Clearway Energy, Inc. [CWEN] Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 9, 2024 8:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Chris Sotos - President & CEO
Sarah Rubenstein - EVP & CFO
Craig Cornelius - President & CEO of Clearway Energy Group
Akil Marsh - IR
Conference Call Participants
Michael Lonegan - Evercore ISI
Noah Kaye - Oppenheimer
Alex Kania - Marathon Capital
Operator
Good day. And thank you for standing by. Welcome to Clearway Energy, Inc. First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to your speaker today, Chris Sotos, outgoing President and CEO of Clearway Energy, Inc.
Chris Sotos
Good morning. Let me first thank you for taking the time to join Clearway Energy, Inc.'s first quarter call. Joining me this morning are Akil Marsh, Director of Investor Relations; Sarah Rubenstein, CFO; and Craig Cornelius, President and CEO of Clearway Energy Group, our sponsor, and incoming President and CEO of Clearway Energy, Inc.
Before we begin, I'd like to quickly take note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements, which are based on the 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’ll 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.
Turn to Page 4, CWEN’s first quarter delivered solid results, primarily due to strong renewable resource at Alta, generating $52 million of CAFD, establishing a strong start for the year, allowing for a reaffirmation of our 2024 guidance of $395 million. Clearway also increased its dividend by 1.7% for the quarter, bringing our quarterly dividend to $0.4102 A share, or $1.6408 on an annualized basis, in line with our targeted dividend growth of 7% for 2024. Our latest investments continue to achieve commercial operations, with Cedar Creek and Texas Solar Nova 2 now contributing to CWEN’s CAFD. CWEN also committed to approximately $65 million of new corporate capital deployments since our last earnings fall, generating five-year annual average CAFD yields of approximately 10%, with the executed agreements on Dan's Mountain, and Rosemont South 1. As a result of our continued execution on deployment of the thermal proceeds, CWEN is increasing our pro forma CAFD outlook to $420 million from $415 million. In the medium term through 2026, the remaining dropdown offers to fully allocate the thermal proceeds are on track to become commitments in 2024, allowing CWEN to achieve $2.15 of CAFD per share by 2026, with no external capital, and reaffirm the ability to achieve the upper range of 5% to 8% EPS growth through 2026.