sight on reaching or exceeding all of them. Looking forward, it is important to mention that we still have good visibility on our future cash flows with 98% contracted cash flows and an average remaining PPA life of 13 years. To finance the growth opportunities that my colleagues presented, it is key to have a strong financial position. We have a total debt of $3.7 billion, which is mostly comprised of long-term project finance, nonrecourse debt. We have reduced our debt ratios over the last couple of years, the result of which is that we have room to finance our continuing expansion with more than $350 million of credit facilities available today. On the next slide, you may have noticed that we like the word optimization. So here is 1 more example of how we apply this word in the finance department. Over the last 18 months or so, we've done $2.7 billion of refinancings in France and Canada, yielding $22 million of interest savings and freeing up more than $260 million on our corporate credit facility, reducing our weighted average cost of debt by 18% since 2018. Now the moment that many of you have been waiting for, and those who are currently reading e-mails or have gone for a coffee, please come back. You may want to look at this slide and listen for at least a couple of minutes. As I mentioned, our 2023 targets being attained or a clear path to be, a very frequent question we receive from investors is whether we could give longer-term visibility. We've decided to go beyond what we did in 2019, giving you more targets for 2025 and a glimpse of our expected growth until 2030. First, let's start with our installed capacity. We expect to double that capacity under management over the next 5 years to 4.4 gigawatts. And then more than double that again to 10 to 12 gigawatts by 2030, leveraging our development team's ability to do organic projects and taking advantage of M&A opportunities. Second, a new EBITDA(A) target of $800 million to $850 million by 2025, representing a 9% to 11% CAGR over 2020 or 10% to 12%, taking into account that 2020 was a stronger-than-usual wind year. Third, as we know that many shareholders like to focus on cash flows, an AFFO target of $240 million to $260 million in 2025, with, again, very good growth rates of 10% to 12% and 14% to 16% normalized for the stronger winds in 2020. Let's pause here just to mention that these numbers represent solid growth that we are confident is achievable based on all you've heard from the team so far. We also included a target on our corporate social responsibility that we want to become the CSR reference for our partners. You've heard Patrick and my colleagues present on all we believe this is an integral part of all of our activities. In addition, I've mentioned how active we have been on the financing front, and we want to demonstrate our commitment to a sound financial position by targeting an investment-grade credit rating, which will also be instrumental in providing additional flexibility and lower cost to our financial strategy. Finally, we are sending a strong growth signal by targeting a reinvestment rate of 50% to 70% of our discretionary cash flows, giving us flexibility to use our most efficient source of cash over the next few years. Clearly, this will help when our cash flows reach new highs by growth, not forcing us to increase the dividend while we continue to see good growth opportunities. We're keeping the same dividend, committing to keep it, and this is just additional flexibility to deal with future growth opportunities and maintain this guideline and flips. On to the next slide. As I indicated, we are giving the market a glimpse of 2030 on installed capacity under management. In our strategic directions, we mentioned growth. We mentioned diversification. Here is a visual that shows the expectations built into our plan with regards to 2030 capacity target. This is key directional information with significant growth in the U.S. market, while continuing to also increase our European presence, as Nicolas mentioned, which offers great potential. And also our Canadian installed capacity, which Hugues covered as well. We will significantly increase our solar installed capacity, creating a more constant stream of cash flows, well diversified over the 4 quarters of a typical year. We also plan on making a foray in storage as a complementary business to our other types of installed capacity mainly wind and solar. The bottom graph demonstrates our expectations that we will continue, and our confidence that we'll continue to develop contracted capacity, relying not only on governments, but also on a very strong corporate interest. Next slide, please. All of this will require money. In terms of investments, the plan requires approximately $6 billion with more money being invested in North America to reach the targets previously mentioned. Different sources of financing will fund this amount. AFFO is the money generated by the company, as you all know. And it's a very efficient way of financing. Project financing continues to be a significant and reliable source of funds for Boralex with our excellent relationships with a diverse set of lenders. We plan to increase our corporate financing and sustainable green financing, and I will cover that in a minute. As for equity, it can come from new issuance or it can come from partnerships. I will emphasize that an equity issuance for us is part of the financing mix to maintain a good credit quality, but we are very well aligned with our shareholders that management incentive program is based on the growth of cash flow per share, significant portion. In fact, 75% of short-term incentives are based on the growth of cash flow per share. On to the next slide, on the disciplined financial strategy. In the past, we've relied mostly on long-term project financing. Over the next few years, we'll gradually increase the mix of corporate debt in order to align the financing with new elements of the strategy, that you've heard today, new markets, new contracted or noncontracted or new types of markets, new technologies. It will also allow us to increase flexibility of repayments and reduce both financing and administrative costs. Also, there is continuing development of a sustainable green financing, and we are very well positioned with our ESG focus and strategy to take advantage of this trend. We will continue to fine-tune our approach to risk-adjusted returns adapted to different markets, technologies, mainly to prioritize the right projects and targets, and be competitive while preserving our disciplined financial approach. I've previously covered reinvestment of cash flows, but I also want to highlight financial partnerships as a growing source of financing in the next few years. Many financial investors are very interested in partnering with Boralex, and are very keen on participating in the green energy industry. Boralex would maintain a controlling position in those partnerships and manage the assets. These financial investors are interested mostly in derisk assets that Boralex has developed or will be developing. Therefore, we expect that we can obtain premiums in -- the development premium in selling down our minority positions in portfolios or some specific assets in the future. On the next slide, let's talk a little bit about mergers and acquisitions. Boralex demonstrated over the years its ability to grow organically, and also identify and complete accretive transactions. The mergers and acquisitions strategy includes different types of targets, such as portfolios of projects with a mix of operating and development assets that Boralex can continue to develop such as the Kallista acquisition in 2019. Development assets and team in a new geography or a new technology, bringing additional expertise to the company. And also operating assets that represents a strategic entry point or providing synergies or optimization opportunities such as CRE acquisition in California that we announced earlier this year. On the next slide, let's talk about partnerships. Developing more partnerships is a key feature of our revised plan. Boralex has experienced doing it. On an opportunistic basis, there is strong demand for additional partnerships with potential partners such as financials, which I mentioned previously, looking for a derisked asset latest development or operating assets and are willing to pay a premium. Rightsizing these transactions and finding the partner with a good fit with Boralex are key success factors that we're taking seriously. Partners also offering key access and/or knowledge to new markets or technologies are another key element of the strategy. Local partners such as First Nations and communities have historically been good partners with Boralex, and we expect to increasingly seek those types of partnerships, which offer win-win conditions. The most recent example in the company is the Apuiat project announced a few months ago with the Innu Nation. I'll leave you with a few key takeaways. We believe all lights are green for Boralex. All lights are green to thrive in this environment with our experienced team and the track record. Boralex offers high visibility on multiyear contracted cash flows. Our development teams are very active on the ground to continue to increase the number of new organic projects. We have a strong strategy, and we have a solid financial position to fund this growth. I will now let Patrick with the closing remarks. Thank you very much, everyone.

Thank you very much, Bruno, and all the team. I think you delivered a lot of interesting material that shows how much we have gone deeply into this updated strategic plan. I would like to take just 1 or 2 minutes to emphasize the main changes of our strategy compared to the one we have disclosed 2 years ago, which was very effective, but where -- how we want to go beyond this. The first point is, you have seen accelerate our growth and define more ambitious objective. We think these objectives are reasonable, achievable and reasonably ambitious. Take charge of our growth through M&A. This is a part of the history of Boralex as Hugues and Bruno and Nicolas mentioned it, and we have to structure ourselves to screen and do it even better than in the past, and we will do it. Prepare for more organic growth in the future. This is very important. And when you look to the plan, the first period and the second period, the 2025 and the 2025-2030 period, we will invest in the next years to have more organic development on top of what we have already, the 2.6 gigawatts of our pipeline at -- for the second period. We think it's very important for continuing to create value for the shareholders. Continue to increase solar energy share in our portfolio. If you look back 2 years ago, when we announced we will go into solar, in our -- we just had, at that time, 15-megawatt of installed capacity in France. Now we are operating the CRE assets more than 200-megawatts on which we have a majority part. And on top of that, -- As you have seen with Hugues, we have 200-megawatts contracted in New York State, and we have a huge pipeline for the block. So the last 2 years, the team has done a lot in solar in Energy. And as Bruno mentioned, we want to increase this part because it's very complementary to wind. Diversify our presence in Europe. There is still a lot of development in France, and there is other development in Europe. And we think, as Nicolas has mentioned, that it's the time to increase our investments in the U.K. and look to other jurisdictions, we have screened that. And the second part is position the United States as the main market of Boralex. If you look back before 2019, in the history of Boralex, we have -- considering the resource we have, we have enough development in Canada and France. And 2 years ago, we really decided to say, okay, we will go to the U.S. to New York State, and now it's really the time to increase this and to continue. Optimize our debt structure with more corporate financing, including sustainable financing. This is thanks to the -- all the work of optimizations and refinancing that Bruno has presented. This is thanks also to the strong cash flow generation of the company. And this is also thanks to the interest from the financial community to invest in sustainable companies like us with strong ESG criteria and on focus. Continue -- as Alain has mentioned, continue to optimize and to improve both our operational and administrative activity finally to reduce the percentage of our revenue that is spent in this activity and to make also more -- finally also to create more value with that. And the last important point is really, we have worked a lot in the trio has presented very in detail that how much ESG is closing. But more than that, all our CSR strategy is integrated in our strategic direction, and how much it will be important in the future to create value. So my conclusion is we have the talent, they are engaged, they are qualified they are willing. Really, they are willing to do it, and we can attract also other talent to continue to develop the one we have already. And on the other side, we have the financial capabilities to deliver this ambitious strategic plan. I'm confident that we will deliver. Thank you for your time and your attention. It's really appreciated. And now we are ready to take questions. Stéphane will read the questions loudly, and we will answer them. Thank you.

All right. So thank you very much, all the team. We are now ready for the question period. I'll start with the first one from Rupert Merer, National Bank. So where do you see spot prices going in France over the next few years with inflation and an increasing cost of carbon? Could you see a material increase? And could this support recontracting of your assets rather than repowering?

Yes, it's a very good question. Obviously, I have no crystal ball, but I think that there are a lot of pressure in Europe. And we mentioned that 2 years ago, but you never know when it will come, and it seems that it's coming now, pressure on the production, on the offer. France will stop next year, its coal plant. Germany will stop next year, its nuclear plant. Belgium will stop between next year and 2025, its nuclear plant. So all this put pressure on the system. And on the other side, if you look to the carbon, what they call the European trading scheme. Before the crisis 2 years ago, the price was around EUR 20, EUR 22, EUR 24 per tonne, goes down during March and April to probably EUR 16. And today, it's, I think, around EUR 50, EUR 52 per tonne. So it really shows how much European Commission and the European states wants to go green in all their industries, not only in renewables. So yes, it pushed the price of electricity at a higher level, for example, next year, baseload is quote around EUR 65, EUR 70 per megawatt hour. It was EUR 45 before the crisis. So a completely different situation. What we do is -- I think what it creates is an opportunity to sometimes postpone repowering. We have no more urgency to repower quickly because the price -- the spot price is down and we will achieve a better price. On the other side, as Nicolas showed us, it's achievable to have for small project, 14-megawatt. It's possible to have EUR 72 per megawatt hour on the 20-years contract. So that gives us stability. And on the other side, on the tender, the RFP is around EUR 60 per megawatt hour. So I think on the long term, it's still interesting when you have an interesting repowering to do it. But on the short term, you can be and you should be nimble, and we have exactly the decision -- we have taken a decision on a specific project some weeks ago to say, okay, we go ahead because of different reasons, it's better to repower it now and not to postpone for 1 year. But we are looking and screening that all the time. And I think the other part, it will -- it confirms that, and we have a presentation of the Orange General Manager for France on Tuesday. And she said that really they are looking to long-term securing their access to renewable electricity. So this pricing now will create another signal for demand from corporate customers. I'm sure that's good news.

All right. Thank you, Patrick. So our second question is from Sean Steuart from TD Securities. So a question for Bruno and Patrick, I would say, let's start with Bruno for this one. So why is there a reluctance to provide per share growth targets for 2025 and 2030, especially discretionary cash flow as it arguably provides a better indicator of expected equity accretion?

Thank you for the question. The -- I mean, it's -- basically, we're giving you the appropriate information, we believe, to -- and our shareholders. And mostly the information that we control at this point or at least that we have more control over. To us, equity issuance is an important way of financing. But as I've mentioned, it's one that we are very much aligned with shareholders. And it's very hard to predict in a 5-year or even further in a 10-year model, price of shares, so number of shares, et cetera, et cetera. And especially since we're going to look at M&A opportunities that may not be identified today, the timing of these issuance. So our commitment is to be very efficient on equity issuance. And we believe that with the AFFO number, AFFO per share, growth will follow by being disciplined on the way we finance our projects.

All right. Thank you, Bruno. So our next question is from David Quezada. Could you discuss or provide color on the regulatory permitting backdrop in the European market, you will look to move into? Patrick, do you want to go for this one?

Yes. Yes. Just -- I will not go into the hold -- the different list that Nicolas presented, but specifically, speak about the U.K. market for wind and solar in Spain. I think in the U.K., it's quite similar to the French market. It's a market where it's not -- I don't know if the qualification is correct, but it's not easy to get an authorization. And the scarcity of authorization make the project very interesting and create a lot of value when you obtain the authorization. So this is for the permitting. The economics is under discussion. You certainly know that there is an offshore system to have access to -- with auction to have access to CFD contract. This is under discussion for the onshore because they understand that it's clear that they will need more onshore wind. And if you have to go back to Cameron government who canceled that some years ago, but the government know and is discussing that for the U.K. So we have to look at this. And there is also in the U.K., a lot of interest for cooperation. And I think the context of the COP26 will certainly push some pressure on cooperations to buy more green electricity for the future. So that's one thing. And grid connection is also a challenge in some part of the U.K., especially when you are in the North. So you need to be -- to check about this and take care about your connection. In Spain, it's easier to obtain authorization for a project itself. And -- but the scarcity of connection, but you don't have to take say, the rumors or some information about the fact that the queue is so full of projects, there is a system because people are asking too much and there is a system to clean the queue every year, I think. So the Spanish market is a market which is different where the competition is really on the price of your production. And then in Spain, also, you have a lot of interest from corporations to buy electricity. They have already stopped, I think, 2 nuclear plants that they want to continue to increase, and they have the space, lots of space. So that's a different thing. And I think that's also one reason why it's interesting. When you have a different regulatory system, you can -- you are diversified somewhere. So that's also an important point.

Thank you, Patrick. So another question from Robert Ferguson. So could you please expand on your energy storage initiatives, please?

Yes. As we mentioned, Hugues and myself, typically, especially -- there are 2 things. The first is in solid, strong electricity system, but with a lot of penetration of renewable electricity like European Western system. There will be opportunity for storage say, one day or another because it will be needed. If you look typically to the Spanish system, they are -- they have important view on this. If you go in the U.K., you have also -- it's a hybrid project or favored because it's an island and electrically, they are less synchronized -- or not synchronized, but less interconnected. They are not synchronized with Europe, Continental Europe. So it's important for them. But today, this is more a merchant market for storage. So it's not completely in our business model. If you look to North America, and we have seen that the last months and years, the electricity systems are less solid and synchronized than in Europe. Yes, there is a [ PayGM ], which is big, but otherwise, there is less interconnection. And we think there would be opportunity for peak shaving and things like this, and we have to look to the kind of contract we will have. Typically, California will go this way because of the electricity, the penetration of solar. And we have already applied to put some solar on I think 2 plants that we just built in February in California. It takes a long time to have the confirmation because the connection process is 12 to 18 months in California, but we think it will be needed one day or another. So that's where we are going on storage.

Thank you, Patrick. And the next question comes from Mark Jarvi from CIBC. So can you provide some rough estimates on the funding mix? So how much common equity? How much partner capital and finally, what about tax equity? So Bruno, you want to take this one?

Yes. We're -- we haven't provided it. The mix -- just trying to -- off the top of my head, recall some information I could give you. As I mentioned, project finance will still be -- at least in the next 5 years, will still be a fairly good chunk. In terms of 3 quarters of the debt will likely be on project finance. We expect to do more corporate financing. Tax equity in the next 5 years will still be a fairly small amount. And equity, as I mentioned, it's a little bit hard to predict, but we'll keep it to a minimum, and we expect likely less than $1 billion of that mix.

Okay. Thank you. So the next question comes from [indiscernible], sorry for your name if I misspell it, from [indiscernible]. So do you have an IR target for wind, solar and in U.S., Europe? Bruno? Question is, do you have an IR target for wind, solar, U.S., Europe?

Yes. So on the return -- our approach to return, as I mentioned, is to be risk-adjusted. So the general approach we mentioned is we look for 8% to 10% returns as a minimum threshold for development assets. And then we adjust, for example, so that's our leverage IR. And we adjust for risk, for example, whether these are -- from a regional perspective, returns in Europe are slightly lower because -- slightly different because of the lower perceived risk in solar and declining costs as well that are taking into account more so than in wind. So these are the elements that we take into account for our returns.

Okay. Great. So next questions comes from Nelson from RBC. So do you expect the mix of M&A and organic growth going forward to be similar to the last 5 years? Patrick or Bruno?

I think it's the right way to look at it, Nelson. What I want to add is, which is important is, as in the past, our M&A should be accretive M&A and should be with optimizations. As Bruno mentioned, it's word we love at Boralex and to improve something, just buying dry assets with new optimizations, we're not creating value. But if there is optimization typically of a pipeline of development or operational optimization or financial optimization, we will look to this. And also if it creates an opportunity for a strategic entry in the market that we're targeting, where we see other organic development. So that's a team of Nicolas and Hugues and team of Bruno are really working together on this because it's an important point and also obviously when it comes to existing assets and operational optimization -- optimizations.

And is attracting larger player that Boralex will need to develop larger projects to accelerate its growth? In the U.S., so do you think you need to begin competing on larger opportunities in Europe as well?

It depends of the market where you are typically end in a later stage, possibly Sweden is an interesting market because it's larger project. But as I mentioned also, this is a market where competition is different. So you really need to find a way to protect your -- what we will look for in these 2 markets.

Great. So now a question from Bill Cabel from Desjardins. So question is, it is great to see contract prices in France not declining too quickly. But what are you seeing on build cast for France to $1 per megawatt?

For the moment, I just -- very presently, I signed many, many orders in France under the budget this week and last week. So presently, what is in the growth path is going well, even on the turbine price and certainly, the experience of Nicolas being on the other side, who is the turbine suppliers for many years. He knows how to negotiate with them, and he's brought that to us 2 years ago. So really, the fact to negotiate framework agreement with turbine suppliers and give them visibility is important. So today, it's more a question of how nimble you are and quick you are to secure your order to say, okay, I'm not able to sign financing at the same time than the purchasing of the turbine. So I do something to book the turbine delay, to book the turbine price. And then I do the financing afterwards. This was not what we have done in the past. We tried to sign the same day both. But today, the company has more flexibility on this side. So it's the important point. And also to give them visibility of what is there, attracting them to the Canadian market is also a way to have interesting price in France.

Excellent. So another question from Andrew Kuske from Crédit Suisse. So what is the longer-term percentage of asset owned versus those being managed or capital partners or another way to look at it is Boralex more of an asset owner or asset manager?

Just generally speaking, I think today, we are more an asset owner and a majority of -- in the future, we will try to do it and to keep the right project as much as possible. But on the other side, there was all the time [indiscernible] optimizations and have a part of it. So we will stay a majority asset owner with an optimized balance sheet. And I don't know, Bruno, if you want to give more on this?

I think that's pretty clear. Patrick, thank you. So it's important to all the assets. Now by owning, we don't need to own 100%. So keeping control, as Patrick mentioned, is important. And the demand is there for looking at the assets as a portfolio as a whole. We continue to create value with that portfolio. Now timing of ownership is another question and one important that will evolve over the next few years. So we may be an owner, but we don't have to be an owner for 30 or 40 years or for the whole life of the asset. So that's another thing that we'll look at.

Here's a question. So you plan to double generation capacity by 2025 with a focus on U.S. development. Can you speak to the balance you are targeting between organic development versus M&A? And how you plan to preserve return given the level of competition in the U.S. market?

It's a good question, as I answered to Nelson earlier. I think take what we have done in the past as a guidelines between 40% to 60%. Definitely, it's easier to protect your margin when you are doing organic growth. This is why we want to and we continue to do it. On the other side, there is more -- a lot of opportunity in M&A, and you have to work a lot to find the right one. And that's what we have done in the past. So we will continue doing this. And again, as I mentioned, optimizations, optimizations, optimizations of what we buy, bringing our strengths seeing where others are not seeing value and realizing the value. This is important. And the integration of the way we integrate new assets or new project will be very important to create this value, and we will have a process for that also in June.

Okay. Question for -- sorry, question coming from [ Rajat Sirat ], $6 billion to fund 2.2 gigawatt installed capacity to 2025. The run rate is high, especially if additional growth is coming from solar. Can you expand on some of the assumptions? Bruno, do you want to take this one?

Well, I think we've probably went as far as we wanted to expand on these assumptions. These numbers are based on everything we know today. And we believe that we have the track record in our demonstrated history and recent past, even that we try to take a conservative approach to our forecast. So I mean, let's hope that we'll achieve even more than we've [ made ] years.

Yes. I will not give a detailed number, just -- they are ready for bidding, and we will play with what we -- it's too sensitive to give detail on that.

Great. Other question from David Quezada from Raymond James. So in the U.S., how many megawatts worth of solar panel have you safe harbored?

Very good. Do you -- can you take it for me?

Unfortunately, I don't get the number from the top of my mind.

Okay. We will come back through Stephan to your question, David.

Next question is from Naji. Can you discuss your strategy to expand into European markets? So how do you expect to gain a footprint in Spain markets?

But there are -- specifically in the U.K., we are already there. So we have already a partner, and we have -- we understand the market because we in the U.K., we have already skilled internally, and we will develop these skills and continue with our partner. This is typically one thing. On -- in Spain, we have to look for, I think, the right acquisition of talent, not because, again, it's a question of having done, the personal development in different countries in Europe, I can tell you it's different from one country to the other. So you need to be well supported internally and that's the way we think we will create more value for our shareholder. And it's not -- it's in our plan, -- It's not -- we don't have to do it in the next 6 months. We have -- we are speaking about for 1.5 years in the development. So we will take the time to do the right acquisition and not be pressurized to do it for the next 2 quarters. I think this is the best way to do it correctly.

Thank you, Patrick. So next question is from Nelson. So for you, Bruno. In terms of debt financing with less nonrecourse debt and target investment-grade rating, should we assume that debt will fund a smaller portion of project cost going forward?

Debt will not fund a smaller portion. It will be a different mix of debt, if I understand correctly the question.

Okay. Good. The next question from [ Luca Nadore ]. So what approach would you -- will you take with your assets are down? And what stage of projects -- at what stage of projects will you consider selling down assets, mostly selling minority stake or also total ownership stake in some projects? So I think this question was partly answered, but it's more about, I guess, what's the approach. And at what stage would we be considering to sell down a minority stake.

I can take it. So the demand from financial investors is mainly towards just before construction or after construction when the development risk is gone or very, very low. That's really where most investors -- financial investors like to come in. So it's a demeanor, it's derisked and the impact of a good view on future cash flows. And it's probably at that time that the premium that they're willing to pay is highest. So that's when we would expect most partnerships to come in. I mean, during the operating life as well, but at the beginning of that is more likely. So that's in terms of timing, what we expect some financial investors like to come in earlier, but it's not as common.

Excellent. Question from Justin Strong from Scotiabank. So can you speak to the risks and mitigation efforts associated with inflation negotiation on turbine cost?

On one side, the existing contract of the company are inflated. So on one side, it's an interesting period of having some inflation for us because for some contracts, it's even low to 60%. So that's one thing. On the other side, the risk is really between the time you obtain a contract and the time you start operation because in this period, generally, you're not insulated, but it could depend on some RFP sometimes. But this is the period where there is a risk. So you have to evaluate how much you put in your bid of your -- the expected inflation during this period in modification. So that's one of the work we have to do and one of the work we have to evaluate. On the interest rate, typically, we have put more margin than in the past in the model to be protected on this site. And it's still possible today to obtain really interesting interest rate. And again, Bruno, if you want to comment on that, you can go over.

Yes. So the interest rate, as Patrick mentioned, when we're bidding and looking at projects, we build in some contingency. But on the sort of strategic approach on the financing, we book for fixed long-term interest rates with financial instruments or just longer-term debt. At this time, we believe -- and that's in part why we've done quite a bit of refinancing, as I mentioned earlier, to add a low-cost debt long term.

Okay. Additional questions from Mark Jarvi. So expansion in Europe, can it be done by organic development? Or would you need to use acquisitions to enter new markets and how big a transaction would you be considering?

I partly answered the point. I think it depends on if you qualify a partnership and buying nothing -- no added value. I don't think it's the right way to do it. It's more important to create value to make more organic development. But it depends on what you qualify for a different buy portfolio or make something that we have done in the U.K. In the U.K., we have done a partnership and invest in organic cost, and we have not paid organic development fee to somebody. So this is, I think, the best way to create value.

Okay. Question from Nelson to Bruno. Unexpected project development return is 8%, still the minimum target? Or should we be thinking about the spread over the 10-year government bond yield?

I also mentioned that we're working on fine-tuning our return approach. And clearly, in different markets, the 10-year bond is a risk-free benchmark. And it's not the same in all regions of our plan. So we do take that in these returns. So it's important to mention how we look at and model these returns as well.

Thank you, Bruno. We still have a few questions going on. Skipping some that have already been answered, but to EBITDA multiple, around 17, 18. Is this a fair way to evaluate these numbers? I don't think it's a good way to...

I'm looking for a kind way to say no. But we can go back and talk again on what that can going forward. But a bit too technical for this call.

So thanks, Sanjiv. Any comments on synergies with green hydrogen production for storage or integration or regional hydrogen up being developed in Europe?

It's clear in this direction. It's still a lot of announcements and plans. So we think it's not the time to put in our model euros, but we have to look if it's the best long-term customer instead of a corporation with -- where the part of added value is less linked to electricity because you understand, typically, when you're discussing with their added value, then they have good purchasers, and they will negotiate a lot and you price and the margin you would do at the end is too lower than when you are negotiating with a company where electricity is more 10% to 15% of their advertise. So we need to look to this. And this is the way we have to differentiate the customers. But it's -- it will surely put pressure on the demand.

Thank you, Patrick. A question by Rupert. Definitely, Rupert, that had a long list of questions, but it's good, Rupert. So this question is, can you give more color around the outlook for new growth in Quebec?

Typically, the first -- the restart of the wind industry in Quebec was the announcement of our partnership with the Innu Nation in February. It was announced by [indiscernible] that there is no more hydro dam project and that wind is competitive. So you understand that the -- what they call the surplus in the past and the available energy today is reducing a lot. So there will be opportunity. And as we've mentioned 2 years ago, we had -- we were not seeing them, but we continue to nurture the project we have here. So we are ready to -- for the next stage.

First of all, the credit rating is for the balance sheet and then Boralex Inc. So we'll need some -- right now with the project financing, the cash flows on many projects, and therefore, with new projects will decrease slightly the project financings. And then so what people will look for on credit metrics is, so EBITDA coming directly to Boralex Inc. in terms of either dividends from projects or direct assets that we can link to the corporate facilities. So that -- I gave the analogy a little bit of we need to turn a boat and the boat doesn't turn on a dime. So we need to make some adjustments to increase the cash flows that come unplanned. That is very achievable and certainly, hopefully, more rapidly than not to get to that investment grade. We don't believe we're that far, but it takes a little bit of time and some structural changes.

All right. That -- it completes our Q&A session. Before asking Patrick to conclude, I just wanted to share with you an interesting comment. I was a broker in 1997 for the first issue. I'm sure I participate with my clients and I am always shareholders and retire now. Your long-term plan is interesting, keep focus on shareholders. So thank you, Mr. Rheaume. And thanks for everyone who was on the line with us today. I hope you find it really useful information that we provide, all the content that you were looking for. We are very, very happy about this plan. We're proud all employees are dedicated and now that it's out there, it's time to execute. So on that, I will ask Patrick Decostre to conclude.

Thank you, Stéphane. But first of all, thank you very much for your time. It was, I hope, an interesting period and seeing all the questions that we will have to answer after the call. There is a lot of interest to Boralex, and I thank you for that. There is long-term interest, as Mr. Rheaume mentioned. So that's great. That's the way we think we have to go. Being in the sector, electricity sector for more than 25 years now, I think it's a period that has never been seen in the electricity sector. And in some sector in the past, but it's incredible to see that we have built a company with customers who are obliged by their government to buy our electricity. And now we have -- we are -- we reinvent ourselves to sell electricity to people who want to buy our electricity. Also in the past, it was not easy to find financing. No, it's a way because the community has understand that it's a long-term business, sustainable business. And so all those things are there. The team is there. The team is dedicated. We have not presented that view, but in terms of execution, we will be also very, very rigorous with the management team, and I think it's the recipe to be on the right side of the delivery. So thanks for your trust in Boralex, and thanks for listening to you and see you soon. Thank you.