Northland Power Aktie

Welcome to the Northland Power Conference Call to discuss the first quarter 2026 results. As a reminder, this call is being recorded on Thursday, May 14, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern. Present for this call are Christine Healy, President and CEO; Jeff Hart, Chief Financial Officer; and Adam Beaumont, Head of Capital Markets.

Before we begin, Northland's management has asked me to remind listeners that all figures presented during today's call are in Canadian dollars and to caution that certain information presented and responses to questions may contain forward-looking statements that include assumptions and are subject to various risks. Actual results may differ materially from management's expected or forecasted results. Please read the forward-looking statements section in yesterday's news release announcing Northland Power's results and be guided by its contents when making investment decisions or recommendations. The release is available at www.northlandpower.com. I will now turn the call over to Ms. Christine Healy. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. I'd like to begin with a few perspectives on the broader macro environment that's shaping our business and the energy sector overall. Recent geopolitical developments reinforce the importance of energy security for governments, businesses and consumers. We're operating in a dynamic global environment, where evolving market fundamentals underscore the need for resilient and flexible energy systems. Across markets, we see a clear and consistent theme, tightening supply and growing demand, driven in part by accelerating electrification.

And together, these dynamics are reinforcing the critical role of renewables as a scalable, domestically sourced and increasingly cost-competitive solution, playing a central role in strengthening energy independence and system resilience. As energy security becomes more critical around the world, demand for long-term contracted solutions that provide price certainty and system reliability continues to grow. We're seeing this play out across our portfolio. In Europe, we see power pricing continuing to reflect underlying macro events, particularly in markets such as Germany and the Netherlands, where natural gas prices are a driver of marginal electricity pricing.

And here in Canada, we see an increase in power demand with the need to nearly double electricity generation in coming years. We see that already within our natural gas facilities in Canada, where there is a trend of increasing utilization month-over-month. Stepping back, the current environment reinforces our strategy at Northland, which is anchored in creating value through disciplined execution, operational excellence and effective operation of our high-quality asset base. Northland is well positioned given our multi-technology expertise.

We own and operate a diversified portfolio spanning offshore wind, onshore renewables, natural gas-fired power and grid-scale battery energy storage across Canada, Europe and Asia, comprised of 3.5 gigawatts of gross operating capacity and 2.2 gigawatts of capacity under construction. Our scale, operating expertise and technology breadth position us well to capture growing demand and increasing value across our markets. Our diversification helps us deliver stable performance, while creating value through recontracting, optimizing our existing fleet and disciplined execution of our development pipeline.

Before turning to our first quarter results, I want to acknowledge a tragic incident that occurred during the quarter at our EBSA utility in Colombia, where a contractor lost his life, while performing work on one of our transmission lines. We took immediate action to support the family and colleagues and have implemented a detailed action plan. We've completed a thorough investigation, and our action plan is directed at strengthening our safety culture and applying the lessons learned to protect everyone, who works at our sites around the world. This terrible incident reinforces the importance and the need for relentless focus on improving safety culture.

With that, I will begin with an overview of our first quarter results, our strategic priorities and updates on our construction activities. Jeff will then take us through the financial results in more detail, after which we will open the line for questions. Strong wind conditions in Northern Europe contributed to solid financial performance in the first quarter with adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow per share increasing 18% and 17%, respectively, compared to the first quarter of last year. While strong wind conditions underpinned that performance, our high fleet availability of 96% enabled us to capture these favorable wind resources and convert them into generation.

We continue to advance construction at the 1 gigawatt Hai Long offshore wind project in Taiwan, the 1.1 gigawatt Baltic Power offshore wind project in Poland and the 80-megawatt 2-hour Jurassic BESS project in Alberta, together representing more than 2.2 gigawatts of generation and storage capacity under construction. At Hai Long, we recently signed a new 30-year corporate power purchase agreement with our current corporate off-taker, which will cover 100% of the project's generating capacity. As electricity demand grows and energy security becomes a greater policy priority, we see commercial off-takers seeking long-term contracted supply, providing price certainty and reliability, and Northland is well positioned to meet that demand.

Turning to a bit more detail about our construction projects. At Hai Long, fabrication of all the remaining major components has been completed. Our turbine installation campaign is underway following the opening of the weather window on April 1. We have 51 out of 73 turbines now installed with 32 of those turbines generating power and all cabling work now complete. The project remains on track for commercial operation in 2027. At Baltic Power, we completed several important construction milestones, including fabrication of the remaining components and installation of all 4 export cables, all the inter-array cables, all the transition pieces and 38 of the 76 turbines. The project remains on track for commercial operation in the second half of 2026.

At Jurassic BESS in Alberta, we installed all 39 battery packs and 20 medium-voltage transformers during the quarter and successfully energized the project's main transformer. That project remains on track for commercial operations in the second half of this year. And we are advancing our 2 battery energy storage projects in Poland. We expect to start construction on one of those projects in the coming weeks with the second project beginning in the coming months. Disciplined capital allocation remains central to our strategy. We continue to refine and high-grade our development pipeline and prioritize projects with returns that meet our investment criteria.

During the quarter, we decided to discontinue the 100-megawatt High Bridge onshore wind project in New York State, following the government's suspension of permit applications. We had previously minimized spending on this project, pending certainty on the permitting path, and we've now determined that the issues are unlikely to reverse in the near term and our development money is better spent elsewhere. We also chose not to renew a permit for a 990-megawatt offshore wind project in South Korea due to the project not meeting our investment criteria. The remainder of our 1.6 gigawatt development portfolio in South Korea remains paused, as we continue to assess the regulatory environment.

These are the right decisions for our business. Our objective is disciplined growth supported by strong returns and execution certainty. We are also evaluating opportunities across our core markets, and we're maturing value enhancement opportunities within our existing fleet. And we look forward to providing you with updates and more details on that as the year unfolds. With that, I'll turn it over to Jeff to walk us through the financial results.

Thanks, Christine, and good morning, everyone. It was a strong quarter with operational availability of 96%, which allowed us to capture strong wind resource across our European offshore fleet. In addition, our results were supported by lower curtailments related to negative pricing and grid outages. And the Oneida energy storage facility, which commenced operations in May of last year, also contributed meaningfully. These drivers were partially offset by lower production from our onshore wind and solar facilities in Spain, Canada and the U.S. Overall, we generated first quarter adjusted EBITDA of $427 million, which represents an 18% increase compared to the first quarter of 2025. This increase, as I mentioned, was due to higher production from offshore wind and contributions from Oneida as well as pre-completion revenues from Hai Long.

Net income for the quarter was $161 million compared to $111 million in 2025. And free cash flow per share for the quarter was $0.70 compared with $0.60 in 2025. And in relation to our major construction projects, Baltic Power and Hai Long, both are on track for commercial operations as planned with overall costs aligned with original expectations. And as previously disclosed in the fall of 2025, slower-than-expected turbine commissioning at Hai Long may require a potential equity injection of $150 million to $200 million Northland share. And this can be funded by several sources, including corporate liquidity. However, we and our project partners are actively looking at optimizations at the project level, and we'll provide an update later this summer.

The signing of the new 30-year Hai Long corporate power purchase agreement extends our weighted average contract length and creates incremental capacity for further project level optimizations. The Northland team is pursuing more value creation activities across our fleet. And we are reaffirming our 2026 financial guidance with 2026 adjusted EBITDA expected to be in the range of $1.45 billion to $1.65 billion and free cash flow per share in the range of $1.05 to $1.25. And given the seasonality of our business where the first and fourth quarters are typically key, our strong Q1 performance provides a constructive start and supports our outlook for the year.

And turning to our balance sheet. With nearly $1 billion of available liquidity and our investment-grade credit rating, we are well positioned to execute on our capital allocation plan. With that, I'll hand it back to Christine.

Thank you, Jeff. Q1 was a strong start to what we expect to be a defining year for Northland. For the remainder of 2026, the plan is clear: bring Baltic Power and Jurassic BESS to commercial operations, advance Hai Long towards its 2027 commissioning and build on the value enhancement work underway across the fleet. I am motivated by what's ahead. Our diversified portfolio, strong financial discipline and track record of project execution position us to capture this opportunity in front of us and create long-term value for shareholders. This concludes our prepared remarks. So operator, if you can please open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Melissa Deane of National Bank of Canada.

So during the quarter, you made strong progress on both Baltic Power and Hai Long. On Baltic Power specifically, are your expectations for pre-completion revenue contribution beginning in Q2 '26 still intact? It looks like you reported a positive approximate $9 million share of profit contribution in Q1 for Baltic, despite that Q2 expectation. Could you help us understand the primary drivers of that this quarter? Was it entirely FX or hedging-related accounting impacts? Just wanted to clarify that.

Yes. Thanks. It's Jeff here. There's a few in there. I'd say if you stand back for the quarter, we did have pre-completion revenues from Hai Long for circa $20 million. And I'll remind you is that when we came out with Q4, we had about 20 turbines turning at the time. And I think we're now at 32. And I'll just refresh everybody is we still expect to be within the range of our pre-completion guidance for Hai Long as well as our overall guidance. And that is back-end weighted, clearly, with the turbines turning in the fall and the heavy wind period in Q4. So we're reaffirming that.

Also for the quarter, you referenced FX. We did have some realized gains in relation to some interest rate hedges that we look to optimize to the tune of about $35 million. I view that as an onetime and a unique opportunity for us.

Okay. Perfect. That's really helpful. And so on Hai Long, progress appears to have accelerated relative to expectations. What drove that improvement? And now that the in-water installation window has opened up, how should we think about the cadence of turbine energization through the balance of 2026?

Melissa, thanks so much for your question. I'm going to start off by saying that in projects, nothing is done until it's done. So we continue to work. So as we indicated when we were -- in our last update from last quarter, we basically had a team on standby through the -- when the weather window was closed, we had a team on standby that could go offshore and do work when the weather permitted. And so that team was able to accomplish some things that set us up in good shape for when the weather window reopened.

And so of course, with the weather window reopened, we had the benefit of time to plan and crews who are now well experienced in the area. So I think we're starting to now get a bit of momentum building around that activity. So I think this is what we like to see in projects. It's what we expect to see in projects. It's always nice when we see it come to fruition. So now, of course, we get weather updates daily on what's happening and the teams adjust their planning accordingly. So they're going at the cadence that we expect right now. And so we're going to keep that up.

Perfect. That's helpful. And just one more follow-up on that. As a reminder, how much capital remains to be spent for both Baltic Power and Hai Long?

Yes. No, thanks for that. It is obviously with FX and different things, but it's in and around or slightly under around $3 billion left to go on the 2 projects, Canadian dollars.

Perfect. And maybe one on a different note. Just the Polish batteries, we saw some incremental progress during the quarter. Have you begun evaluating procurement optionality for those projects? And can you just remind us of the key differences you expect in both building and operating battery storage assets in Poland relative to Ontario, for example?

Thanks, Melissa. So the projects are moving through -- we have a decision gate process within Northland, and every project has to be rigorously reviewed through the stage-gate process. So as we move through that and the projects meet their requirements, then they move forward into construction phase. And part of that is making sure that we have clarity on our supply chain and making sure that we can meet all of our expectations so that -- it's part of the reason, I would say that Northland is good on project execution, as we plan these things effectively. We set up the milestones and then we hold the project to that as a commitment. So that's part of how we do it here at Northland.

In terms of how the systems work, we're seeing jurisdiction by jurisdiction, some commonality, but also some differences. That's not meant to be a vague answer. It's actually an accurate answer. So within Ontario, I will highlight that the Oneida battery storage project has, in fact, been performing very well. It's been performing on the system and providing much needed services. It's also been contributing well commercially for us in the quarter. The way that the system works in Poland is that similar to Ontario, we do have a contracted revenue stream where we are available for the system in order to provide stability within the overall electricity grid. And then there's a merchant component as well where we trade in and out based on prices. So in many ways, the 2 models are similar.

And our next question comes from Sean Steuart of TD Cowen.

Jeff, a question on the incremental PPA at Hai Long with your corporate off-taker. Can you give some context on, I guess, up-financing opportunities associated with that, if you're going to be able to pull more liquidity out of that asset and how that could help bridge the pre-completion gap that you cited previously?

Yes. No, I can't really give any more color on the contract itself. I think what I'll just highlight is the incremental term. And I would say it's, I think, a valuable agreement probably for everybody involved. And I think that's conducive and I'll say is helpful to us evaluating different opportunities in the longer term. And so as I said, we'll come back midyear or later this summer on an update on the project and those opportunities itself. But we're feeling pretty good about what's in front of us on that.

Okay. That's good to hear. And broader thoughts on potential asset sales to fund earlier-stage development opportunities. How has that market evolved, whether it's sell-downs of minority stakes in existing assets or outright exit from operating platforms? Any comments on potential there?

Yes, I can take that, and obviously, Christine can chime in. I think it really depends on markets. Like I think you'll see it in -- as an example in the U.S. is with the regulatory framework on -- in relation to hybrid, I think earlier stage or even later-stage developments that aren't on in relation to wind, probably not much value there in the market or expectation given that regulatory risk. I think there's probably in that market attraction for operated assets. So it really is market dependent.

What I would say is we see opportunities across the portfolio to continue to optimize and clip, and we'll be -- but we'll be very value-focused on it and opportunistic. And that's where we're in a strong financial position or a good financial position that we can do what's right for our shareholders. So we'll value the opportunities here. But I think we see opportunities even on the acquisition side to compete with our development projects as well, and we'll continue to look to high-grade and optimize both buy and sell.

So Sean, I'll add into that to say -- first of all, I appreciate the question. And we're continually evaluating across the portfolio where we see opportunities. And I think I've mentioned in previous calls that always the guiding question for us is, are we the best owner of these assets? And in many cases, I think the answer is clearly yes. And in cases where it's questionable, sometimes we send the teams back to do a bit more work to decide whether or not we are that best owner. And where we're not the best owner, then we will take steps accordingly. So that review continues all the time, and it's updated based on the performance of the assets, the performance of the teams and what's going on in the general macro environment as well. So we're continually looking at that.

And our next question comes from Nelson Ng of RBC Capital Markets.

Just a quick follow-up on the Hai Long corporate PPA. I think when you guys initially reached financial close back in 2023, the guidance was for roughly $230 million to $250 million of EBITDA for the first 5 years on average. I -- roughly, is that number going to change? And is that part of the update that you're looking to give mid or late this year?

Yes. Thanks for that, Nelson. I'll focus really as opposed to going 4 years back just with what we out laid at Investor Day. And we kind of -- we said, look, between the 2 projects, we're going to deliver about $0.80 in free cash flow as part and parcel of our 2030 targets. And what I would say is I'd reiterate that. I think our update for the project is just more near-term funding and optimization is what we're going to be really talking about at that midyear update, but in and around summer.

Okay. Got it. And then on the Polish battery projects, in terms of the -- I think the number was about EUR 200 million is the total cost. Can you give a bit of color in terms of how much of that would be funded by project level debt?

Yes. Look, what -- we'll update in due course as we progress that. And obviously, we've talked about the 2 projects, one starting construction here in the coming weeks and one a little bit of follow-on from that, and we'll give an update there. What I would say is we will balance -- and there's no -- we're still comfortable -- and using that word comfortable, but we're confident in executing and see the economics holding.

And what I would say is we will balance the PF and leverage levels just on the merchant split relative to the capacity payment. And as Christine talked to is, there is a capacity component of that contract. It is at a lower percentage of what we would see at Oneida, which was kind of 60-40. And so we'll update in due course, but I would expect with the higher merchant for exposure to be slightly lower gearing ratio on the PF.

Okay. Got it. And then just one last question. In terms of High Bridge, you guys are no longer pursuing that due to economic reasons, and you mentioned regulatory risk. So I think there's a provision for another, I think, $9 million. Is that -- will that project be required to pay any penalties to NYSERDA? Or is that just the cost of winding down that development?

Yes, there's a couple of things in there. It is the overall P&L impact for that. I'm just going to round close to $35 million. $25 million is historical cost write-off and then you have circa $10 million in relation to closeout penalties and the like on LCs, et cetera. So that's what that relates to. And that's the way to broadly think of the High Bridge impacts. So $25 million circa historical cost and about $10 million closeout.

And our next question comes from Mark Jarvi of CIBC.

Just in terms of when you guys are pursuing new natural gas investments, whether it's with the existing assets or potentially greenfield, where do you stand right now in terms of communication with the large OEMs in terms of just what you're seeing timelines, costs? And how does that kind of factor into the projects that you're kind of moving up the queue in terms of priorities, like things that, I guess, maybe go down a bilateral agreement versus competitive tenders. I'm just curious how that all kind of folds in together.

So Mark, it's a great question. And I would say the answer to it is all of the above and probably a bit more beyond. So I would say in the last 6 weeks, I've had one-to-ones with most of our major potential equipment manufacturers. In some cases, we have long-standing, decades-long relationships that we rely on. We also have been talking to some potential new kids on the block. And we also look at different opportunities that might exist in the market just with other industry participants who might be having different planning than they were otherwise having.

So we're looking at all of that. And the answer is it really depends site by site, and that's a bit the difficulty of kind of preplanning your supply chain because the requirements site by site and jurisdiction by jurisdiction within Canada can be quite different. So we don't really see that a one-size-fits-all approach matches what the system operators are looking for today. Now if that changes, that's great that we can adapt to that as well. But right now, I would say we continue to keep open opportunities with all of our suppliers. But we, of course, have strong relationships with some of our suppliers, like we've been doing natural gas for 38 years. So those relationships go back a long time, and we have a very good understanding with one another. So I think when we have the right opportunities, we'll be able to move forward on them.

So just in terms of opportunities then even it's greenfield or something where you actually have to install a new gas turbine, does that mean that you'd be more focused on bilateral where you can come in and line up the cost when you sign the actual contract terms as opposed to trying to put your neck out on the line a little bit on contract terms, capacity pricing before you have all the equipment costs locked in?

So in Northland, we don't like to make commitments to our system operators unless we know how and when we're going to be able to deliver on them. So that's part of our DNA in Northland. And I appreciate not everybody might approach that in the same way, and there's puts and takes in all of that. But for us, we really like to know what we can do and when we can do it. And so that's back to our decision gate process. It would be truly exceptional for us to step outside that. And right now, we don't see any reason to do so. We think that our process works well and delivers best value and makes us the trusted, reliable partner that we think system operators need to rely on.

Sounds good. And then you brought up, Christine, the potential for some acquisitions, not just necessarily selling assets, but potentially acquiring some. Can you share anything else on that, whether that includes operating and development assets, anything in terms of regional focus or technology that you're seeing as better opportunities today?

We are looking and evaluating, and that's all I'll say about that.

And our next question comes from Benjamin Pham of BMO.

I wanted to go back to your development backlog. You've revised a couple of projects that you previously paused that are now taken out. That 8 gigawatts there that you have advancing going forward, can you unpack that somewhat to maybe give us a number on projects that are not paused? Or in other words, like if you actually take out projects that don't look like they're actually going to happen, like what would the backlog be in gigawatts?

So thanks for the question. Our pipeline is as it is in our disclosure. So I think as I mentioned in my opening comments, we do have right now, we -- there are some jurisdictions where we await final terms so that we know what we're bidding on. And so part of that, we hold a license, we have an opportunity. But to know if we're going to move forward with a project, we need to know the commercial terms on which the project could exist and what we're investing on.

So I would say right now, the pipeline remains active. We have projects that we're moving through. Various projects are in different levels of maturity. But we've highlighted the 2 that we made decisions on this quarter to discontinue, but the other projects are -- they continue to be evaluated. But whether they make it through our decision gates or not is a second question. They have to come through investment committee. And then as we get to sort of the next phase of having to spend more money, then the project team has to bring it forward and say, here's why we think there is a path forward to this meeting all of our thresholds inside Northland. And that is -- those decision gates are very important milestones inside of our company.

So we tried to show a bit of that at Investor Day showing early phase and sort of more maturity, and that reflects where projects move through our decision gates. So very early phase, there's lots of optionality, and that's the way it should be. And then as we get closer to spending more money, we need to have more certainty.

And maybe just to add to that, it's a good starting context since you have -- let's say have -- from my quick math, it looks like you still have the Korean -- some Korean projects in there. You got Scotland floating as well. And so it looks like you still have it teed up in a sense that it might move forward on those projects. But right now, it seems like it's much lower probability. So really, that backlog you have there, the 8 gigs you're working on, I mean it is -- in terms of any active pipeline, it is smaller than that 8 gigawatts.

Yes, Benny, I think it's -- I think you summarized it when you look at those 2 projects, the floating in Korea is us evaluating and prioritizing if you look at Scotland, the fixed bottom and then Korea, it's really clarity on regulatory timing and framework. And so those are the 2 I would highlight. I think we see options across the rest of the portfolio, but those are the 2 specific examples that we'll continue to wait and see.

And I think as we see in our different markets, and there was a previous question on this on potential acquisitions and M&A is I think the Polish battery projects are a good example of things where we can create value in the markets we're in with our operating expertise, our supply chain ability to execute and market understanding. And so we see opportunities to continue to supplement that pipeline.

Yes. So I mean, it's really -- it's a competition for capital, like I've talked about many times in these calls. So if the best opportunities are within our portfolio, great. But if the best opportunities are outside our portfolio, then we go to those instead. So it continues to be a competition for capital. So there's nobody in this company who -- before their decision gets to investment, there's nobody in this company who can say that they know with certainty what's happening with their project. They have to advance it and bring forward the best set of opportunities that they can.

And maybe a related question to this, like when you think about the Northland enterprise today, over 2 gigs, you're adding more megawatts as well come 2027. What is the ideal size for development pipeline for you when you think about the offices you have, the staff you have, where EBITDA is going, how you think about just replenishing that over time?

So I think for me and for Northland, the focus is on quality over quantity because I would rather have clarity on what we're trying to drive towards instead of people trying to do a lot of things without the net level of focus. One of the things that we talked about at Investor Day was with respect to our DevEx, and we want to make sure that the DevEx that we spend is highly focused and effective.

So the plan that we laid out at Investor Day, the team is completely focused on delivering that plan, and we see that we have optionality in the ways that we deliver that plan, which puts us in a good place. So the team is pushing forward on delivering that, and that's the laser focus. As Jeff referred to, we continue to look outside if there are ways to high-grade, if there are other opportunities outside of our portfolio, we look at that. But the team is laser-focused on delivering what we have in front of us, and we feel like that this plan is well in hand.

I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn it back to Christine Healy for closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today, and thank you for your continued support.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.

Welcome to the Northland Power conference call to discuss the fourth quarter and year-end 2025 results. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded on Thursday, February 26, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern.

Present for this call are Christine Healy, President and CEO; Jeff Hart, Chief Financial Officer; and Adam Beaumont, Senior Vice President of Capital Markets.

Before we begin, Northland's management has asked me to remind listeners that all figures presented during today's call are in Canadian dollars and to caution that certain information presented and responses to questions may contain forward-looking statements that include assumptions and are subject to various risks. Actual results may differ materially from management's expected or forecasted results. Please read the forward-looking statements section in yesterday's news release announcing Northland Power's results and be guided by its contents when making investment decisions or recommendations. The release is available at www.northlandpower.com.

I will now turn the call over to Ms. Christine Healy. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I'll begin with an overview of our strategic priorities and an update on our 2 large construction projects. Jeff will then provide a review of our fourth quarter and full year financial results as well as our 2026 guidance. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the line for your questions.

In 2025, we made progress across our operational, financial, and organizational priorities. We expanded and reinforced our leadership team with the addition of new executive members. We introduced a new global strategy outlining our growth priorities, a 5-year funding plan and how we will create long-term value for shareholders.

We advanced our construction projects, completing key milestones at our 2 offshore wind projects, Hai Long in Taiwan and Baltic Power in Poland. And following the successful completion of Oneida last year, we are advancing our second battery storage project in Alberta, Canada, called Jurassic BESS. Executing these projects is our primary focus through 2026. And together, they will add 2.2 gigawatts of capacity by 2027.

And we delivered on our financial commitments, achieving our adjusted EBITDA guidance and outperforming on free cash flow per share. Our performance in the fourth quarter was supported by 96% operating availability and record high generation from our German offshore wind assets.

Before we move into the strategy, I want to take a moment and emphasize that our performance is underpinned by our commitment to our people. As I've talked about before, health and safety are core values for Northland.

In 2025, we reinforced this commitment with the launch of our 12 Golden safety rules. These rules are nonnegotiable and ensure that our standards are consistently understood, respected, and applied across all work environments. A safe workplace is the prerequisite for the work we do.

Building on that foundation, we are advancing a strategy focused on disciplined growth and long-term value creation. We're at an inflection point in electricity markets. After decades of flat electricity demand, we're entering a period of rising demand that some call a power super cycle. It's driven by electrification, industrial growth, population growth, urbanization, and a rise in AI demand.

As power generators, our strategy plans to capture this momentum and double our gross operating capacity to 7 gigawatts by 2030. This is not just about scale, it's about focus and finding the right high-quality projects that add real value to our business.

Our focus on achieving specific free cash flow targets by 2030 is more than a goal. It is the lens through which we evaluate every capital allocation decision we make. To strengthen our 2030 goals, we're focused on 3 pillars: Deliver, strengthen, and grow.

The deliver pillar of our strategy is focused on operational performance and successfully bringing 2.2 gigawatts of projects under construction into operation. Our track record of executing and delivering large-scale projects is one of the things that sets Northland apart.

The strengthen pillar is about building a foundation for scale, including our target of $50 million in annual cost savings by 2028. To support this, we have already transitioned to a regionally focused operating model, split into the Americas and international business units, designed to build scalable platforms in our core markets and capture operational leverage by clustering assets in those core markets. This structure streamlines how we operate, enhances local accountability, and maintains global standards.

At the same time, we have centralized all of our development activities into one global organization. This ensures that every project, regardless of technology or geography, competes for capital on a consistent basis, so only the most value-accretive projects move forward.

Finally, under the grow pillar, we continue to high-grade our pipeline, advancing new capacity to supplement our current construction. An example of this is the 2 recently acquired late-stage battery storage projects in Poland. This acquisition alongside Baltic Power demonstrates our strategy of clustering high-value assets in a core European market.

Our approach is technology agnostic, focusing on our core markets where fundamentals are strongest. Our plans for Europe are driven by an ongoing and increasing need for energy security.

I recently attended the North Sea Summit, which took place in January, where 9 European governments reaffirmed their commitment to expand offshore wind in the North Sea through a coordinated regional approach, including up to 100 gigawatts of projects by 2050 with an interim target of 20 gigawatts for the 2030s.

This North Sea Summit outturn is a consistent theme we see across Europe, a commitment to build-out of renewables for decades to come, offshore, onshore, and battery storage. For developers like Northland, this provides important long-term demand visibility. Greater policy alignment and infrastructure coordination should help reduce development friction, improve permitting timelines, support enhancements to the supply chain, and ultimately enhance capital efficiency.

Europe continues to show conviction that offshore wind will play a critical role in meeting the region's energy demand and advancing the clean energy transition, strengthening energy security, improving affordability, and supporting industrial competitiveness.

And in Canada, electrification and industrial growth are accelerating the need for new supply. Canada continues to be a growth market for us with every province forecasting power demand growth. We see opportunities in several of our technologies, including gas-fired generation and battery storage.

To capitalize on this opportunity, our 5-year growth and funding plan has been set with the right foundation, supported by an investment-grade balance sheet. We've increased our project return thresholds to a minimum of 12%, demonstrating that we will invest only in the most value-accretive opportunities. We are focused on advancing the opportunities where we can apply our global expertise to local execution.

I'll turn now to more specific details on construction progress. At Hai Long, we've reached several major milestones, including the installation of all 73 foundations, all 4 export cables, and both offshore substations.

To date, we have successfully installed 37 turbines, 20 of those turbines are now actively generating power. The project team has been working hard over the winter to optimize our schedule and have had a crew on standby to continue commissioning when weather permits.

As we've discussed in previous calls, offshore Taiwan, we work with a weather window, so full in-water activities will resume in earnest later in April when that weather window reopens. The project is on track for commercial operation in 2027.

At the Baltic Power offshore wind project in Poland, we achieved 2 key milestones this quarter with the completion of all monopile foundations and the completion of grid interconnection works by the local utility.

We also completed the installation of both offshore substations, 2 of 4 export cables, and 30 of the project's 76 wind turbines. The project is on track for commercial operation in the second half of 2026. We're also making strides in our battery storage portfolio. At Jurassic BESS in Alberta, foundations have been installed and the battery packs have arrived in Canada. The project is on track for commercial operation in 2026.

Looking ahead, our priorities are clear: Deliver our construction projects, optimize the value of our operating portfolio, and advance and high-grade our development pipeline. The recent acquisition of 2 late-stage battery storage projects in Poland adds scale to our European platform. We continue to advance both projects, having signed their battery supply agreements, and we're currently finalizing other procurement activities ahead of financing and the start of construction expected later this year.

Building on our expertise and experience from the Oneida project in Ontario, we continue to see opportunities to expand our battery storage portfolio, and we are actively evaluating several projects.

In November, we completed the required performance test for a 23-megawatt capacity upgrade at our Thorold natural gas-fired facility in Ontario and officially secured a 5-year contract extension through 2035. These are all examples which underscore the progress underway across Northland. Our disciplined approach to capital deployment, project execution, and excellence in operations delivers energy for our markets and value for our shareholders.

I'll now turn it over to Jeff to walk us through the financial results.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. As Christine noted, we achieved our 2025 adjusted EBITDA guidance and exceeded free cash flow guidance. Strong winds at our offshore assets in Q4 and lower curtailment from grid outages resulted in higher-than-budgeted production and a 21% overage from the same quarter of last year.

Our high operating availability of 96% allowed us to capture that benefit. The quarter also benefited from contributions from the Oneida energy storage facility, that commenced operations in May of last year as well as increased market demand for dispatchable power at our natural gas facilities as a result of cold weather and third-party facility outages in Ontario.

Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was $390 million, a 25% increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. This increase was primarily due to higher production from offshore wind, contributions from Oneida, and increased market demand at our natural gas facilities. Net income for the quarter was $290 million compared to $150 million in 2024. And free cash flow per share for the fourth quarter was $0.46 compared with $0.31 in 2024.

Turning to the full year. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year was $1.25 billion, in line with 2024 as lower offshore wind resource in the first half of this year offset contributions from Oneida and strong performance at our Americas onshore wind assets.

Free cash flow per share for the full year decreased to $1.46 from $1.53 in 2024. The year-over-year decrease was mainly due to higher scheduled debt repayments, lower offshore wind resource, and the nonrecurrence of certain onetime items, partially offset by contributions from new assets and lower current taxes.

For the full year, Northland recorded a net loss of $108 million compared to net income of $371 million for the full year of 2024. This reduction is primarily due to a noncash impairment for Nordsee One recorded in the third quarter of 2025. And we continue to advance our major construction projects. As at December 31, Hai Long and Baltic Power have less than $4 billion of capital expenditures remaining to be incurred.

Overall, both construction projects are continuing on track for commercial operations with overall costs aligned with original expectations. As reported last quarter, Hai Long turbine commissioning has been slower than expected, and it could impact pre-completion revenues and equity injections in the amount of $150 million to $200 million Northland share.

The shortfall in pre-completion revenues outlined above can be funded by several sources, including liquidity, corporate liquidity. However, we and our project partners are actively looking at optimizations at the project level to provide funding, and we'll provide an update on this by midyear.

Turning to our 2026 financial guidance. We expect 2026 adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $1.45 billion to $1.65 billion, an increase of approximately 25% from the $1.25 billion delivered in 2025. The key drivers of this increase will be contributions from Hai Long and Baltic Power as well as full year contributions from Oneida and the commencement of operations at the Jurassic BESS project in Alberta. These increases will be partially offset by lower contributions from Nordsee One following a scheduled step down in the feed-in tariff mechanism.

We expect 2026 free cash flow to be in the range of $1.05 to $1.25 per share compared to the $1.46 per share in 2025. The year-over-year decrease is due to several onetime items totaling $0.22, which benefited 2025, including a German tax refund, deferral of Spanish debt repayments, and other items. This decrease is also attributable to ongoing foreign exchange hedging costs, higher debt service for the natural gas assets, and the cessation of capitalized interest on our hybrid debt as we enter operations in Baltic Power.

Partially offsetting this decrease is the additional contribution from Baltic Power, representing approximately $0.20 per share. For 2026, we assume development expenditures of approximately $50 million, and this will be focused on selective opportunities in our core markets of Europe and Canada.

Now turning to our balance sheet. With more than $900 million of available liquidity and our investment-grade credit rating, we are well positioned to execute on a disciplined capital allocation plan.

With that, I'll hand it back to Christine.

Thank you, Jeff. We are focused on delivering the strategy we set out in the fall and advancing the new projects that will add value and double our capacity by 2030, and we look forward to updating you on our progress. That concludes our prepared remarks. So operator, can you please open the line for questions?

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Baltej Sidhu of National Bank of Canada.

So your 2026 guidance is comfortably above consensus. And just reflecting on last year's weak wind resource in the first half, acknowledging the incremental diversification from projects like Hai Long and Baltic. Could you shed any light on the downside protection that's embedded in your outlook and how you approach risk in your assumptions to the P50 production forecast?

Yes. So I can take that and then Christine can add on. I think, look, we've been consistent with how we outlook on the wind resource. It's consistent with long-term averages. And so we continue to forecast based on that off of our operated -- our current operated facilities. And so I think you can see this year is Q1 and Q4, as we've always talked about, are always the heavy wind periods.

And so we did have lower wind in 2025 in the first half and particularly kind of through Q1 and we captured much -- a good chunk of that back in Q4 with record pace. I think -- look, I think where we look at this is the long-term average in the P50 is the right spot to be. We'll have some variability and volatility in that, but we continue to not deviate from that, and I think we're comfortable with where we sit on that.

And then the other piece when you look at on guidance is, obviously, there's a big piece on execution on the construction projects and the EBITDA contribution between Hai Long and Baltic. And I think, for us, as you can see and where we've been in Hai Long, we did have the weather window here.

And as we talked about, I think, at Investor Day in the quarter, we had a cut last quarter, only about 2 turbines running at the start of that weather window. We felt it wasn't prudent to assume that we could get out there depending on weather, and we're currently in and around 20, which I think is better than what we expected coming out of the weather window.

But we're still managing. And you can see with the assumption around our equity injection or potential equity injection, we're evaluating things at the project level. I think we're being prudent on our cash resources to make sure we've got funding mechanisms for it.

And then as far as Baltic Power goes is I think we've seen good execution, but we -- I never say comfortable. The big thing I want to leave with you is execution on these construction projects, and that's the biggest thing that we've got to be on top of this year. The wind will blow on the operating assets, and we'll leave it at a P50.

I guess, I can add a bit more color to that, and thanks for your question, Baltej. I think maybe not showing up so much in the numbers is the fact that this winter has actually been a very tough weather window at Hai Long and getting offshore has been challenging.

So I think we were right to be conservative in our approach to that. The weather window should reopen in April, and we're ready to go with that. But then we still have a lot to go in the project. So I think it's wise to be prudent in how we approach what we expect to happen through the rest of the year.

At Baltic Power, we've seen that there's actually been very good in-weather performance in the last -- in water performance in the last few weeks. But probably not everybody is staying up to date on weather trends in the Baltic Sea, but it's also been very, very cold, which does affect the operational tempo. So I think we've been prudent in our approach this year to understand what could happen with the projects and our guidance reflects that.

Thanks. That's great color. And just to leverage some of the elements that you both alluded to, you have a bit more than half of the turbines you initially had expected to be energized at Hai Long. And there's been a good amount of progress since the Capital Markets Day, as you alluded to in your prepared remarks. Could you provide any details on how the recovery plan is progressing from here? And what feedback or visibility are you receiving from Siemens regarding execution and full path to completion?

So obviously, it's very much on our minds, and we're extremely focused on it, both at the project level and also here at Northland. I'm in regular contact with Siemens, and so we have a regular dialogue sort of zippered up in both organizations. I think all of this is, Siemens is very committed to getting the work done and getting the work done as efficiently and effectively as possible.

And so now it's all about preparation because we -- with the weather window currently closed, it actually gives us a bit of time to make sure that the planning is right and that we've got the people and the expertise and the vessels to be able to launch when the weather window reopens. So very high focus on that. And I would say the dialogue continues on a pretty regular basis with Siemens.

Excellent. And just switching gears to the Polish BESS. As these projects are already contracted, what key milestones or execution risks need to be mitigated to get these across the line to reach FID?

So there's a few things going on right now, Baltej, and that's, we have local teams on the ground in Poland. So while the projects are in -- we're really happy with the projects. We've -- as I mentioned in my comments, we've secured the supply for the batteries.

At the same time, we do have to make sure that we have all the local permits that the local authorities are getting -- that we have a good relationship there, that they know what we're doing, that there's clear understanding of that.

Normal, I would say, regulatory process, which the team is working through. So the intent would be that that would come forward internally for our final investment decision midyear. And so then execute on that project and to sound like a Newfoundlander, get her done.

Yes. So and just further, like as Christine talked to, is we secured, obviously, battery supply. And the big thing outside of the permitting and those pieces in the midyear is obviously working through the funding arrangement and project financing levers, and we're working that. And I think we'll be progressed and there's no roadblocks right now, and we'd expect to be through that by kind of around midyear, as Christine talked about. So those are the avenues that we're working.

And our next question comes from Mark Jarvi of CIBC.

I just wanted to follow-up on a few things on Hai Long. One would be, can you continue to commission energized turbines before the weather window opens? Like can you get past the 20 that are currently selling into the grid now?

So basically, Mark, the way it works right now is we do the look-ahead forecast. And if there's a window of a couple of days that we can get people out there safely to do the work, then we do it. So there is a team on standby all the time, and we make the plan based on the weather forecast, and that's updated daily. Well, certainly, the main update is weekly, but we also then adjust that daily. So if there is an opportunity to get out there, then the teams get out there.

Got it. And then, Jeff, you mentioned that getting to 20 at this point is a little bit ahead of expectations, yet you still have the foregone PCRs at $150 million to $200 million. What has to happen for you to guys to hit the $150 million to $200 million now? Like are you tracking below that at this point?

Well, I think there's a number of factors embedded in here. So if you don't mind, I'll kind of go through broadly the whole pre-completion revenue and then corresponding funding requirements because I think there's a bunch of factors in there. It's not only revenue generation, it's cash collection and then how that times with our construction progress.

So you're absolutely right. Like obviously, and you asked the question on the weather window here for the next month or so. Look, we don't really plan that we'll get a big amount of work because the weather will be what it will be, but we did get 20 done or 18 done from the 2 to 20, and that number will vary a little bit as we work through the issues with the turbines. So that was good performance.

I think where we look to longer term to hit where we need to be is we need materially on the next weather window in early October, effectively all the turbines spinning at that point in time. And that's where, as we've always talked about, Q1 and Q4 pretty much is the heavy weather window. And so that's where you see a significant amount of generation.

And I'll say generation because that's obviously more at the back end of the year and there's cash collection time frame, let's call it, 60 days or so or whatever it is, that would put the cash collection more into the cash receipt more into the new year that we would have generated.

And the reason that's important is when we look at this is, obviously, when we come out of the weather window on construction, we'll be heavy into execution here on the actual project itself again.

And so clearly, when you look at the back-end weighted nature of the PCR generation, the execution being more, I'll call it, front-end loaded or kind of through Q2 and Q3, we have some funding requirements because that revenue will come in after and be collected more into the new year.

And so we're still looking at is, is making -- we'd have to potentially fund with the change in shape here, a potential equity injection of that kind of $150 million to $200 million that we've talked about.

But as I said, we're looking for different avenues to maybe fund that within the project with partners and look at different avenues with that. And I'd expect an update by midyear on that number.

Okay. So just to get that clear, PCR is kind of more like cash flows that you're just not catching up because there's a bit of a lag in payment versus the EBITDA. Yes.

A 100%. So there's 2 things. The EBITDA is more back-end weighted, #1. #2, that back-end weighted EBITDA, there is -- in any business, there's always a lag between revenue generated and cash collection and payment terms. And so we have to work through that. And so because it's back-end weighted and you've got -- you have collection thereafter in normal course, we have execution here before Q4. And so there is some construction pieces that we do have to fund. And then we're looking at different avenues in that funding. Is there something we can do at the project level. So we maybe don't have to equity inject corporately here around midyear. And that's one of the big pieces we're working through. But think of it this way, back-ended earnings in generation and then you've got time frame on collection.

Got it. And then, Christine, you brought up the North Sea Summit and there's the investment pack that's come out of that. Outside of Poland, are there any other areas you guys are increasingly focused on in Europe and the North Sea? Is there anything in terms of partnerships that are starting to sort of pick up steam?

Thanks for the question, Mark. And I would say, to be clear, Poland is not -- they're in the Baltic as opposed to the North Sea. So we see both areas as being of interest. Poland continues to be of high interest for us. We're really -- I mean, we're happy with our partnership with ORLEN. We're happy with the Baltic Power project. And so we continue to have a high interest in doing more in Poland.

In the North Sea, we've been there for quite a long time. So I would consider it a very -- sort of it's a home for Northland in many ways that with our work that's been ongoing for more than a decade in Germany and the Netherlands. We do have a project in -- we have a project in development in the U.K. We're having lots of dialogue with other companies and with governments about opportunities. And we see an opportunity-rich environment for Northland.

But now it's a question of making sure that we're disciplined and we pick only the very best opportunities that we want to deploy our people on to. So that I would say we're pretty selective, but we see some good opportunities in front of us there.

And have those -- the range of opportunities, the quality opportunities improved or changed in the last couple of months?

I think we've seen now that some of the recent -- the recent auctions that have happened, we see better economics for projects. And so as a result, that makes for a better environment for us.

For me, I do think it's a good reflection of capital discipline across the sector that we need to make sure that the projects that we do in the future deliver the rates of return that are going to lead to success for investors as well as success for the host markets.

And our next question comes from Nelson Ng of RBC Capital Markets.

My first question just relates to the Polish battery storage project. So regarding the 17-year capacity contract, roughly how much of your total expected revenue does that cover?

Yes. No, and I think we'll provide further details as we go in with the economics here and when we come to final investment decision or financial close, however you want to word it. But what I would say is it's going to be a mix of merchant and capacity.

And look, I'm not getting into specific percentage at this point, but it's not going to be disproportionate capacity. It will be far more balanced and between the merchant exposure and ancillary services and potential capacity payments, which is inflation indexed.

And Nelson, if it's helpful to you, it's a similar model to what we see applied in Oneida.

What I would say is...

The percentages will be slightly different as they are jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but the sort of structure of it is similar to Oneida.

Okay. Got it. And then, Jeff, a question for you. So for your 3 European offshore wind projects, you refinance those -- refinanced the debt or reduced the credit spread relatively quickly in terms of like when you're nearing construction completion.

I presume discussions have started with Baltic Power and Hai Long with lenders? Or can you just comment on whether there's been discussions that have started in terms of whether it's refinancing or, yes, refinancing or having kind of discussions about the credit spread now that you see construction risk declining? I know you talked about looking at other options in terms of the capital injection for Hai Long, but can you just give a bit more color on the overall process?

Yes. No, 100%. So you're right. And typically, as we're approaching COD and you could look maybe 2 is when is the right time, is it right at or a little bit after, but that's something that's on our mind, and it's on the deliverables for the team to look at how we drive optimization.

So #1 with Hai Long, I think there's just some market factors there, we see that we can potentially get earlier than COD on some potential mechanisms, but we'll look at that, and I'll provide an update mid-year on it. And Baltic Power, yes, we're looking at different options and avenues as we approach COD, but we'll be a little bit flexible on that. It will be market dependent. And you're right, it will typically coincide as we get to COD, but we may see windows before or a little bit after that depending on the market. But it is something that we are looking at for sure.

Got it. And then just one last question. So the Polish battery project that's EUR 200 million. I think that's roughly CAD 320 million. But if I do the math on Jurassic BESS versus the Polish project, I think Jurassic is about like 750,000 per megawatt hour. The Polish project is about 270,000 per megawatt hour. So that's roughly like over 60% lower cost.

But like obviously, there's scale and there's probably geography in terms of labor. But can you just talk about the large price -- the cost difference between the Polish project versus the Alberta project?

Thanks, Nelson. I think it's a great question because it really shines a light on what happens when we're early in the curve on a technology. So for grid-scale battery storage like these BESS projects, we have seen a real shift in battery pricing, which is one of the big deltas on the overall cost of these projects.

So you're right that probably that's the biggest moving piece is the cost of the batteries, which is coming -- continues to come down, and we've seen a drop in that over time. The other piece, though, I would be remiss if I didn't highlight is the permitting approach. So the permitting approach that we see applying in Poland is a quicker process than we see in most jurisdictions in Canada.

So when we do our project planning, we build that in based on what the permitting process is going to be jurisdiction to jurisdiction. So as you've maybe heard me say too many times, the time it takes to get things permitted really matters. Time is money in projects.

And our next question comes from Sean Steuart of TD Cowen.

First question for Jeff. The 2026 free cash flow per share bridge, it shows Baltic and others contributing $0.20 year-over-year. I guess what is the other component of that? And I know Baltic is scheduled for second half COD, but any specifics on the exact contribution start point for Baltic in that number?

Yes. No, there's not, I'd say, anything significantly within there, and we'll have the team follow-up with you on the details on it just because there's nothing that I'd say is particularly of interest, but I'll have the team follow-up with you on them -- on that.

The majority is Baltic.

Yes.

Okay. Fair enough. And then just a follow-up question on the earlier-stage development focus. Christine, you touched on optimism around Baltic expansion. In terms of the development dollars you're putting to work in 2026, earlier-stage opportunities, can you give us a sense of between Canadian gas or renewables, other projects in Europe, where you see a more clear line of sight on advancing some earlier-stage opportunities?

Sure. Thanks for that, Sean. And it's a very timely question because it's something that we have been talking about sort of almost weekly, I would say, since the start of the year as we look at the different opportunities.

So in terms of chase and looking at new opportunities, I would say we're sort of -- you've exactly identified we see some great opportunities for offshore wind in Europe, and we see some great opportunities for gas in Canada.

And then we also have a number of projects that are in the queue that we are -- that we look at how much do we spend to mature them and at what time frame do we mature those projects. And I'll also just add to that, Sean, we also, as we talked about at Investor Day, have some, what we call value enhancement projects in the portfolio that have to compete for capital against these external new opportunities. And we have our existing opportunities in the funnel that we also want to mature. So all those things go into the mix. That's the entire concept about having a centralized development organization.

So right now, I think we see that the development dollars, I'd say, would be the biggest chunks of them are oriented towards offshore -- finding the right next offshore wind project in Europe and finding or choosing the best next gas opportunity in Canada.

And our next question comes from Benjamin Pham of BMO.

I just wanted to go to your 6% free cash flow per share CAGR guidance through the decade that you have a range that you put out there. How should you reframe the starting point of that calculation because it's a bit wonky using $1.45, also a bit wonky using $1.15 as a base? Like how do you frame that now?

Well, I think -- thanks for the question. I think you stand back is we obviously exceeded our free cash flow guidance in 2025, and you start to stand back and obviously, there was a bunch of onetime items in there. I think to the tune of, I'll call it, $0.20 to $0.25, whether it was -- we had that German tax benefit and a few other items. And so I think that's something that factors in. And it's also on my mind, too, is how do we continually get better on making sure we call out onetime items and we can kind of clarify this for folks. But I think that's a critical piece for us because you take all those onetime items, they're about $0.20 a share, and that makes a substantive difference to the ongoing run rate of the business.

Okay. So you use $1.45 less, let's say, $0.25, use that as a starting point, you get to that 6% you've highlighted previously?

Yes. And I don't have the numbers here in front of me, right? But I mean, I think you look at it and you say, okay, well, what happened in the back-end quarter. Clearly, we had higher wind and that was -- put us over guidance. But if you look at the full year, that $0.20 to $0.25 was one of the big factors in driving us to the $1.46. And so I don't have the CAGR in front of me, but that's something that we have to make sure that we're clear on is these onetime items or kind of nonrecurring items have to factor in. And so that you have to take that away, right?

Okay. I understand. And maybe switching to the early comments on the super cycle and volume demand being quite robust in all your key markets. Do you think your position -- I mean, you're clearly positioned well where you are now, but do you think you need to go elsewhere to position better or differently to benefit from this super cycle going forward?

So thanks for the question. We had a really deep dive on this as we were preparing for our strategy for the upcoming 5 years. And we see that we have opportunity -- it's an opportunity-rich environment for us in Canada and in Europe. And these are both very large markets. So I think we have ample space for us as a company to fill in and to deliver on what we've committed for the 5-year horizon in those markets. So we're very focused on deepening where we are instead of spreading out into new locations.

And our next question comes from Heidi Hauch of BNP Paribas.

I just want to start with, in your annual report, it had mentioned deprioritizing the floating portion of the Scotland offshore wind project. So can you talk about what drove that decision and what that might mean for the types of projects or technologies you're more likely to pursue within the growth pipeline?

Super. Thanks for the question, Heidi. I appreciate it. So because we see so many fixed bottom opportunities for offshore wind, then we really had to look at do we need to move to floating right now. And I think the answer that we came to as we looked at the opportunity set is that we don't need to. And right now, we think that there are good existing technologies for offshore wind. I think that we're differentiated in our ability to deliver that and to deliver those projects well.

And so maybe back to the previous question about deepening in geographies, it's also deepening in the things that we know. So we're very good at that. And so we're going to keep doing that, and we see an opportunity-rich environment for us right now. So yes, you're exactly right that we're deprioritizing the floating, and we're more focused on the fixed bottom offshore wind.

Great. Thank you. And then can you update us on the potential to contract the remaining portion of Nordsee One. We saw that positive update on contracting 1/3. But are you still kind of in conversations to contract the remaining part?

Thanks, Heidi. We keep a careful eye on that. So the 1/3 contracting leaves us -- we're happy with that in terms of having a stable cash flow from the asset as we look across the upcoming 5, 6 years. So that's very helpful. And then we see -- as you probably know, the spot price has been actually pretty robust recently.

So when we see that robust spot price, how much of that are we willing to contract away in order in favor of stability. So right now, the 1/3, 2/3 split is okay for us. We continue to watch the market and look for different opportunities. And so then it gives us, in fact, optionality on that, which I really value in the portfolio, especially when you look at the new highly contracted generation coming in, it gives us a bit more room that we're not exposed to a huge amount of variability with that, and we can absorb that within the portfolio approach.

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn it back to Christine Healy for closing remarks.

I'll be brief and just say thank you, everyone, for joining us today, and thank you for your continued support.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.

[Presentation]

Good morning, and good afternoon to everybody in Europe. Welcome to Northland Power's 2025 Investor Day. Thank you for joining us in the room and on the webcast. My name is Adam Beaumont, the Head of Capital Markets at Northland. And on behalf of the team, we look forward to providing you with an update on the business and our new strategy going forward. Today's presentation is being recorded and will be available on our website.

Before we begin, we want to remind participants that all figures presented are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. And to caution information presented and responses and questions may contain forward-looking assumptions and are subject to various risks. Actual risks may differ materially from management's expected results, please read the forward-looking statements section of this morning's press release and be guided by the contents when making investment decisions.

We acknowledge the land we are on today is the traditional territory of nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse people. We also acknowledge that Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit.

The presentation today will begin with Christine Healy, President and CEO, who will be joined by Ian Pearce, our Board Chair and members of the leadership team, Jeff Hart, Pierre-Emmanuel Frot, Toby Edmonds and Calvin MacCormack. The presentation will be for 2 hours, including a 15-minute break. And at the conclusion of the formal presentation, we will have a question-and-answer session where those in the room can ask questions and those online as well. Equity research analysts and investors are welcome to join us for executive roundtable discussion following lunch starting at 12:45. Thank you very much for being here.

And with that, I will turn it to Madison Golshani, one of Northland's rising talent to provide a safety moment. Madison?

Good morning. Before we begin our formal presentation, we will start with a brief safety moment on building evacuation procedures. In the event of an emergency, The Globe and Mail Centre is equipped with alert tones, there are no planned alarms for today. So if you hear these tones, please stand by and prepare to evacuate the building. One ping indicates there's an alarm condition in the building, but does not impact this floor. Continuous tones indicate there's an alarm activated that will require evacuation. In the event of building evacuation, please follow these safety procedures: leave the floor via the stairwells located on the south side of the floor, do not carry items such as coffee cups, purses or backpacks down stairwells during evacuation. Do not attempt to use the elevators.

Once you've exited the building, proceed south to David Crombie Park and await further instruction.

In the event of a medical emergency, there is a defibrillator located on the 16th floor as well as the ground floor of the building. Of course, our Northland team are here to provide you with any support you may need.

Covering off a few final housekeeping reminders, washrooms are located on either side of the elevators and signages located on the walls to help guide you. We are serving light snacks during break and grab-and-go lunch following the conclusion of today's presentation. Coffee, tea and refreshments are available at the Southside bar.

Now I'd like to welcome our President and CEO, Christine Healy to the stage.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. It's good to be here with you today. This has been a year of real progress at Northland and also a year of real challenges. We've made difficult decisions. We've navigated unexpected developments, and we've worked through them with one clear purpose: to strengthen Northland and put the company on a more sustainable footing for the long term.

Since joining in late January, I've had the opportunity to see firsthand how we operate, meeting our people, our investors, our partners, our suppliers, our communities. And what I've seen reinforces my confidence in this company, the strength of our operations, our ability to execute world-class projects and the depth of expertise across our teams.

This capability, combined with our international reach, positions us to deliver. And our focus is clear. We deliver on what's in front of us. We strengthened the business. And from that solid foundation, we build value for shareholders.

At Northland, we bring a proven track record of delivering projects and operating assets across multiple technologies and markets. We are diversified across technologies, onshore and offshore wind, solar, natural gas-fired power and grid scale battery storage, supported by 3.5 gigawatts in operation and 2.2 gigawatts in construction. More than 95% of our revenue is contracted, giving us revenue stability. And we have a legacy of execution that comes from our leadership. Every day, our people deliver safely, reliably and with discipline. This foundation is key. It gives us the ability to deliver and the confidence to strengthen the business for the long term.

Northland generates and stores electricities in several markets. Let me take a moment to talk about how we build and operate our facilities because this is core to how we deliver. First, renewable generation. Our onshore wind, offshore wind and solar-powered facilities generate clean electricity when the resource is available. Output can, of course, be variable, and we plan and operate accordingly. We manage this variability through two levers. The first for us is operational readiness. We ensure that we are available so that when the wind blows or the sun shines, we are ready to capture it.

Our other lever is geographic diversification. By operating in different regions, we balance risk of low resource in one geography with higher resource in another, smoothing production across the portfolio. We also have 700 megawatts of natural gas-fired plants, both simple cycle and combined cycle. These facilities were originally built for baseload, but their function has changed and now they operate as peaker plants to respond to times the system needs dispatchable available power. This reflects our view at Northland and frankly, the reality of our markets that natural gas remains a key part of the energy mix for decades to come, particularly in Canada where natural gas resources are abundant and responsibly produced.

Natural gas is an affordable, reliable part of a clean, balanced energy grid.

We have also expanded into grid scale battery storage. These facilities provide fast response during demand surges and enhance grid stability. They are an excellent complement particularly in systems reliant on renewables.

This multi-technology approach sets Northland apart. While many peers focus on one or two verticals, our ability to combine renewables, storage and flexible gas gives us resilience optionality and a more stable platform for long-term value. We'll talk more about that later, but I want to pause here to talk about safety. Because it's a core value at Northland, and it is our highest priority, one of the first things I did this year was safety site visits at our project sites and operating facilities around the world and I've been able to see firsthand the strength and importance of our safety culture. And I'm proud to share with you two examples from this year that reflect our commitment.

Our regulated utility in Colombia, EBSA, was awarded first place at the 16th National Electrical Rodeo. You might not know what an electrical rodeo is but this is a competition in Colombia, where operators from different companies compete on technical capabilities and safety. So if you are the fastest, but it is unsafe, you cannot win. You have to be good and you have to be safe. The event brought together teams from across the country to share best practices, exchange knowledge and foster nationwide collaboration. We took first place, we are also the founders of this competition in Colombia, and we are proud of this accomplishment.

Our Oneida energy storage facility, which is highlighted out in the hallway when you're getting your coffee, here in Ontario, Canada was awarded a safety award by the Ontario Electrical Safety Authority as a champion of change. The award recognizes that our safety-first mindset from before day one of construction resulted in zero lost time incidents. This is a record we are extremely proud of.

I do want to say a few words about sustainability because at Northland, we are committed to lowering emissions intensity across our portfolio. This has been a part of our strategy for many years and it continues to guide our decisions as energy systems evolve. As long-standing experts in clean power, advancing renewables is a core part of the global energy mix that Northland can play a key role in.

We continue to grow our renewable generation footprint, onshore and offshore wind, solar and storage, which remains central to energy transition. At the same time, we understand the importance of a balanced reliable energy mix, and our diversified portfolio allows us to support decarbonization while ensuring the grid remains stable and affordable. We also help corporate customers meet their emissions goals by supplying them the clean electricity to support their decarbonization commitments.

As energy demand continues to grow, natural gas remains an essential transition fuel for decades to come. We will continue to pursue new natural gas opportunities because they enhance system reliability and meet customer needs. They also match our sustainability goals. We do this because it's necessary for a resilient grid and it is fully aligned with our commitment to sustainability.

So let's talk about where we are today. Northland, as many of you know, has a strong history. I joined this company in large part because of its track record of delivering meaningful projects in Canada and around the world and because of the strength and commitment of its people. This year, we have made important progress to strengthen our foundation and our strategic position.

Earlier this year, after I joined as CEO, we welcomed Jeff Hart as CFO, and Ian Pearce as Chair of the Board. Jeff brings broad experience in financial leadership in capital markets, including serving as CFO at two large Canadian energy companies. Ian brings more than 40 years of global experience in engineering, project execution and executive leadership, including COO and CEO in major resource organizations. With these leadership changes, we've remained focused on executing our three major projects under construction, a clear demonstration of both execution capacity and discipline across our teams.

We successfully delivered Oneida, Canada's largest battery energy storage project ahead of schedule, under budget, zero lost time incidents. In Poland and Taiwan, we continue to advance our two large offshore wind projects. As we discussed last week, the commissioning of the Hai Long project has progressed slower than anticipated but the project remains on track for completion in 2027. More detail on that will be provided later this morning.

Our strategy is focused and disciplined. We are sharpening capital allocation, and we are prioritizing projects that offer the best execution and the best returns. Recent examples include our acquisition of two ready-to-build battery storage projects in Poland announced earlier this morning. And the development of Collisard, a small natural gas facility in Alberta, you'll hear a bit more about later. We'll talk about both of these projects today as well as many of the other projects being advanced within Northland. These are projects delivering high value aligned with our strategy of deepening in our core markets. These investments reflect our commitment to strengthening the business and positioning Northland for reliable, long-term growth.

Before we move forward, I want to speak briefly about our announcement last week regarding the dividend. I know that this has impacted many of our long-term shareholders. As I said last week, and I will say again, this was not an easy decision. We evaluated a full range of alternatives, including debt financing, asset recycling, equity issuance and an enhanced strip. Over the 5-year planning period, with our most current price forecasts and availability forecasts, we could see that our payout ratio was averaging around 90%. Against that backdrop and with large construction projects still underway, we saw that it was prudent to maintain a strong balance sheet and preserve flexibility until the projects are complete. At the same time, we see attractive accretive growth opportunities in front of us, and we want to be in a position to pursue them responsibly.

Ultimately, this is the right decision for Northland. It allows us to maintain balance sheet resilience, reduce reliance on volatile capital markets and allocate capital towards the best opportunities for long-term value. Throughout this process, our purpose, my purpose, our collective purpose has remained the same, to deliver the best value for shareholders over the long term and everything we're laying out today reflects that purpose and positions Northland to move forward with discipline and strength.

In recent months, we have identified value-accretive opportunities, and we've brought two of them into our portfolio. Earlier this morning, we announced the acquisition of two late-stage battery storage projects in Poland. This year, we also added Collisard, a small natural gas project in Alberta that will provide reliable, flexible generation. Toby and Calvin will give you more information about these projects shortly. Beyond these new investments, we're advancing several value enhancement initiatives across our existing fleet.

This focus on uplifting the value of the assets we already own is something I've prioritized since I arrived here at Northland. And you'll hear more about these opportunities throughout the day. But before jumping right into it, I'd like to welcome Ian Pearce, our Chair of the Board, to share a few remarks. Ian?

Thank you, Christine. Christine joined Northland earlier this year and brings over 25 years of senior leadership experience in energy and infrastructure development across different regions. Since joining, she is focused on enhancing execution, increasing operational discipline and refining strategic priorities. These initiatives are currently underway, and the Board is monitoring progress against these defined objectives.

As Christine noted, the Board approved an adjustment to our dividend policy last week to improve financial flexibility and align capital allocation with current market conditions and our growth pipeline. This decision was made with careful consideration of all shareholders' interest. The revised dividend level reflects the realities of the industry cycle and supports a more sustainable financial framework. Moving towards a self-funded growth model is intended to reduce reliance on external capital, improve balance sheet resilience and support long-term value creation.

The Board of Directors includes members with deep experience in finance, energy markets, major capital project oversight, capital markets and corporate governance with perspectives. I'd like to take a moment to recognize and thank the rest over the Board. Doyle Beneby, Sébastien Clerc, Lisa Colnett, Kevin Glass, Keith Halbert, Christine Healy, Helen Mallovy Hicks, Eckhardt Ruemmler and Ellen Smith. Together, we are building on a solid foundation and positioning Northland for an exciting and sustainable future. We look forward to the journey ahead. Thank you.

Thank you, Ian. So let's talk strategy. Today, the global power sector is changing, and we see strong fundamental shifts that are shaping the future of electricity, particularly in our markets. Electrification across transportation, buildings and industry is driving sustained growth in electricity demand. We're also seeing that economic expansion and rapid digitization is adding new structural loads. Historically, electricity demand generally tracked GDP. And today, new uses are being layered on top of that baseline. AI, data centers, EV adoption, rising air conditioning demand, continued industrialization, electrification of systems. This is all contributing to long-term demand growth.

Geopolitical uncertainty has also elevated energy security and affordability to the top of policy agendas for governments around the world. Across many of our markets, this is increasing demand for domestic generation from gas-fired power to renewables to grid-scale storage. And decarbonization remains a driver. Policies in Europe and Canada continue to support investment in clean generation. Certainly, in places where the resource exists, it makes sense to develop it.

But of course, no market is perfect. And alongside these wonderful opportunities, we see pressure. Pressure for lower power prices, supply chain challenges, evolving regulatory frameworks, all of which require careful navigation. This is where disciplined companies will differentiate themselves. Those that are crisp on capital allocation, selective in their investments and focused on long-term value creation will emerge stronger.

While forecasts differ, one thing is clear, Global demand for electricity is growing. The IEA recently increased its outlook, projecting electricity demand to rise more than 34% by 2035. While the global picture is helpful, Electricity demand is not met globally. It's met locally. And the solutions for Toronto, Ontario are different than the solutions for Warsaw, Poland. Each market has its own resource mix, policy environment, and regulatory needs. For example, Poland still relies heavily on coal. Ontario has a significant nuclear base. Other markets are expanding renewables rapidly but need firm capacity to balance the intermittency. In all of these environments, growth technologies need to be paired with solutions that ensure reliability, whether transitional or baseload.

At Northland, our diversified capabilities allow us to deliver across these needs and this gives us a strategic edge. Our customers and system operators increasingly want all of the above solutions. And our flexibility allows us to adapt for their reliability requirements, policy changes, grid constraints and evolving technology preferences, all while managing risk and sustaining returns. Each of our technologies plays a role in this solution. And together, they leave us well positioned. This diversification is a core strength. It stabilizes earnings, supports disciplined growth and enables us to deliver value across different market conditions.

Looking ahead to 2030, we have outlined clear strategic initiatives and financial targets that will guide our organization. You will hear more on each of these shortly, including how we intend to meet them. I'll focus on the key drivers of our projections, and Jeff will speak later about the financial metrics that support them. But let's start at the top.

Over the next 5 years, we expect to double our operating capacity to 7 gigawatts. Within that, we are targeting 1.4 to 1.8 gigawatts of new capacity growth. Our funding plan over the next 5 years requires approximately $6 billion in total gross investment. Our strategy is anchored in value creation. We will pursue only those projects that deliver levered after-tax returns of at least 12%. To meet these targets and maintain our competitive edge, we are also targeting cost efficiencies across G&A, across our development organization and through our operations and we are restructuring our teams from technology silos into regional hubs, resulting in a $50 million sustainable savings by the end of 2028. Jeff will have more to say about these measures.

Based on these drivers, we are targeting a 6% compound annual growth rate in free cash flow per share through 2030, resulting in a projected range of $1.55 to $1.75 per share. So how are we going to achieve this? We will stay focused on our three strategic pillars: deliver, strengthen, grow. This framework brings the focus and the discipline needed to stay on plan and build shareholder value.

Deliver is our foundation. We operate with excellence with safety as a core value We complete our projects as planned, and we are the trusted operator for our partners and our stakeholders. We focus on what we do well, and we continually raise the bar.

Strengthen. This is where we are making a better Northland. We are streamlining the organization, improving efficiency and driving cost savings across the corporate functions, but also in the operational assets. We're drawing on best practices from across the sector, identifying the technologies that improve our performance, our reliability and our value.

And grow. We will pursue value-accretive growth by prioritizing our core markets, high-grading our pipeline and enhancing value across our existing fleet. Everything is underpinned by disciplined capital allocation. We will advance only the highest return opportunities, and we review every project regularly to determine whether it merits continued investment.

Before we get into growth, I do want to spend some time on deliver and strengthen because this is how we create value today and build the foundation for the value of tomorrow. At Northland, we are proud owners and operators. We construct and operate assets to drive long-term value. We bring decades of experience, and we have a strong track record of delivery. We achieved this through strong scenario planning, an agile, empowered supply chain, experienced local teams who are empowered to make decisions and a one-team approach with suppliers partners and joint ventures.

We also apply a full life cycle mindset, making decisions today that protect value tomorrow. For 95% of our production, our revenue is contracted today. As those contracts roll off, though, we can expect that new pricing contracts may be lower. And that means our OpEx and reliability have to drive value, and we are positioning ourselves to be able to do just that. So strengthening our core is fundamental. Simple effective organizations make better decisions and that translates into better cost structures and greater shareholder value. The best companies are those that reduce costs and deliver the best value.

To that end, we have launched three initiatives in Northland focused on sustainable cost savings. These programs have already launched and together will achieve $50 million in annual savings by the end of 2028. And those are sustainable annual savings. Through these programs, we're taking three complementary actions. Number one, we're optimizing our organizational design. We're shifting from a technology model to a geographical model. We're centralizing project delivery. Every dollar of development capital competes on equal terms across all of our markets. There are no pockets reserved for any geographies, every project competes with every other project.

And then improving operational performance across the fleet. The teams are already delivering results, but we see there is more to go that we can be even better than we are today and drive more value from the existing fleet. Jeff will have more to say about this in his section.

So on the organization, we're shifting from technology business units into strategic regional hubs, one for the Americas and one for international. This better aligns people and resources with our core markets and enables us to deliver multi-technology solutions efficiently. Our new structure streamlines the organization scales our expertise, eliminate duplication, deepens capabilities and strengthens our competitive advantage.

You can see in the middle of the circle on the right there, we've also created a centralized project development and delivery office. This team will be responsible for deploying capital to the highest return, fastest-moving projects. This positions us to leverage scale, share learnings and strengthen our local relationships, all supported by disciplined capital allocation. So along with that new structure, I'm pleased to announce our new leadership team. In addition to Jeff and me who you already know, Jaime Hurtado Cola is our newly appointed General Counsel. Jaime, are you in the room?

There's Jaime, thank you very much. He leads our legal strategy, risk management and corporate governance functions; Rachel Stephenson, our Chief People Officer. Hi, Rachel. She leads our global HR strategy, including talent development and organizational culture; Pierre-Emmanuel Frot, who continues to lead in health and safety and will be responsible for the new centralized project development and delivery function; Calvin MacCormack, who will lead our Americas hub; and Toby Edmonds, will lead our international hub. These gentlemen will lead our global operations and growth initiatives.

So I turn now to grow. We look at growth in three lanes: value enhancement opportunities, our organic pipeline and asset acquisition opportunities. So let's start with value enhancement. We can extract more value from the assets we already own through capacity upgrades, repowering, hybridization, contract extensions. We have dedicated teams identifying short-cycle, lower-risk, high-return opportunities. And as of now, 6 initiatives are moving through our investment process. There have been more ideas than these first 6. Some of them require additional work to understand the scope of the opportunity. But the best 6 are now our focus, while other opportunities need some more time to mature.

Within our organic pipeline, this is our engine of long-term growth. We advance projects through a disciplined decision gate process. Every project in the funnel is regularly assessed regarding timing, economics and strategic fit. Only the strongest opportunities progress.

And the third tranche there is acquisitions. We selectively add value-accretive assets like the Poland battery storage projects I've mentioned earlier. And we're in dialogue on numerous other opportunities in our core geographies that fit our strategy. Should they meet our requirements and drive more value than opportunities were advancing today, they will move into our pipeline. We're making smart choices to deliver sustainable focused growth over the next years. When Hai Long and Baltic Power come online in 2027, Northland will be a fundamentally different platform. By 2030, we plan to double operating capacity to 7 gigawatts, requiring us to bring 1.4 to 1.8 gigawatts of new projects into commericial operations. And so we're building platforms and markets with strong fundamentals. Our Poland storage acquisitions are one example.

Near term our focus is on natural gas, onshore and battery storage. Offshore wind will follow later in the decade aligned with market conditions and opportunities. Growth must be paced. Sequencing our major projects reduces risk, focuses capital and ensures resources are applied where they create the greatest value.

So in addition to how we select for projects, many of you have asked me about Northland's approach for how we select our markets, how do we make decisions for our locations and which technologies apply in those locations? And there are two major components to this at the top level of market selection itself and then the lower level is the investment screen. I'm going to talk about market selection now and how we apply that at Northland, and Jeff will give some more color on the investment screen portion, especially our decision funnel and our stage gate process.

The funnel is an important concept, though, at Northland because not all projects will ultimately make their way through final investment decision. Only the best projects will be the ones that we invest in. So let's dive deeper though into market selection.

Before we enter any market, we have to take a full view of the context, both during the contract period and afterwards. We are long-term operators. So we need to understand the markets that we're entering. So we apply three screens, a macro screen, a technology screen and a commercial screen. On the macro side, we assess a range of fundamentals. Like I said earlier, underlying GDP growth used to be proxy enough for electricity growth, but underlying GDP growth is still a relevant consideration. We also look at industrial growth, electricity demand trends. We really look at grid investment and interconnection availability. And if it is being planned into the future, how reliable is that plan and time frame.

We also look at the political and the regulatory environment. These can be very significant considerations in the timing of projects.

We also look at carbon and policy signals and long-term agreement pathways, whether it's in power purchase agreements or contracts for difference or other structures that governments wish to pursue. We prefer markets where contract structures are well established and where projects can be delivered reliably, both on paper and in practice.

So after the macro screen, we have a look at the technology screen. And in that screen, we look to select the technology that offers the highest risk-adjusted returns in that market. And reaching that conclusion, we consider grid infrastructure, resource availability, system operator requirements as well as the long-term operations and maintenance environment. Our diversified capabilities here give us strategic flexibility. We can adapt to the resource mix, the grid and the customer needs.

And then if we have made it through those two screens, we get to the commercial screen. We evaluate commercial viability of the concept as opposed to a particular project. More than 95% of our revenues today are contracted across a broad mix of government-backed contracts and corporate offtakers. That diversity is another strength for Northland because we are content to follow these different types of arrangements. We look for markets where we can deploy a structure that works for us as a company, but also works for the target jurisdiction. At the end of the process, though, the decision must deliver shareholder value or we will not pursue it.

So let me make this practical. How are we applying this framework at Northland today? Based on macro demand trends and the strengths of our current portfolio, we are concentrating our efforts in core markets in Canada and in Europe. These are places where the fundamentals are strong, demand is growing, and we see that our capabilities are in high need. In Europe, we're focused on Poland, Spain and the U.K. These are markets with clear long-term electricity needs, established contracting structures and good policy support. We're also keeping a close watch on Germany as it renews its focus on industrial activity and domestic energy supply. So we're keeping a watching brief there.

In Canada, we are prioritizing Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec. These provinces reflect strong system needs, including onshore renewables, natural gas, storage and hybrid solution and our long-standing presence in these provinces provides us a strong right to win. I'm going to dive deeper into these in a moment, but before I do, just a quick note on Asia.

We maintain a long-term view on this region beyond 2030 because we do see meaningful opportunity there. From a macro standpoint, GDP growth is strong, grid investment is significant and policy support aligns well with Northland's capabilities. Over the next 15 years, it's expected that the region is going to require more than 200 gigawatts of new power generation. It's one of the largest demand opportunities globally. And importantly, we already have an established footprint supported by strong partners in Gentari and Mitsui. So we will continue to evaluate opportunities in Asia as they mature, but we see them on a longer-term horizon than our focus right now on Canada and Europe.

So let's take a deeper dive into the next 5 years, beginning with Europe, where Northland sees good opportunity with the region's strong policy support across the EU. The EU clean investment plan tops CAD 550 billion. That leaves a lot of room for investment. Across Europe, we continue to see a clear need for new electricity supply. And the specific drivers vary by market, but the trend is consistent, more demand, more renewables and more need for reliability.

In Poland, Poland is one of the fastest-growing economies in the EU and a strong focus on energy security. With Baltic Power and our two new battery storage projects, we now have a strong foothold and we're well positioned for future growth across multiple technologies.

We turn to Spain in the middle there. Since the blackout earlier this year, Spain has been having a really different conversation about grid reliability. With our existing fleet and our existing footprint in Spain, we are well placed to play a meaningful role in delivering the electricity and reliability that system needs.

And the United Kingdom. It's a mature market with high renewable ambitions. But in addition, we see potential for rapid data center expansion driving new load growth and opening opportunities for offshore wind and battery storage. These are both areas where Northland has deep expertise.

On this next slide, I'm going to take an extra few minutes on Poland because it's a standout opportunity, and we're seeing it firsthand. There are several factors that make Poland very compelling for Northland. This is a market laser-focused on energy security, affordability and decarbonization, and they are moving quickly to build out renewable generation, solar, onshore wind and offshore wind. We are already invested in an offshore wind project with a strong local partner, and we see continued potential across technologies. As the share of renewables grows in the energy mix in Poland, the need for battery storage increases, and this aligns directly with the two new projects we added to our portfolio this week.

Poland meets our market selection screen. On the macro side, strong GDP growth and industrial activity, supportive climate policies, strong links and building out a further interconnection to Western European energy markets. On the technology screen, renewables are central to Poland's long-term strategy. Storage is required to balance a rapidly changing grid. And on the commercial screen, we see attractive long-term revenue frameworks including contracts for difference with 25-year terms for offshore wind, 15-year terms for onshore and 17-year storage auctions. Together, these fundamentals make Poland a highly attractive market for disciplined, selective growth.

So let's turn now to our home market, Canada. Here, we see a different set of fundamentals, but strong opportunity. Canada's story is a bit unique. We already have the fourth greenest grid in the world as a country. Many provinces are very well advanced in their greening process. But electrification, industrial growth and reliability needs are accelerating. This means that new electricity supply must come online, and it must be delivered in a way that is affordable and dependable. This creates a meaningful opportunity for Northland.

If we go to the next slide, Canada's installed electricity capacity today is around 150 gigawatts. And when you look at forecasts from the system operators across the country, we see demand for 70 to 100 gigawatts of new capacity over the next decade. That's a 50% to 70% increase from today. One clear opportunity in Canada lies in historically under-invested gas infrastructure with significant natural gas resources available, there's a need to modernize and expand flexible gas generation to support reliability during the energy transition.

I will note that Canada can be complex from a permitting and contracting standpoint. However, with decades of experience at Northland, we know how to operate effectively in Canada across provinces. I will say though, it's important to recognize that Canadian opportunities within our Northland set of opportunities compete across the portfolio, so they compete against other global opportunities. Capital will be allocated to the projects that offer the strongest returns regardless of geography. Across many provinces, there are large procurement processes underway for new power generation and we are engaged where we see a competitive right to win and where we have projects that meet what operators are looking for.

Northland also has a home market advantage with operations and projects in Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec. We're actively evaluating new opportunities across Canada, and we're in bilateral discussions on several opportunities. Calvin will speak shortly about a near-term opportunity in Alberta that has potential for gas-fired generation.

I will take a moment here as well on offshore wind for Canada because I continue to get a lot of questions about it. With our global scale and our proven delivery record in offshore wind. We are closely following what's happening in Canada with respect to potential offshore wind development. We continue to meet with officials at various levels of government, and we have outlined and worked with them to show what we need to see as investors. And put plainly, that's clear contract terms, definable time lines and efficient permitting. If Canada becomes competitive in offshore wind, it would represent an opportunity for both the sector and for Northland.

So let's turn now to our pipeline because, as I said earlier, every dollar in our pipeline is competing globally as we continue to high-grade opportunities. At every stage of development, we evaluate projects based on maturity, risk, return, speed of delivery, whether they come from origination, value enhancement initiatives or acquisitions. This is our stage gate model. Building an active pipeline is a core focus for our management team, and it is a focus at every one of our meetings. We work to increase value and reduce risk as projects advance through the stages. And here's where our pipeline stands today.

When you look here in early stage, you will see that there's some Canada onshore renewables, some Canada natural gas. These are opportunities that are currently within our portfolio that we don't name specifically because they may or may not be part of ongoing auction processes or are they may be being advanced for upcoming auction processes. There is a footnote above offshore wind Poland. There is an offshore wind opportunity in Poland that we have been working on for some time. But the Polish system requires a public auction process and that when that public auction process occurs, we will assess at that time whether this project makes sense for us.

We have -- there's a U.K. offshore wind floating project here where we mentioned in previous updates that for us that this is a project that is currently on pause but we continue to evaluate whether this will be an opportunity, and we're in dialogue with government authorities in the U.K. about that.

We have Southeast Asia offshore here referencing what I said earlier that we do have licenses in Southeast Asia, where we have a low-cost opportunity to retain the option for the future. We do where action is required for investment at this time. We've recently chosen to relinquish one of those licenses for exactly that reason that we don't feel the opportunity is sufficiently mature at this stage. And we also have a set of onshore opportunities in New York, which are not a priority for us at this stage.

In mid-stage development, you can see that we have a Spain storage project. We have also Canada onshore renewables, Collisard natural gas, which Galvin will speak to shortly. Various Ontario projects named that way because of ongoing procurement processes and U.K. offshore wind, a fixed bottom project that we have been speaking to at several of our previous events. As that project matures, we will tell you more about it.

Then in late-stage development, we have the two Poland projects that Toby is going to talk to you about in a little bit. And we do have an opportunity in the U.S. onshore called High Bridge. And then we have our three projects in construction, Hai Long, Baltic Power and Jurassic BESS.

Then you see underneath that, there is an ongoing project acquisition evaluation. This is an asset acquisition type approach where we look at assets that can be value accretive in our pipeline. And then here at the bottom, you see our value enhancement projects. And here, these are the projects we have decided as a company to move forward. They currently sit in mid-stage development. And so now they are going through our capital allocation process for next year and the year beyond in order to finalize time lines for delivery. So you see there Spain storage, utilization of our transmission line, potential for repowering. We have some dialogue ongoing in Quebec around potential expansion or extension of our facilities there. We do have some opportunities across the fleet for behind-the-meter storage where it enables us a different than grid-level battery storage, which is providing grid level services behind the meter storage is simply to enable us to sell in shoulder times when we'll get access to better pricing.

And then we have natural gas optimization within our fleet, and these are ways that we can drive value from what we already hold. Underpinning everything is our commitment to long-term value through disciplined capital management. The discipline gives us financial resilience. It enables rigorous capital allocation and it supports sustainable shareholder returns. So I think I've talked long enough, and I'm going to welcome Pierre-Emmanuel Frot to speak about our development and project delivery approach. Thank you.

Thank you, Christine. I am Pierre-Emmanuel Frot, and I lead our new control project development and delivery office. I hope my French accent will not be too challenging. Engineer as an education and after 25 years managing large electrical and renewable project organizations, I joined Northland Power in 2023 to lead the procurement and project management office. The purpose of this new organization structure is to drive growth centrally, managing our DevEx effectively while scaling our strength in project delivery across the company.

As Christine shared, there are a lot of growth opportunities ahead. Our collective goal is to upgrade our pipeline so Northland only pursues the most value accretive projects that deliver strong returns. With this new group, we'll take our expertise and best practices and implement them across all our assets. So three core principles. First, is establishing a centralized, disciplined and repeatable process to evaluate growth projects. Internally, every DevEx dollar would compete for capital through our decision gate process. We'll assess projects using a consistent set of parameters such as feasibility, risk profile, required investment and of course, value creation and returns. Based on our assessment, development funding will be deployed to the opportunities with the best risk/reward [indiscernible 52.27] ratio.

Our approach will be market-agnostic and account for the differences between technologies. We want to invest in the best opportunities regardless of which team brings them forward. A key benefit of this centralized approach is that it frees capacity for Americas and international teams to focus on their markets and assets. Overall, we are all focused on disciplined growth through projects that are competitive and meet our thresholds.

Our second principle, rigorous project delivery, planning and structured due diligence happens once we confirm projects for investment with a centralized model will drive cost efficiencies while accelerating development. This will let us baseline projects and track progress through the pipeline. So we can make the right capital allocation recommendations at each gate as we continue to high-grade our pipeline.

The third principle is leveraging our market and technology knowledge. Along with our global scale, combining local presence and central expertise. The new structure is designed to meet diverse market needs by deploying the most suitable technologies in a way that ensures competitiveness and long-term value.

Now that I have given you an understanding of how we will deploy capital, I want to talk through our approach to project delivery. We basically follow two models, either our owner/operator or JV partners. In both models, we may have investor partners, but their role is different in the actual daily project management. Fully dedicated to Northland in the first case like for Oneida or shared like for Baltic or Hai Long. Partnering with other organization is core to our model and Northland is recognized for its ability to do so. Whether it's Canada with First Nations or with other players globally, we spend time understanding their target objectives and culture.

Our goal is to align our objectives and work closely together to deliver projects successfully with few conflicts, which is testament to our strong partnership philosophy. This is an important point because it allows us to focus only on the project and not on different issues or expectations of each other, especially during difficult time.

When acting as a JV partner, we spend the necessary time to build and empower one single project team, integrating the complete monetary skills of each partner with Northland playing a key role. Teams are trusted to make decisions because they are closest to the projects and know what is necessary for execution. Taking the example of Hai Long, the project team is led by Northland leaders as a project director and package manager are both Northland employees. All of this is overseen by a joint venture management team integrating Northland and its partners, representatives.

Finally, we place great importance on scenario planning and tracking our project management office for delivery and cost control. We implement tools and technologies like AI to drive efficiency and understand what is in front of us and anticipate various possibilities, so we can take early action and mitigate future risk. As an example, a key challenge on project is the management of interfaces and possible knock-on effect between packages. AI can help identifying misalignment before they become an issue. While integrated data management tools can quickly provide a view on the different options available to the project to manage a delay or another event impacting the project progress.

An important part of project delivery is our supply chain and the need to have very strong suppliers and contractors in our markets. Our strategy is to develop strong relationships with a short list of top-tier suppliers like our approach to partners. We want our suppliers to be aligned with the project objectives. It requires understanding their own objectives and constraints. The prime success indicator for our supply chain management is that projects are delivered on time, on budget and with expected performance.

Second point is that we interact with our suppliers at different levels. From CEO down to operations, we make sure that we know the people and that our message is clear, shared underline. The human relationship of project is sometimes downplayed, but it actually plays a key role in making a project successful.

Finally, we adapt our supply chain strategy to the technology: battery, solar, gas or wind, which have all a different dynamic. Being a multi-technology provider give flexibility to work on other technologies and continue to deploy capital when certain supply chains are constrained. Battery storage is a fast-moving market with rapid price deflation and technology changes and potential breakthrough innovations. We keep a constant eye on the market trends to make sure we use solution delivering the right combination of price and performance.

On the other end of the scale is offshore wind, where we work with two preferred suppliers, Siemens and Vestas that give us predictability and the best value. With our good relationships, we aligned early on projects and determine a solid construction strategy to balance risk and cost. If inflation and supply limitation has been a topic for the past years, the tension seems to loosen a little, thanks to the cancellation or postponement of some projects. Gas falls in between with the supply chain defined by design.

Northland's long history in natural gas, give us capability to approach projects in different ways. We have strong relationships, no time lines and can deploy solutions quickly. This is where expertise matters in the supply chain. Solar is closer to battery with many supplier options, but is a more mature market.

In summary, we put a lot of importance on our supplier relationships and we ensure we maintain optionality and mitigate risk. Our suppliers play a critical role in our ability not only to deliver our projects, but to operate them and improve the performance of the assets over time, making them partners of our success is essential.

With that, I will hand off to Calvin MacCormack, EVP Americas to take you through our Americas operations and how we drive the performance. [Foreign Language]

Thank you, Pierre-Em. So I'm Calvin MacCormack, EVPs for the America. I've been in the power industry for more than 30 years and with Northland Power for most of that time. Starting in facility operations, I've had tremendous opportunity to grow along with this company in lockstep as we expanded into each of our technologies and regions. All these years later, I can tell you that the same spark that drove us to succeed is not diminished. So I'm happy to be with you today to talk about this proud Canadian company founded nearly 40 years ago.

In the Americas, we have 1.4 gigawatts in operation with 85% of those assets located in Canada. In addition, this portfolio contains a regulated utility in Colombia, which serves 500,000 customers. In 2024, these businesses represented 35% of our EBITDA. Noteworthy in this fleet is that the portfolio represents all our generation technology other than offshore wind. Northland was an early mover in Canada in gas, solar, wind projects. And now that innovation continues with our Oneida energy storage facility, which has just gone into operation this year and is currently the largest operating battery energy storage facility in Canada.

High availability is a key standard in the power industry. And you can see here that both our natural gas and renewables fleet are performing better than the industry average. Our commitment to operational excellence is what enables us to stand out amongst our peers.

So there were two key benefits maintaining high commercial availability. The obvious one is that it is positively correlated with higher revenues. The second benefit is how this high availability bolsters our reputation in market with our commercial off-takers, and it gives him confidence to work with us on new development projects.

So on the previous slide, you saw a high availability, driven by our commitment to operational excellence, but what is operational excellence? Well, first and foremost, it is anchored by our people who demonstrate an entrepreneurial mindset and extreme ownership of operational outcomes. These same teams are rewarded by compensation systems that reinforce those good behaviors. Great for our employees, and great for our business. What's more? We have deep expertise and institutional knowledge in our operational teams. For example, natural gas, is 20 years. And in onshore room, 75% of our operation teams have been with the company for over 10 years. With empowered teams in the field, our management team provides support and facilitates sharing of best practice and key learnings across our portfolio.

Additionally, keeping the full life cycle of the assets in view, our commercial and technical teams combine their expertise in markets power generation and performance analytics to optimize margins over the long run. And as we further scale in this market, the cost efficiency of the portfolio will only improve. Now a perfect example of our operational expertise is on display at Oneida. This is our 250-megawatt energy storage project, which we delivered this year, ahead of schedule and on budget. It continues to exceed our expectations.

Oneida is one of our most dynamic assets. It's a learning asset. Through a combination of machine learning, optimization algorithms and risk management tools, this system is constantly adapting to market and grid conditions to improve its performance over time. We use machine learning forecasting to anticipate key variables, market prices, renewable generation levels, demand and grid imbalances. These forecasts feed into optimization algorithms that calculate the most profitable and reliable market strategy. So the Oneida team can decide days, hours or even minutes ahead of time, whether it should buy, sell or hold energy to capture maximum value across all streams. All of this happens under a risk-aware framework, accounting for uncertainty from forecast errors, price volatility and system status.

In addition, these models integrate detailed models of battery degradation. So we're protecting the long-term health of the asset while optimizing its short-term returns. So the system is constantly learning as it accumulates data from operations, market behavior and weather patterns, it refines its forecast and dispatch strategy. This creates a powerful feedback loop, better forecast better dispatch, better outcomes, which in turn generate more data to improve the next cycle. Now as a first mover in this space, we'll be leveraging these learnings to increase our competitive advantage as we continue to drive this new business line forward in Alberta and internationally.

Now as Christine discussed earlier, we're looking at driving more value from our existing asset base. In the near term in Canada, I would highlight that we are evaluating project expansions and contract extensions at our existing gas and renewable facilities. As a reminder, we recently completed one such expansion and contract extension at our Thorold facility, adding 23 megawatts, an additional 5 years of contracted cash flows. In addition, we see several noncapital-intensive -- noncapital-intensive opportunities where revenue can be increased within the existing assets.

Many of our facilities went commercial in an environment where load growth was flat to nonexistent. Today, driven by growing electricity demand in the region and a renewed appetite from offtakers for additional electrons, we're advancing. The aim of these projects is to both strengthen our competitive position and market and deliver strong returns to our shareholders by focusing on shorter cycle, lower risk, higher-return initiatives that enhance asset performance and cash flow.

One such opportunity that we are looking at currently is exploring expansion of our Mont Louis wind project in Eastern Quebec. It's important to note here that Quebec has moved from an oversupply of generation to a projected shortfall in the coming years. This new reality is a stock change from just a few years ago. So this project is a prime target for us for expansion due to a strong wind resource, some spare capacity in the existing substation and its proximity to Crown land. So we look forward to sharing more with you as we continue to develop and derisk this project.

Our next confirmed project in construction Jurassic BESS broke ground this year and will be Alberta's first large-scale battery facility. Once complete, it will enhance grid flexibility in a province that has experienced rapid growth in corporate-backed wind and solar. Next year, we will deliver and install the battery packs and high-voltage substation targeting full commercial operation by the end of the year.

Now I'm very happy to give you an overview of one of Northland's new gas-fired development projects. The Collisard project is a peaking 120-megawatt gas-fired generation project located near Red Deer, Alberta. The project is well advanced in the ASOQ and we are driving development forward with a targeted COD before 2029.

We believe now that this is the time to invest in gas generation and battery energy storage in Alberta. With low cost and abundant gas, a favorable ecosystem for project development and strong future market fundamentals, we are confidently advancing this project.

So in summary, in the Americas, with a particular focus on Canada, we will continue to lead with operational excellence. We'll drive more value from our existing fleet, and we will deliver our projects safely through construction.

With that, I will pass to Toby Edmonds for an update on our international fleet.

Good morning. Thank you, Calvin. I'm Toby Edmonds, Executive Vice President of International. I joined Northland in 2024 and I have experience of over 25 years in the energy industry spending most of my time focusing on delivering offshore wind construction projects.

Picking up from Calvin, I'll give you a quick overview of our international business. Today, we have 1.8 gigawatts in operation and 2.1 gigawatts in construction, which represented 65% of the EBITDA of the company in 2024. And it's set to grow with the two new offshore assets when they come online. Our business began internationally in 2014, when we stepped outside of Canada and into the offshore market, with the acquisition of Gemini in the Netherlands. We later added onshore wind with our acquisition in Spain, where we have a diverse portfolio of wind and solar assets.

Fundamental to delivering our EBITDA is our commercial availability, which you can see in the chart here. Like the Americas, this graph demonstrates our focus on operational excellence and continuous improvement is delivering for Northland and its shareholders. In both our offshore fleet and onshore fleet, we see availability above industry benchmarks which is thanks to the hard work of our operations teams across our portfolio.

But we're not complacent. We strive to keep and exceed what we have achieved so far by ensuring that each asset is ready when the resource is there to be captured, whether it's wind or solar. Our performance is made possible by our focus on operational excellence. We are an experienced operator of large-scale generation assets across the international business, and we will see 2 gigawatt scale assets coming online in the next years. Our new structure sets us up to capitalize on our global footprint, deepening our market knowledge to increase performance and surface new opportunities.

Creating value starts with our people who work every day on driving performance. As Pierre-Em mentioned, we empower our people to identify and create improvement opportunities. This local empowerment supported by management means we can innovate at the asset level and elevate the approach to our entire business.

Our key focus areas today are developing our integrated management systems in line with ISO standards, maintaining our full service capability, which allows us to make informed decisions at each of our assets, whether to procure services from the market or do it ourselves to deliver top quartile performance. Performance analysis enhancements enable a deep understanding of the turbines in our fleet, knowing the health of all our assets in real time allows us to pinpoint the exact moment to change a component to minimize downtime and revenue loss and keep availability high.

Finally, data analysis, investing in our data capability to further automate reporting and performance analysis across our portfolio to leverage our scale. Overall, we are constantly assessing ways to increase revenue whilst decreasing cost and risk.

As Christine and Calvin have discussed, value enhancements at our existing assets are key in driving value from our fleet. In spring of this year, Spain experienced a blackout, which affected tens of millions of people. And we believe grid scale battery storage systems offer part of the solution to prevent this from happening in the future. Our portfolio is spread across Spain, giving us several opportunities to add battery storage systems at existing sites where the grid needs it most.

We are assessing the opportunities across our European portfolio, where we have some of the ingredients in place, such as land, grid capacities and synergies with existing assets. One example is Lebrija in Spain, where we see the potential for a grid scale battery storage system up to 180 megawatts at 720-megawatt hours. This will enable us to strengthen our market position, whilst leveraging our expertise in battery storage from Canada.

Switching our focus to construction. I'd like to share a short video showing our progress on Hai Long and Baltic Power this year.

[Presentation]

As you can see, we've progressed on our projects in construction. Northland continues to advance the 1-gigawatt Hai Long project, and we achieved first power and installed more than half of the wind turbines and completed installation of the export cables this year.

I'd like to provide detail on the commissioning at Hai Long. The issue we disclosed relates to the wind turbines installed this year. To recap our original plan, we intended to install and commission 37 wind turbines in 2025. The good news is that we've successfully completed the installation of these turbines. However, commissioning has been slower than originally planned, pushing it into the winter period. Due to winter weather, our access to the turbines is limited for final commissioning and troubleshooting. As a result, not all turbines are generating as planned this winter.

Of the 37, we have 2 wind turbines generating 16 currently in commissioning, leaving 19 remaining to be commissioned. The issues we're encountering are typical for this phase of commissioning, but mean we will have lower revenues through Q4 and Q1 than planned. We had anticipated using this revenue to support capital expenditure in the coming year. As a result, we've identified the need to fund between CAD 150 million and CAD 200 million in 2026 to fill the gap. Our recovery plan will get us back on track through Q2 next year.

In parallel to this, we've proactively addressed a potential reliability issue at the onshore substation by replacing the cable connections between the onshore substation and the grid system, this requires an outage in December and is expected to be completed in January. We do not anticipate any further impacts from this issue going forward.

While these issues were not planned, they are manageable and do not affect the long-term value or viability of the Hai Long project, and we remain on track to achieve full commercial operation in 2027. We are confident in our ability to deliver this project.

On Baltic Power, we've made strong progress and continue to plan. As you saw in the video, we've installed the two offshore substations which is an important milestone for the project. Next year's milestones include completing foundation, turbine and array cable installation and connecting to the grid system to achieve first power generation. We target full commercial operations in the second half of 2026.

Today, we announced the acquisition of two battery storage projects totaling 300 megawatts, 1,200 megawatt hours in Poland. At Mieczyslawów & Kamionka in Poland. These acquisition strengthens Northland's growing presence in Poland and underscores our commitment to supporting the country's energy needs. As Poland's electricity markets evolve, the need for grid scale storage is critical to balancing the grid and ensuring reliability. The projects each have a 4-hour duration and are located in Western Poland. The anticipated construction cost for both projects is EUR 200 million. The revenues are underpinned by 17-year capacity contracts, indexed to inflation with additional revenue expected from energy arbitrage and participating in ancillary services markets. Financing and the start of construction are expected next year in 2026. Once completed, the project will be some of the first battery energy storage facilities operating in Poland.

We will now go to a short break. Then Jeff Hart will take you through our financials. Thank you.

[Break]

All right. Welcome back, everyone, and good morning. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Jeff Hart, I've been with Northland for, I think, a little over 6 months here. So good to see you all. Now that Christine and the team have discussed the overall strategy and business execution, I'll provide color on Northland's financial framework.

The foundation of our financial framework is based on the three pillars of financial resilience, disciplined capital allocation and sustainable shareholder returns. The result of the framework is a self-funded model without reliance on common equity issuances, and let me touch on each of the pillars at a high level.

To start, financial resilience. We will maintain an investment-grade balance sheet while delivering on our existing construction and future growth opportunities and we will enhance our margins through cost reductions, all of which is underpinned by a highly contracted revenue base.

In terms of capital allocation, we will only invest in our core markets and all investments must meet or exceed a 12% rate of return.

And finally, sustainable shareholder returns. Our shareholder returns will be underpinned by the cash flow of our operating fleet and they can grow sustainably through the planned horizon in line with our growing cash flow.

Now let's dive deeper into financial resilience. Our plan assumes an investment-grade credit rating which allows us more reliable access to capital through the cycle and provides a foundation to grow our business. And our credit ratings at both agencies are currently mid-BBB and our plan maintains an investment-grade rating. In addition, the majority of funding is expected to come from project financing, given the nature of our cash flows, which provides further funding certainty. And project financing also allows for ratable principal repayments through our plan, in line with our contracted revenue time frames, also reducing our refinancing risk. And our drive for financial resilience, we'll also focus on cash flow enhancement through cost efficiency, thereby driving EBITDA and free cash flow margin by a target of $50 million in annual savings to be fully realized by 2028. And the plan to achieve our baseline cost reductions is driven by streamlining our organizational accountabilities, and Christine talked about that earlier.

A more concentrated market focus, we're primarily focused now on two core markets in Europe and Canada, and we'll be able to spread our fixed cost over greater volumes given that depth. And we'll leverage technology on our corporate processes, including automation and leveraging our software and our ERP systems fully.

Finally, we'll look to optimize our maintenance processes and contracts across our fleet. These reductions will allow us to further fund growth whilst also expanding our balance sheet capacity.

And the final piece of financial resilience I'd like to address is our revenue base. With more than 95% of our revenue under long-term PPA or contract for difference, we have predictable revenue pricing. And the high contractedness is supplemented by our disciplined approach to counterparties with an average credit quality of A+, further reducing risk.

And finally, underpinning this strategy is a long tenure beyond 10 years, which provides additional funding certainty for growth and returns through the planned horizon.

Taking a deeper dive into our revenue contracts, you can see here, the majority of our revenue is contracted well beyond the 5-year plan with a weighted average life of 14 years. And the recent Nordsee One recontracting is consistent with our approach on financial resilience. We secured a corporate PPA with Shell Energy Europe for 1/3 of our volumes commencing June '27 for a term of 5 years. This construct reinforces our drive for providing lower risk cash flows underpinned by strong counterparties.

Now let me turn to disciplined capital allocation, the second pillar. As Christine discussed earlier, all of our investments must be strategically aligned in our core markets. And now that we've established in our core markets are Europe and Canada, our organic growth options must provide competitive returns relative to the inorganic growth, share buybacks and other capital deployment opportunities. If a project or opportunity has strategic alignment and shows strong risk-adjusted returns, only then will we allocate capital. What this means in practice is our returns must reflect underlying regulatory time frames and meet a higher bar if the asset has a larger portion of market exposure or technical execution risk.

Now let's take a look at our return criteria in a little bit more detail. We've adjusted our returns to ensure we create shareholder value while continuing to grow. We previously targeted equity returns of 9% to 12%. Now we aim for 12% or greater. As I mentioned previously, we will require higher returns depending on that relative risk profile of the specific opportunity. And we see many opportunities in front of us that can meet our return thresholds.

Let's look at a few examples in action of our capital allocation and action, Jurassic BESS, leverages off our success at Oneida and will provide grid stability in our core Alberta market. Collisard will build off our history of being a Canadian natural gas power generator and is expected to deliver cash flow in 2029. And finally, the new assets in Poland demonstrate our approach in action by building platform depth in a core market, and they'll deliver returns in the mid-teens.

Now let's look what this all means in our plan and funding in aggregate. With the rebalancing of our dividend, we have the capacity to deliver on our growth objectives in a strong macro market. Firstly, our gross operating capacity is anticipated to grow from our current 3.5 gigawatts to more than 7 gigawatts by 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate of about 16%. The strategy maintains investment-grade credit ratings, and we are planning to spend $6.2 billion with approximately 50% of that capital investment for cash contribution outside the 5-year plan. Northlands equity requirements are $1.3 billion and are expected to be funded by $600 million of cash flow, $300 million of asset recycling and $400 million of corporate debt.

In aggregate, the funding plan provides the financial flexibility to capture opportunities in a strong environment. And although we don't target a specific payout ratio, our dividend payout on free cash flow is anticipated to be between 40% to 60% over the long haul.

Now let's focus on the returns and the result of our plan. We're targeting approximately a 6% compound annual growth rate in free cash flow over the 5-year period through to 2030. And I'll walk through the major drivers based off of midpoint targets and impacts. We expect to add $1.25 per share of cash flow growth between our in-flight construction projects and new asset additions. A large portion of this amount, $0.82 is attributed to Hai Long, Baltic Power and Jurassic storage. As I discussed earlier, we are targeting approximately $0.04 a share in savings in G&A through organization and process streamlining. Our existing asset cash flows, however, are expected to decline in net of operating cost savings by about $0.20 per share. And this is driven by scheduled PPA step-downs in our existing international operating fleet.

And our free cash flow is being further reduced by approximately $0.60 per share in interest, hedging, taxes and other items. And this is being primarily driven by the cessation of capitalization on some of our existing corporate hybrid debt and assumed corporate debt issuance, which will add additional corporate expense, and that's about $0.20.

And we also have the absence of German tax ruling this year in 2025 that benefited this year by about $0.12 per share. The rest of the impacts are really related to hedging, mark-to-market and other impacts. And consistent with our planned funding, we are expected to see impacts of asset recycling on our free cash flow.

Now let's look to the overall. Our total shareholder return target is 10%, which is driven by the disciplined capital allocations and that free cash flow growth. And to summarize, our financial framework will be underpinned by a resilient balance sheet and cash flow. We'll focus our capital deployment in core markets, and we've increased our return criteria to 12% or greater and our shareholder returns are expected to grow in line with our growing cash flow.

And I think Christine, now I'll hand it back to you to close out before Q&A.

Thanks, Jeff, and thank you, everyone. As you've heard today, we remain firmly committed to our purpose, delivering long-term value for shareholders. We are grounded in our principles of deliver, strengthen and grow and we apply them consistently as we advance value-accretive opportunities across our business.

We continue to deliver on our priorities. We are advancing Baltic Power, advancing Hai Long, we are maintaining and improving operational excellence across our fleet. We are identifying and executing opportunities to enhance performance and streamline costs. We're high-grading our pipeline to ensure only the best opportunities move forward, and we are evaluating selective accretive acquisitions where they make sense. We have accomplished a great deal this year. And despite a challenging environment, we are confident in our ability to continue delivering value for shareholders. Northland has a strong future, and we are focused on creating value that lasts.

I think we have time now for Q&A. So I'll invite the team up with me, and we'll be happy to take your questions.

Okay. We're going to open up the floor for questions. There's two microphones in the room. And then on the website for those online, you can type your messages into the chat. I'll please remind you to please give your name and your firm before you ask your question. We'll take the first question.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for hosting the event. It's Sean Steuart from TD Cowen. Christine or Jeff, in light of the share price correction over the last week, down 30%, we would have I guess, based on what the reset year 2027 would look like you'd be trading at maybe 8.5x enterprise value to EBITDA. Can you compare your trading valuation to what development build multiples look like right now and appreciating asset growth is the focus here, but why would buying back shares at this point not make sense for the company?

Yes. Look, I mean, we've gone through, and I know Christine and I have talked about this over the last couple of weeks is we're going through what we'd say is -- we want to set a financial framework that stands the test of time, and then we have to manage through the long haul. We do see opportunities in front of us here. And so I think when we look at the financial framework and the return targets we've set, we think this will create shareholder value, and we've looked at several different modeling options and different pieces, and we felt this was over the long haul, the path to go.

What I will say with share buybacks, and I talked to it about it in my -- I alluded to it in my prepared remarks, share buybacks are a tool in the toolkit. And I do view them broadly in competition with growth capital. And if they drive returns, the growth capital has to compete with that. And so obviously, as we go through here, and we've got two large-scale projects, we have to manage through all of that, and I have to manage and we have to manage the corporate balance sheet and liquidity. But this is -- it's something that we will look at, and they will compete or share buybacks will be looked in competition with our growth capital and they'll be return driven.

It's Nelson Ng from RBC Capital Markets. First question is with respect to the Collisard gas development in Alberta, can you just talk about the contract structure? And also, I know we've been hearing a lot about the lead time required to purchase gas turbines. Can you just talk about timing and the contract structure?

Sure. I'll pick that up. With respect to the contract structure, as we continue to drive the development forward, we are in active conversations we're offtake. We find there are many entities looking to fill their order book with a flexible asset like Collisard in the period when it will be going commercial.

With respect to the supply chain, there were lots of options for a facility like Collisard and in this particular instance, we are looking at reciprocating engines for power generation, and that is where we're looking at driving at the moment.

Okay. And then my next question is just a quick one. In terms of Nordsee One, you recontracted 1/3 of the power for 5 years. Can you just talk about why 1/3 and why only 5 years? Like is it more about the current price levels, if it was higher, would we have seen a higher portion in a longer term?

Thanks very much for the question. So the process for N1 recontracting evolved quite a lot I would say, over the months that we were following it because electricity markets in Germany have been going through some very different changes this year. And we do see a big difference in, for instance, wholesale electricity prices for firm power in Germany being extremely high, but renewable power PPA prices declining.

So then the question is, is this a long-term structural change? Or is this near-term, short-term change. We don't want to risk locking in everything at an overly low price. So instead, we decided to take a prudent approach here. So we locked in 1/3 of the revenue at the price that we could get in a very competitive process. And we're continuing to assess options for the remaining 2/3, but this gives us line of sight and stability over the time period that we need it and doesn't leave us regretting locking in at a poor moment by virtue of just the timing of our process.

Mark Jarvi from CIBC. Just, Jeff, on the ranges you provided for the free cash flow per share growth. Can you talk a little bit about some of the assumptions particularly about what's required on the growth front to hit the bottom end of the range? What's kind of baked into hitting the top end of the range?

Yes. And so it's -- as you look at it, it's a fairly tight range when you look at it. But I talk to about $1.25 of growth in aggregate. And $0.82 of that, you can kind of think about $0.80 to $0.85 is under construction right now. So you've got Jurassic BESS, Baltic and Hai long. And so those are in execution mode. And obviously, if we look at the rest of the circa $0.40 for the rest of it, what I would say is if you look at the capital frame and some of the projects we talked about is -- and Christine talked on this as well, is we see more onshore investment here primarily through the 5 years. And so we've got obviously the opportunity we see in Poland. We've got Collisard and some of the value enhancements.

And what I would say is, is that growth isn't concentrated into one or two assets. We've got a few opportunities there that we think we can execute on and that are relatively speaking, on a technical basis, lower execution risk. So kind of think of it as 2/3, 1/3. So 2/3 under construction, 1/3 on the new projects we talked about, whether it be value enhancement, Collisard or the opportunities we see here in front of us in Poland.

And just in terms of -- I think if it's a 12% return that talks about $1 billion of equity deployed. Is that the right way to think about what you've embedded in that? And then when you think about maybe deploying 1.3, that gives you a bit of room in terms of buffer in terms of timing of deployment?

Yes. So and I'll get back to the projects you're right. When I went through is the equity requirements are about 1.3. When I talk to the gross CapEx, we said 40%, 50% of the CapEx is for COD outside the 5 years. But when you go back to the next phase of growth after the construction projects, it's not concentrated into one asset per se or one or two assets. So there's some flexibility in timing there, but we're confident we can execute on them. And again, they're not high technical risk. I mean every project until it's on, it's not on, but relatively speaking to what we see is lower execution to what we've got now, and we've got some flexibility on pacing.

And we have assumed in the plan as well that there's some spending in the next 5 years for projects that will be COD after that. So you take the burden of the CapEx in the first 5 years, but the revenue would come later.

Yes, which is about 50%.

And just a follow-up on that. When you think about where the payout ratio will be now, funding capacity, visibility on development projects, including some of the long-lead offshore wind projects. Does the growth rate still hold at that 6% beyond 2030? Any indications around post 2030 would be helpful.

Yes. And what I would say is it's fairly ratable. You look at us inclusive of in construction over these 5 years here, we're doubling capacity. I would expect us -- as we get into the remaining 10 years is to have largely an even flow of capital as we're going and keep executing on that flywheel or a treadmill in a positive way and continue to execute that through the 10 years.

Rebecca Teltscher from New Haven Asset Management. I was just looking for a little bit more clarity on the dividend cut. If you talked about the delays of Hai Long being like short term in nature and the time line is still intact for 2027, why are you making like a long-term decision like cutting the dividend and you're looking at that over the cash flow over a 5-year period. You kind of mentioned areas of growth in Canada and Europe. And so you don't really talk about any areas of growth in Colombia. So was monetizing some of those assets considered instead of cutting the dividend and also just wanted to know the rationale of, let's just say, not issuing equity when the stock price is up almost 50% this year if you were looking to fund battery storage M&A. So I just wanted to have an idea of the rationale for the dividend cut. You talk about many tools in the toolkit. So I just wanted to have an idea of where that -- where the decision was made and how you came to that.

Yes. And so there is a lot there. So if we miss it, please, we can come back to that. Look, I think when we looked at it and we talked to this and went through my bridges, I think going through the decision and looking at what the growth trajectory was in front of us, you're right, is we would have, with these construction projects, elevated payout and they're a year to 1.5 years or however you want to do the math, but let's just say through next year.

I think when we looked at it, and I think Christine talked to this in her remarks as well, is that we saw, as we go through the growth opportunities and coming off of some of those adjustments, when you look at free cash flow, we saw our payout ratio at higher, elevated kind of average 90% through the plan. I think we looked at the opportunities in front of us, the opportunity set in Europe and Canada and felt and we looked at different scenarios felt this was the most accretive path forward and value creation and created the highest value for our shareholders through that. It was -- there was a lot of modeling and looking at this.

And then as far as -- you talked about core areas and potential monetization, I can't really get into specifics or anything along those lines. But when you look at the funding plan, we do assume some monetization and asset dispositions in that. And obviously, we want to be in a spot where we can make the right decision for our shareholders and the right value decision and have flexibility in that and not having to dispose of something for proceeds to fill a funding gap or anything along those lines. And so obviously, we would look what's core and noncore, where do we see growth and all of that will factor in. But we have assumed some asset dispositions in the model.

Yes. And so the equity component looking at different pieces like again, come back to is the organic cash flows that we saw, we felt -- and looking at it and through the modeling, again, it was the highest value proposition when we looked at it in creation on a per share basis. And so that's where we went with the decision with the dividend.

Baltej Sidhu, National Bank Capital Markets. Jeff, could you just touch on the capital recycling side of things? Specifically as it pertains to your U.S. development pipeline and where some of those projects sit within the interconnect queue stage and if you're able to effectively monetize those.

Yes. And it's something that we're constantly looking at. I'd love to give you very specifics, but what we don't want to do is get into -- we want to make sure we get the right value. We're not in public negotiations. But that's exactly right. If we look at those options, I'll start with the pipeline itself, I think what really comes down to is you look to early stage into mid-stage but you'd look to say is where do we see opportunities to retain this option and look at whether the regulatory regime -- we get this clarity on those -- some of those options or we progress them or do people within their portfolio, see that we could monetize. That's something we definitely would be open to or consider.

And that's why there is value there, whether it's in our hands or not. And I think if you look at the rest of the portfolio, I think we'll constantly be looking from early stage in the pipeline all the way through to operations. Where is the best holder? Do we see growth? Do we see value creation here from our side? Where else could we get this? Is the timing right in the market and all of those value decisions will come in basically from, say, early stage to later-stage operating assets.

Rob Hope, Scotiabank back here. Taking a look at the financing plan. So you do have some partners equity in there, which I'm assuming is Hai Long and Baltic. As we look forward, where do partners fit into the funding strategy? And should we assume that if additional offshore is to be pursued, that would be where it would be focused? Or could you look to partners on some onshore opportunities as well?

Well, it's a great question. So for offshore, our baseline plan is we will always be partnered. If we're doing offshore projects, I think it's just a much better way to manage the risk, and I think it leads to just much better project delivery. So that's our baseline approach for offshore. I would also layer on that I think it's a reality of doing business in Canada that many Canadian projects are requiring indigenous ownership in order to move forward successfully. So I think we built that into our plan as well that we will have at least in Canada, indigenous partnerships and then other opportunities we look at case-by-case basis.

So we are often approached about joining partnerships with other companies on different types of assets, and we assess them case by case as well to see if they fit our model, fit how we do business. But I think it's reasonable to assume when you're looking forward, everything in offshore, we would partner. And onshore in Canada, most of it will be partnered in some way.

Heidi Hauch from BNP Paribas. I just wanted to ask on the remaining Hai Long commissioning plan. What kind of gives you confidence in a COD by 2027? And then confidence that you won't see any further commissioning delays given the issues so far?

Sure. Thank you for the question. So the issue we have on Hai Long today is around the commissioning. So it's not about the physical construction. As I mentioned and you saw in the video all of the foundations are now in the export cables, the offshore substations are all in and in the process of being completed and finalized. So the challenge we've got really relates to our ability to access the turbines that are installed today and complete the commissioning work. And of course, it's now the winter period. So we will suffer some delays over Q4 and into Q1. But then we have a recovery plan. So we have the people, vessels and logistics and suppliers lined up to help us accelerate that work through Q2 next year. We're also planning to install the remaining 36 turbines next year. And again, we'll take the learning from the experience we've had so far and apply that to the commission plans for those turbines in which gives us confidence that we're going to be able to deliver as planned in 2027.

Turning to questions online. We have a couple, and I will combine them because they have similar themes. This one is for Jeff and Christine.

I appreciate Northland as a capital-intensive business. Why did you not tell shareholders about the dividend change ahead of time? And are you surprised by the market reaction?

Well, I can say hand on heart that we have been working on every possible solution that did not involve a dividend cut. And we continue to work those options all the way through the fall. We were looking at many different options. And in all of it, we've been guided by what drives best value for shareholders. So it came fundamentally to a very difficult set of circumstances than in order to take the decision with the Board as to what we would do with the shareholders. So in terms of timing, I guess, we made the decision when we had to make the decision, and it was the right decision to make.

In terms of how we could have told people sooner, we have General Counsel in the room who gives me advice on how we can and cannot communicate things. And so I take my advice there. But I can say sincerely that we were continuing to work on a plan that was different than this one but that was with a very narrow path. And we were seeing if we could derisk that path more and more through the fall. But unfortunately, we had other circumstances change that made that path impossible. So while I appreciate that this news came as a surprise, it was also not welcome news for the management and Board of Northland Power either.

Okay. Next question. Christine, you mentioned about Asia, how are you thinking about that? Can you just repeat your thoughts on that in the future?

So sure. Right now, our near-term focus is on Canada and Europe, but we do have this very interesting and useful toehold, I would say, in Asia where we have two very good partners, and we have a good reputation, and we have been working with the supply and service community there. And so as a result, that gives us a position and a market that is actually very difficult to break into in many ways. And when you look at the growth in electricity demand in Asia in the future, and I don't know how much time any of you spend looking at Asia and what's happening in Asian Power, but a lot of the wind locations are dislocated from where you would want to sell the power.

And in Southeast Asia, everybody wants to sell the power into Singapore, for instance, but now the ASEAN has come together and committed to a very big interconnection project that will connect places with the resource to Singapore, which opens up a lot of opportunities for private power producers like us to come and develop projects.

Now that won't be in the 5-year horizon, and it will take much longer to mature. But for right now, I would call that a watching brief, it's a low to no-cost option for us to keep active in a part of the world where we already do hold an asset and where we have an opportunity for longer-term growth in the future.

Thank you, Christine. Calvin, this one is for you. You mentioned on your plans for Canada for growth, and I apologize if I missed this, but can you tell us about how you're thinking about the Ontario procurements this year?

Pardon me, the Ontario?

LT2.

LT2. Good question. So for those of you that are not aware of it, the LT2 Window 1 is currently in flight. It's comprised of energy. And that RFP has already closed. And then, of course, capacity, which by December 18 will be closed for the RFP, and that is technology agnostic, both gas and battery. So we've got opportunities spread right across that spectrum. And probably one of the most difficult decisions will be we're going to bid some of it or all of it. The -- if you look at between gas and battery, very competitive from a pricing perspective. So we'll continue to look at this very closely, and it will be a game time decision over the next 6 weeks as we continue to finalize those plans.

And on the first part?

Pardon?

The bid.

Yes. And we have, of course, we've already put one bid in Window 1 for Energy. Thank you, Christine.

Thank you, Calvin. That's it from online. I'll turn it back to the room.

It's Ben Pham, BMO Capital Markets. Can I go back to the dividend because we're probably going to stop talking about after today? And I'm not sure if there's a question to the Board or the management team, but I'm wondering, you zoom back to January when you started with Christine and then Jeff come on later. Did you oversee a 90% dividend because it's clear from the whole investment community ourselves at BMO that we've probably got the numbers wrong going forward. And just within a span of 7, 8 months, it seems like there's a lot of headwinds that popped up, maybe Jeff came in and looked at the outlook and it changed. But going back then, though, did you always see 90% at the time and just kind of what happened? If not, what happened in the last 8 months that changed outlook so dramatically from our own expectations?

So when I came in the door, I knew that I was taking a plan that had been built, and it takes a while to get your arms around everything happening inside of a company. So when I came inside the door, I knew that things were going to be extremely tight for a year and the plan that I was shown was that then things cleared up pretty quickly after that and got into a much more manageable territory. So then underpinning that plan were a set of assumptions and a couple of things, I think, shifted against us and happened relatively recently, and it's -- anyway, it's an unfortunate series of events. I think that's the name of those children's books.

So we had a couple of things go on. When I first started, we immediately could see that N1 contracting was going to roll off and we wanted to be able to address that proactively and we started a process, when the process started, it was massively oversubscribed. There was a huge amount of demand. By the time the process finished, it looked extremely different. And that was a real-time example of market shifting underneath our feet.

When I look at -- we rely on a number of different agencies to give us pricing forecasts for Germany and then we argue with them all the time, but we see a divergence in their forecast that has been growing throughout the year and continues to grow into the future. So that then causes you to take a step back and say, well, what am I assuming when I'm looking at this 5-year plan?

I will also say, personally, I lived through our first half of the year. We had to reduce guidance downwards based on low wind conditions. We are advised. We can see from the data that they're historically low wind conditions, but it causes me to then say, are we building the plan on the right foundation? Are we too aggressive in the planning? Because it's very tight, at least for part of the plan. And then we have another piece of the plans start to wobble. And then I would say a layer on top of that is then we have a cash -- an injection into Hai Long required next year, that also then further constrains the plan. So how much stress can the plan take until the plan stops being prudent. And so that was really the reality that we became faced with sort of as we worked through this into the fall.

Thanks for those comments. It makes a lot of sense. And then maybe second question on offshore wind in Europe generally. Is it going to become more merchant market long term or just very short term? Is that maybe, Toby, you can chime in here, is that where it's going? Is government not willing to stop these assets? And you have merchant assets as a portion of your business that 95% could change over time, is that where the market is going?

So I'll share a little bit of inside baseball with you. I came in the door and one of the first things I said when I joined Northland is, "Oh, I think in Europe, you need to have a merchant electricity training arm" and I was, "Oh, no, that's -- we're not set up for that". And we are not, we are not set up for that. But I came from a company that did a lot of that. And so it was very much part of sort of breathing. Then the question is, I think it's a reasonable one, and we continue to have it. Right now, most of our assets are fully contracted. But as we're having assets roll off contract, how do we want to deal with that?

The baseline answer to that, if you -- when we were answering that question in April and May and June of this year was we'll do new long-term PPAs. But those new long-term PPAs are not so great. So then the question is, do we instead take merchant exposure? That's a different approach than this company has historically taken. That would be a big change in strategy. It's not how we're currently built in and how we're currently planning to deal with it. But it is a real active question about what's the future in Germany. There are many offshore wind producers, not just us who are talking to the German government about how this current situation is not sustainable and has to be addressed. So I think you will hear from many other companies, similar things to what you're hearing from us.

Toby, I don't know if you want to add on to that?

Yes. I think exactly as Christine says, I mean, certainly, for the new build, so new opportunities, we see governments and regulators continuing to commit support to those future processes. In some areas, we've seen those auctions fail where they haven't offered sufficient support, and we understand that lots of those governments are reviewing and are likely to come back with a support mechanism so that they can continue the development and build-out of offshore wind in Europe. So we expect that to continue.

As Christine mentioned, there is a question coming over time as more and more assets get to the end of their support mechanism or tariff period, what's the right commercial framework to make sure that those projects and those electrons continue to be supplied to the grid. And I think that will develop over time.

The approach that we've taken, as you heard, is a prudent one. So we've looked at the risk we're holding. We've looked at the opportunities in the market, and we've chosen a very sensible and prudent process going forward. But as Christine and Jeff said, we'll continue to keep that under review, and we may change our position over time or not. We'll see how things develop.

We should add on to that, though, Toby, that for Hai Long, the contract term is 30 years. So we won't have that issue with Hai Long. And for Baltic Power, the contract term is 25. So also 25 years whereas compared to N1 where the contract term was 10. So these are quite different circumstances.

Okay. We have two more questions from online. The first one is for Christine and Jeff again. How is management's compensation aligned with shareholders?

Yes. So number one, I think it's about half of our compensation is delivered or driven by long-term incentive programs, which are ultimately driven by relative share price performance and value creation for our shareholders. As well, we have requirements for share ownership and the like. So all of that aligns the interest. And ultimately, we are aligned to create shareholder value, drive a sustainable shareholder return and value creation measure through share price and returning cash to shareholders. So it is through that long-term incentive program, we are incentivized to obviously align with shareholders, create long-term shareholder value and value creation.

Thank you, Jeff. The next question, I think, is for the group, but how long is the value enhancement project process and evaluation been going on? And how mature would you say the projects and the opportunities are?

So I can speak to that. We kicked off a global search, I would say, for value enhancement projects shortly after I joined. So I think I sent out the first request on that in April. We had a gathering of all of our senior leaders to come with their best ideas. I think we did that, was that in May? I want to say, that was in May. So we had everybody bring their best ideas then. We found actually the maturity was different. There were some parts of the organization that seem to have been waiting anxiously for somebody, anybody to ask about those things, and they came sort of with dossiers ready to roll, whereas there were other parts of the organization who were not really believing how serious the opportunity was.

So since then, teams have been working on each of the opportunities that we had, they were given time lines and tasks and they've been meeting regularly in order to advance those. And we've had a project leader appointed within the organization who's been working on basically getting them all to a similar level of evaluation so that we could high-grade amongst them and have the list that we talk about today. There are other projects that haven't made it on the list yet, but it doesn't mean that those projects won't happen. It just means that more work has to be done to understand them better, and it might be that they're not the right project right now, but in a couple of years, they could be a very good idea. So those are ongoing. But I would say that's an initiative that's been sort of bottom up and through this year.

Thank you, Christine. That's all the questions online. Anymore in the room?

Tatiana from Vancity Investment Management. Just, I guess, from a macro level, North America, the policy environment for renewables. I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts on that impacting the growth trajectory of the business? So we have down South, of course, the rollback of the IRA and the Trump administration generally not really supportive of renewables. And then in Canada, I know it's a bit hot off the press, but I think it was last week or the week before, the budget was released and the Carney government had some climate incentives. So any thoughts on how that might benefit the business, the tax incentives for clean energy?

And I have a second question unrelated to the first. I know you're bringing back on new gas -- natural gas assets and how is that going to impact the aspirations of the company to become net zero? Thanks and great presentation this morning. I appreciate it.

Okay. Thanks. So there's a couple of things in there. One is climate policy. So climate policy in the U.S., I'm going to decline to comment on that. For us, we don't have a very large U.S. presence, and we don't intend to build a bigger one. It's -- I think you need to be at scale in the United States to make it really successful and that's just not where we're focusing our attention. Within Canada, climate policy does matter. And of course, province to province, there are very different points of view on how the provinces are going to achieve their climate goals. We are in regular contact with government officials in all the provinces where we're seeking to do work and with the federal government. And we see that across the board, there is a strong commitment to maintaining a very green grid.

So the fact that we already have a green grid is no impediment to finding ways to bring on more renewables, more battery storage, you can see this push that a lot of people have related to offshore wind potentially in Nova Scotia sort of along the same lines as that. At the same time, there is a very big need for gas-fired power and there is a way to do that responsibly and well. I think in Northland, we exemplify that. We deliver natural gas-fired power responsibly and well. And it is back to the trilemma we've always struggled with where we want affordable, reliable, clean energy and natural gas has a really big role to play in that, especially in Canada with fourth largest natural gas resource under the ground and basically that abundant resource that is responsibly produced. So for us, we see an opportunity for natural gas in Canada.

We are approached by the way, very often about natural gas opportunities elsewhere in the world because of our history with natural gas. At this point, we are more focused on natural gas opportunities in Canada because we think they make a lot of sense in Canada and do fit with climate commitments. And in terms of our commitments as a company, the goal is to be net zero, which, it means there can still be emissions. There just have to be offsets for those activities. So that's very much on our mind as well as we're planning our future.

Okay. I think there's one last one that just came up online here. This one is for Jeff. What would the 2030 free cash flow per share look like without the negative impact from spending on growth projects beyond 2030?

Yes. And so I'll just kind of -- I'll stand back, right, because most of the -- if you look in aggregate, most of the spend that we have for that, if you look at percentages as in capital and wouldn't impact that. On average, on an absolute dollar term, I'm not going to -- I won't do the conversion in the -- of the share count. But we look to spend in development, which is separate at about $40 million a year, give or take. But the reality of it is, is that free cash flow measure that we have excludes development, excludes CapEx, it's the running assets. And so it really comes in when you look at the effect on the plan, it's really on the funding and the capital frame, not the free cash flow measure itself.

No more questions in the room? Okay. Well, thank you very much, everybody, for coming today and your interest in Northland. We really appreciate you taking the time, and I think that will conclude the day.

For the executive roundtable discussions, we're going to move it up to start at 12:30. So there'll be some lunch back in the room out here. You can grab your boxes, you can come to the table, your tables, if you like, and we'll catch up for those. That's only for equity analysts and equity investors that will be part of the roundtable discussions. Thank you very much.

Welcome to the Northland Power conference call to discuss the third quarter 2025 results. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded on Thursday, November 13, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern. Conducting this call for Northland Power are Christine Healy, President and CEO; Jeff Hart, Chief Financial Officer; and Adam Beaumont, Senior Vice President of Capital Markets.

Before we begin, Northland's management has asked me to remind listeners that all figures presented are in Canadian dollars, and to caution that certain information presented and responses to questions may contain forward-looking statements that include assumptions and are subject to various risks. Actual results may differ materially from management's expected or forecasted results. Please read the forward-looking statements section in yesterday's news release announcing Northland Power's results and be guided by its contents when making investment decisions or recommendations. The release is available at www.northlandpower.com. I will now turn the call over to Ms. Christine Healy.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I will begin with our business update, and then Jeff will provide more details on the financial results. Just a quick note that with our 2025 Investor Day coming up next week, today's remarks will focus on Q3 results and details behind the change to the dividend. We will share more detail on strategy and growth priorities on November 20, and we hope to see you there.

After our prepared remarks, we'll open the line for questions. So I'll start with health and safety because, as always, safety remains a core value and top priority at Northland. This quarter, Northland and our partners at the Oneida battery storage project received an Ontario Electrical Safety Award, recognizing the project's safety practices. With nearly 300,000 worker hours and 0 lost time incidents, Oneida has set a new standard for field safety on large-scale builds. We're very proud of that. And during my visit to site, I saw firsthand the team's strong commitment to safety and performance.

The executive team and I are looking forward to sharing our new strategy at Investor Day next week. We'll be presenting a plan that capitalizes on the growing demand for power globally and particularly in our core markets of Canada and Europe, and this is driven by electrification, energy security, data center and decarbonization trends. This demand for power, particularly in our core markets, offers a number of organic opportunities and value enhancement opportunities within our existing fleet. Northland's strong capability as a global power operator across multiple solutions allows the company to execute on this strategy.

I will add that as part of our new strategy, we have been assessing growth opportunities in our core markets. And we have line of sight to multiple value-accretive opportunities where Northland's capabilities can be deployed to deliver long-term value for shareholders.

To provide greater financial flexibility for self-funded growth and maintain an investment-grade balance sheet, the Board of Directors, including me, has decided to adjust Northland's dividend to $0.72 per share on an annual basis. We are committed to this sustainable dividend, and it remains an important component of our long-term value proposition. So I'm going to pause here because as you know from my previous comments and from my history, changing the dividend is not something I wanted to do. In my career, I have always resisted this. And I can tell you that I have resisted it here at Northland, too. But my goal and our goal at Northland is always to deliver best value for shareholders. And after much analysis and assessment, I'm convinced that this is the best way to do that.

Since arriving at Northland, I've had hundreds of meetings with investors, partners, suppliers, governments and competitors. I brought Jeff in and I tasked him with analyzing where we are with our current assets in our pipeline. And he and the teams have done a great job to give us a clear picture of what's happening. We've also completed our strategy deep dive and our planning cycle now for 2026 to 2030. I also stood up this task force, and we've been screening hundreds of opportunities, large and small, in Europe and in Canada, and they have found several value-accretive opportunities, and you're going to be hearing more about these in the coming weeks and months. These opportunities are better than any we've seen in the last 5 years, and indicate to me that having the flexibility to move on those opportunities is important. And so I contrast that against the backdrop that we've seen in 2025, which I would refer to as a year of volatility.

We saw historically low winds in the North Sea in more than the front half of the year. We saw a dramatic shift in sentiment in the United States related to renewables. We've seen a softening of corporate PPA activity in Europe, and we see, in many of our core markets, increasing divergence in electricity pricing forecasts. In parallel, we have 2 very large projects in construction. And while they remain on track, and our teams are delivering, in the words of Robert Frost, there are miles to go before we sleep.

So when I'm looking ahead at how are we going to deliver best value to shareholders over the 5- and 10-year horizon, we established some financial guardrails. We will maintain an investment-grade balance sheet. We will provide flexibility to deploy on value-accretive growth that is self-funding without reliance on equity markets, and we will maintain a sustainable dividend, all of which is achieved with this change. We believe this recalibration brings the payout ratio to a level that is prudent for a capital-intensive growth company. This plan does not rely on external common equity, and it enables us to fund a project pipeline that will generate highly attractive risk-adjusted returns. And I will reiterate that the dividend remains an important component of Northland's capital allocation framework.

Turning to our third quarter results, they were strong. Our global operations performed again to a high availability, over 95%, and the stronger wind in September led results to surpass last year in the same quarter. That good wind has carried into October, which we were happy to see.

Turning to our projects in construction. At Hai Long, our 1.1-gigawatt offshore wind project in Taiwan, over half of the wind turbines have now been installed. As you will note from the press release, though, pre-completion revenues have been lower than expected due to longer commissioning times for installed wind turbines and certain technical components of the onshore substation needing to be replaced. We expect this to be resolved, and it will enable us to remain on track. And so the overall message is that the project remains on track for full commercial operations in 2027.

In Poland, our 1.1-gigawatt Baltic Power Project installed both offshore substations, each weighing in over 2,500 tonnes and located about 20 kilometers offshore. These substations will collect energy from our 76 turbines and transfer it to the onshore grid. That project also remains on track, with full commercial operations expected in the back half of 2026.

Turning to development and growth. We continue to advance and refine our development pipeline, pursuing opportunities in our core markets of Canada and Europe that meet our investment criteria and deliver shareholder value. In Canada, we see opportunities across all our generation and storage technologies, leveraging our small -- our strong domestic platform and brand. In Europe, we're evaluating several renewable power and battery storage projects where we can apply our project execution and operational expertise.

In Scotland, the 1.4-gigawatt floating foundation project, Havbredey, has been deprioritized as part of our disciplined capital approach. At the same time, our 900-megawatt fixed bottom offshore wind project, Spiorad na Mara, has completed community consultation and is progressing toward consent submission with the government.

Global demand for reliable, affordable, sustainable power continues to rise, and Northland is well positioned to capitalize on this trend. I also reiterate that we have access to a growing number of opportunities, including what we call value enhancement projects that offer short cycle opportunities to deliver higher returns from our existing fleet. We see organic growth opportunities within our own pipeline and opportunities for acquisition of projects in mid- to late stage on attractive terms.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jeff for a detailed update on our financial results. Jeff?

All right. Thanks, Christine, and good morning, everyone. I'll take some time to discuss our third quarter results, which were positively impacted by strong wind resource in September. And as Christine mentioned earlier, our strong availability of over 95% allowed us to capture much of the benefit. The quarter also benefited from the Oneida battery facility operations commencing in May. Performance was partially -- that performance was partially offset by planned grid outage at DeBu and lower solar and wind resource at our operations in Spain. Northland generated adjusted EBITDA of $257 million, a 13% increase compared to the same quarter of 2024, which was mainly a result of higher production at our 3 offshore wind assets and an outage last year at Gemini, and the additional contributions from Oneida, which came on earlier this year.

During the third quarter, we generated free cash flow of $45 million, which was approximately 130% higher than the same quarter last year. And on a per share basis, free cash flow in the third quarter of this year was $0.17 compared to $0.08 in the third quarter of '24. The increase to free cash flow was primarily related to the higher adjusted EBITDA that I mentioned earlier.

And the net loss for the quarter was $456 million compared to a net loss of $191 million in '24, and this is primarily due to a $527 million noncash impairment that was recognized for the Nordsee One offshore wind facility, resulting from the transition from the initial subsidy pricing regime to market pricing by May 2027. We have also updated our long-term production forecast and anticipate an increase in operating and maintenance costs.

Turning to our investment program at the Hai Long and Baltic Power projects. As of the end of the third quarter of 2025, we have spent approximately $12 billion to date, with remaining expected gross capital expenditures for the 2 projects to be $5 billion. At Hai Long, we've started to see the first revenues post first power, although lower than we expected, as Christine mentioned, impacting the pre-completion revenues by approximately $150 million to $200 million Northland share.

Overall, the project is continuing on track and on budget. At Baltic Power, we continue to advance to first power in '26 when grid connection is planned.

Our financial guidance for '25 is unchanged with adjusted EBITDA expected to be in the range of $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion, and free cash flow is projected to be between $1.15 and $1.35 per share.

Now turning to the balance sheet and updated capital allocation plan. As Christine mentioned, the announcement of the decision to recalibrate the dividend was not easy, but provides the company a sustainable financial framework and provides funds to make accretive investments, which are underpinned by the cash flows of our business and an investment-grade balance sheet. Our plan is expected to be self-funded with no reliance on common equity issuances. I'll be happy to share further details with you and lay it out at Investor Day next week.

I'll hand it back to Christine to conclude the call.

Thank you, Jeff. I'm also looking forward to our Investor Day next week, and we will then be providing deeper insight into our focus areas, the progress we're making across the business and our growth plans. That concludes our prepared remarks. So I'll turn the call over to the operator. Operator, please open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Baltej Sidhu of National Bank of Canada.

Could you shed some color on the magnitude of the impairment at Nordsee One? And what are the factors that led to the recalibration of the write-down? Was prior market expectation of the market price is elevated? And how are conversations evolving with respect to recontracting opportunities?

Yes. No, thanks, and it's Jeff here. Yes, the impairment was primarily related to the pricing that we've gone out, and I'll remind you, we're stepping down from the initial contract period from EUR 194 per megawatt hour. And ultimately, there's a phase step down to EUR 154 per megawatt hour. And then ultimately, we go to market pricing in 2027. Now we've been out in the market on the PPAs. And I would expect something in the weeks and actually days. We're fairly close. And so we really, with those benchmarking, as Christine alluded to in the script, the PPA markets, and so we've triangulated, I'll say, broadly, I'd say, into a market price in and around the PPAs of of EUR 60 to EUR 70 per megawatt hour. And so really, it's a reflection of that step down and this is the only asset we have in the 5 years in the offshore that's stepping down.

Okay. And then just as a follow-up to that and then just appreciating the last comment that you made on the 5 years for the assets that are stepping down. When we're looking at Deutsche Bucht, which is still recontracted out until, I believe, the early 2030s, are there similar assumptions that were made prior given the pricing dilemma dynamic and curtailments that are evident as well?

No, I think, what you alluded to curtailments in the German market. And I think year-to-date, we've probably seen a 7.5% negative price curtailment. I think our long-term assumptions aren't really far off of that, plus or minus 0.5% to 1% on it. We've really focused on where we have contract renewals coming here in the first 5 years. And that's where we look at the PPA market, isn't really, I'd say, a longer-term market. It would be more into the 5-year frame. And that's really what's setting it and impacting N1.

And our next question comes from Sean Steuart of TD Cowen.

Christine, on the rationale for the dividend cut, you touched on a few points. I guess a part of it here is freeing up more capital to feed an expanding investment opportunity set and the risk of front-running the Investor Day next week. Can you give a perspective -- on the 8.5 gigawatt pipeline, beyond the under construction stuff, any perspective over the next 5 years, how much of that might be advanced? And I ask only because it seems like there was a line of sight on this payout ratio coming down as Hai Long and Baltic Power reach commercial operation. Just trying to gauge how much of that growth opportunity set you might expect to come into the midterm development pipeline? And how much of this is just aligning the payout ratio with industry norms?

Thanks for the question, Sean. And I do want to make sure that you come to Investor Day, so I don't want to give too much of it right now. But I think it's -- part of it is that we have, I would say, a couple of types of projects. First of all, I alluded to the fact that we've been looking externally at what other people have and what projects are for sale in the market, and there's a real opportunity set there that did not exist even a year ago, but certainly not a couple of years ago. And from a pricing perspective, very attractive if you can by now. So that's interesting to us. And if we can high grade through that, we like to. We also have a set of initiatives that we've been working on through our existing fleet that we call it value enhancement initiatives, and these are things that we would do that are near term, short cycle and that deliver a demonstrable rate of return in the existing fleet, and it's just getting more out of what we already have.

And so some of those projects require capital, and we've been doing a lot of work to understand the capital those projects require. But this is -- from my perspective, it's value lying on the ground, and we would be foolish not to take it. So we wanted to find a way that we could invest in those projects and ensure that we have -- still we keep the balance sheet flexibility given the projects that we have still in construction. So the idea that we would pass up on all of these opportunities or push them well out into the future, when we modeled it, it was just a poor use of funds than investing in them sooner.

Okay. Understood. I guess, we'll get more detail next week. Jeff, can you give any perspective on, I guess, discussions with the rating agencies, and appreciating the investment grade is paramount to what you guys are focused on. Do those discussions have any bearing on the dividend decision?

Yes. So thanks for the question. We're obviously in constant communication with our rating agencies, and have open dialogue with them. I'll kind of go back to what Christine said and reiterate. For us, it's making sure and reinforcing, from our perspective, the best use of resources on a risk-adjusted basis. And so for us, an investment-grade balance sheet is important, I think, ultimately, to ensure funding through cycles, number one. And then number two is with the opportunity slate in front of us, rebalancing to capture those in a growing market is really the drive here. And so it's all of it together. And it's really from our perspective of reinforcing the investment-grade balance sheet and ensuring funding certainty there. And then I think capturing the market opportunities is really the main driver of that, and we felt this is the best use of shareholder resources.

I guess I'll add on to that, Jeff, to say that this was very much a Northland decision, and it was driven by an enormous amount of work that's been done, and we looked at many different options of how we could deliver best value for shareholders. So it was -- that was the driver for this decision, full stop.

And our next question comes from Robert Hope of Scotiabank.

Can you add a little bit more color on the specific issue driving the delayed pre-completion revenue on the onshore substation, and when you expect it to be rectified? And if you have any recourse through insurance or warranty with the manufacturer on both the cost and lost revenues?

Sure. Thanks very much for the question. I love the technical and detailed questions. It's -- so basically, with the onshore substation, when we were installing some cabling, we were doing normal course testing, and we were dissatisfied with some of -- we were seeing some -- we were dissatisfied with the results of some of the tests. And when we investigated further, we saw that there was a bushing that we felt could create problems for us over the long term. So it was functioning effectively, but it created a risk for long-term reliability. So we, in fact, insisted that, that get changed out. So the supplier for that component is a subcontractor to one of our suppliers. And so we don't have a direct contractual relationship with them, but we've been working with them to make sure we're satisfied with the replacement.

So in order to do that replacement work, though, we have to shut down the onshore substation for 20 days-ish. I think. I can't remember the exact number, so don't quote me on that. But we have to turn off the -- turn down the -- turn off the onshore substation in order to complete that. But then we can be assured that the solution is there for the long haul. So I think it's the right thing to do.

The question of insurance and the rest, I think that it would be more a question for our supplier because this is part of what our supplier has to deliver for us.

I appreciate that. And then maybe just 1 more follow-up question there. Just given the long lead times on some equipment items, when would you expect the 20-day outage to occur? And just given its onshore, I guess you don't have to wait for any weather windows and that can be done at any time?

Yes. No weather windows, and that's going to be done before the end of the year. And we already have all of the components. We have those in our [ top little hand ] at our warehouse as we speak.

Okay. So is the impact then in -- just in 2025 then?

So we have -- there's 2 things going on at Hai Long, so we have this issue at the onshore substation. The commissioning of the turbines that both Jeff and I referred to, that is an issue that is continuing into 2026. And in fact, we see the financial results of that in 2026 instead of in 2025. But basically, this is a situation, again, managed within the perimeter of our supplier for the turbines. They have an obligation to deliver turbines to us that have been installed and commissioned. And in fact, they've passed a reliability test, and they've been running for a number of days before we accept them in the handover. So the planning for that commissioning was based on typical North Sea performance, which would be they would typically commission 2 to 3 a week. But I think in the Taiwan Straight, the weather conditions have been more challenging and it has been slower than anticipated. So the -- our supplier has, I think, a robust plan in order to improve on that. But right now, we are in the poor weather time. So they will be delivering on that in 2026. And hopefully, they will be able to start delivering the commissioning pace that we expect to see. So -- but right now, we've seen disappointing performance on the commissioning. And so they are not where they were meant to be at this point in time. Again, it's fully within their contract. So it doesn't have an impact for us on the budget. And we have enough float still in the schedule that it does still fit within our schedule, but it does affect on pre-completion revenues, and pre-completion revenues were part of our funding model for the project, and we're still working through that.

And our next question comes from Nelson Ng of RBC Capital Markets.

I had a quick follow-up question on the Hai Long commissioning of the turbine. So I think you mentioned that -- Christine, you mentioned over half of the turbines are now installed, and I believe you stopped installing turbines like early October or late September. So how many of the installed turbines are currently commissioned roughly?

So thanks for the question, Nelson. I'm the -- what I -- fully commissioned right now the challenge that we're having is that they have to do what we call a soak test, and so they have to run continually over a period of time with no alarms. And so quite a few of them have started the test and then alarms go off, and this is again a difference with the weather impact. Because in the North Sea, if you have those alarms, it's pretty quick, you can go out, you can check it, you can remedy it. And typically, it's not anything wrong with the turbine, it's often something wrong with the sensor. So that gets calibrated, that gets fixed. It's a really quick turnaround.

Right now because the weather conditions have been very tough, getting out to check those alarms has been quite difficult. So in terms of maybe the better answer, we have -- so 14 of them have been commissioned, but they continue -- but they've continued to have alarms. So in terms of energized, right now, we have only 2 that are energized.

I would -- energized is probably for me, that's the most important one. Those are the ones that are generating revenues. So right now, we have 2 that are energized and producing revenues.

Okay. So 30-something installed, 4 commissioned, but 2 feeding power to the grid. Is that the right way of thinking about it?

We have 14 that are commissioned, but they're under warranty as well. So just because they're commissions doesn't mean that the supplier is off the hook with them. So right now, of the 14 commissioned, 2 of them are energized and functioning the way that we expect them to.

Okay. But over half of the turbines are installed, so that's like 30-something turbines installed?

Yes, 37 turbines installed. So the installation went very well, and this is, I would say, a learning for our supplier about commissioning activities. So they have a good recovery plan. So I just want to be clear about that. They have a very strong recovery plan. They've got their A team on this. They will do a good job of this, but we probably won't see a huge amount of progress until the weather window opens up again in the new year.

Okay. And then I know in the past, you talked about the winter. Obviously, the weather isn't great, but you have the option to work during the winter, right? So is that supplier pretty much like if they see a window of opportunity during the winter, they would go and try to commission more or energize more projects? Is that what you're referring to in terms of the plan to...

So yes, they have a team in country, and they are available to go when the weather window opens. So whether it's open for a day or 10 days, then they -- and they can do that in short bursts of time. But the reality is that the weather has been pretty harsh the last couple of weeks, and there's only been 1 day in the last, I think, I want to say maybe as much as 3 weeks now, but there's only been 1 day that they've been able to get out there.

Okay. And then just overall, I think in terms of the guidance, you guys talked about how the pre-completion revenues might be $150 million to $200 million lower than expected next year. Can you just talk about what the new assumption is? I think in the financing plan, roughly 1 -- there was an estimate of, I think, roughly $1 billion of pre-completion revenues.

Yes, that's right, Nelson. So where we're at is, you're right, it's [ CAD 1 billion ] at a 100%. And the reason we're talking about the impact into 2026 is the any PCRs we would generate this year would actually be collected in the cash generated next year in conjunction with effectively Q1 and Q2 PCRs as well. And so that's why we're talking about the 2026. And the $150 million to $200 million is our share, and that's 31%. So you can kind of back into the range there on a gross basis.

Okay. So I guess, less than half of like so...

Yes. Anywhere from half to 60% impact, give or take on the current expectation. And as Christine said is this, obviously, the supplier weather windows and to see how we could potentially close the gap in other alternatives, right? But that's effectively the good way to think about it.

And as a result then there will just be a larger draw on the non-recourse debt or...

Well, we're evaluating what we could do. Number 1 is the recovery plan and then looking at what we can do on the project side of it as well. And then obviously, we've got the financial capability to manage it as well. So we're looking at all the different avenues there and monitoring the technical situation. So we'll obviously keep everyone abreast as that's updated.

Okay. And then switching gears a bit. In terms of the dividend, so the decision -- like in terms of the sizing of the dividend cut, so is the main target to internally fund all equity requirements going forward for the next 5 years, is that how the dividend was sized?

Yes. So it's Jeff here. Absolutely. I think our view, and I think I've reiterated this is, I believe, in self-funding model. And I think it's an effective way to execute the plan and create what we view as a solid accretion and shareholder value. So that is the intent is self-funded plan, and that's what we intend on delivering.

And our next question comes from Mark Jarvi of CIBC.

So Jeff, you talked about maybe compensation on the pre-completions contingencies in the project funding. How would you handicap the likelihood that Northland would have to put some incremental capital into Hai Long at this point?

Look, I'm not going to get into hypotheticals and percentages. What I will say is I will always make sure -- as a CFO, you need to make sure that you've got the liquidity and capital resources and the funding strategy to manage contingencies like this. And so we have the capability to manage it corporately. We'll continue to progress it. But I always have to manage on the view that I need and have to have the liquidity to manage that, but we're looking at avenues within, Number 1, on the technical recovery plan; Number 2 and other things we can do at the project level. But I'm not going to give percentages on that right now, but I have to make sure we've got the resources to handle it.

Well, I'll just add to that, Mark, that this is back to the whole idea of we have to be prudent. These are large projects and they're being delivered very, very well, and we stand head and shoulders above many others who have -- who are delivering similar projects. But there are bumps in the road in every project I've ever been involved in, in my career. So that's why we have to be ready to adjust to that when they come.

And maybe I can -- I'll reword it this ways. I -- from my perspective is we'll look to mitigate and manage impacts and look at the best alternative, but I also have to make sure that I can manage it as if there is an injection required.

Got it. So like this as a component of the dividend cut would be sort of a minor element kind of the messaging?

Yes. I mean, I'll go back to what Christine and I reiterated is this, number one, it's rebalancing, I think the payout to a capital-intensive industry, and we also see lots of opportunity, both organic and inorganic in the markets we're focusing on. And so it's really to capture that opportunity, rebalance to, I'd say, a sustainable financial framework that allows us to capture those opportunities. And then ultimately, with that, it's the virtuous circle that gives you a balance of protection and resources to handle contingencies as well.

And then just going back in terms of the timing announcement, we can debate about when it should happen. But it sounds like you're trying to position this that do you have a use of capital for new growth that's showing up on short-cycle projects and other opportunities. Any consideration was put into whether or not you should have announced this concurrent with new investments? And how close are you on things like those short-cycle needs or potentially acquiring advanced stage projects?

Mark, we had a lot of debate about that. And I can tell you, there's no right time because I can honestly say that if we waited to Investor Day, then I would have expected somebody would have asked me the question then of why didn't you tell us this a week ago when you had your quarter closed because -- so they -- I think, we're being transparent. We -- there's never a good time for this. So we decided to to disclose the decision when the decision was made and the decision was literally just made. So we've -- we want to make sure that we're transparent about that. But I think you should not be surprised to hear some new announcements in coming days.

Okay. And then last one, just, Jeff, in terms of the IG rating, is there a view that you'll use a little bit more on balance sheet debt going forward versus how much nonrecourse debt you used? And is that sort of factored in, in the decision on the dividend level?

No. Look, I think obviously, we'll get more color on it at Investor Day here on details on overall funding. But I would still expect the majority of our, I'll say, leverage or debt funding to be in the project finance realm. Clearly, the corporate balance sheet is an option for different opportunities, but that balance won't materially change. It's just to reiterate the point is the execution, the opportunity in front of us go forward and setting up the guardrails and framework that were sustainable through cycles.

And our next question comes from Benjamin Pham of BMO.

I just want to go back to the dividend side because obviously market is quite perturbed today with the messaging and more to come next week on some of the rationale. But I'm curious when you think about the payout ratio, it's 60% this year on your guide. And it's reason to, I think, it's going to come down to through 2027. What do you think is the appropriate payout ratio for you? Because the way we were thinking about is you're generating $200 million of incremental free cash flow based on your guidance. And you can lever that up that and you can still sell fund growth under that alternative, so love your comments on the payout?

Yes. No. And thanks for the question. And ultimately, we'll provide color on the funding and correspondingly read through to payout at Investor Day and to provide that color. And I'll reiterate back, this is to give a financial framework and foundation that we feel is balanced through the cycle and has guardrails, but we'll provide more color on that next week then.

Okay. Got it. And I'm also -- I mean, 40% seems to be a magic number for a lot of folks that have cut dividends in the past. I mean, when you did your analysis, can you talk about the other alternatives you were looking at, I think, you mentioned that earlier? And then how do you kind of think about just -- there's a lot of history, too, from companies that cut dividends and same thing. There's more growth coming. And it just doesn't seem the public markets really care for a few years. Can you just talk about that as you think about your -- I guess, your own patience with this? And how do you maybe differ from those case studies because there's been a lot out there?

Look, and we -- I'm not going to -- and Christine will obviously add on to this. We looked at several different scenarios, looked at the best options that we felt an aggregate, balancing growth, cash returns to shareholders and felt the plan that we'll be putting forward in balance and coming to this is the best value creation and value proposition on balance. And really, for me, it's about being disciplined through this is we need to be -- have keep strength on the balance sheet. We need to have a sustainable payout ratio and then ultimately be able to capture opportunities in a growing demand market and be disciplined on returns. We won't chase returns down and all of that kind of goes together. We looked at a bunch of different modeling and analysis on this. And feel we've landed in the best path forward for the company.

So Ben, I do want to take the opportunity to add on to that because I can tell you that all those things that you say are very much on my mind is we've been having this big internal review and assessment of what the best thing to do in this circumstance is. And frankly, there are easier things that we could do, but they would not have been as value accretive to shareholders. So fundamentally, then I had to take a very hard look into the abyss and say, what is the right thing to do here? And fundamentally, I believe that this company is very, very good at building and operating projects. And the world has a huge demand for what it is that we do. And the idea that we would hunker down and not grow for a big chunk of time doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And in fact, when you model it out on the numbers, it doesn't make sense on the numbers either. And then when you look at the different ways you could fund that growth, the most value accretive way for shareholders is to do it the way that we're doing it.

So there's no question that we take the pain now. And I am a shareholder, too. And I got to tell you, I'm a shareholder who really likes dividends. So I can say that I am definitely in the camp right there with people who are unhappy about that. But I have to say again, what are we trying to do here, and we're trying to build long-term value for shareholders. And that's what this plan does. So I will be talking more about that at Investor Day. But I can say hand on heart that if there was a better way to do it, I was definitely looking for it.

Yes. No, absolutely. And it seems like the old school model of high payout and issuing equity, that's kind of old days and high growth companies like yourself should have a lower payout ratio from a long-term perspective. So I could appreciate that. Maybe just 1 quick 1 for me. I get the PCR situation at Hai Long and the technical issues, and you got to manage that. That does prove that these are large projects that can go sideways. But is there a scenario there where you're thinking about that there could be even more impact from this technical issue where you have to actually repair the station, there's more CapEx, there's delays, like there's -- is that a scenario that you -- that could be in the realm of the possibility?

So Ben, this particular issue that we're having with the onshore substation is completely contained. And in fact, it gives me more confidence in the project team that they spotted this and we're able to respond to it so effectively and so quickly. So in fact, I view it as a very positive thing because it was only -- it was through very, very good work at the onshore substation and very good inspection work from our teams that we found the issue. So I don't see it as indicative of a bigger problem. I think it's a very discrete problem related to a very small bushing. And so it has been addressed and remedied and no indication of any kind of larger problem there at all. In fact, I think it was well contained and well managed.

I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn it back to Christine Healy for closing remarks.

I just want to say thank you to everyone for your great questions and your engagement in joining us today. And hopefully, we will see you at Investor Day. Thanks very much.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.

Welcome to the Northland Power conference call to discuss the second quarter 2025 results. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded on Thursday, August 14, 2025, 10 a.m. Eastern, conducting this call for Northland Power are Christine Healy, President and CEO; Jeff Hart, Chief Financial Officer; and Adam Beaumont, Senior Vice President of Capital Markets.

Before we begin, Northland's management has asked me to remind listeners that all figures presented are in Canadian dollars and to caution that certain information presented and responses to questions may contain forward-looking statements that include assumptions and are subject to various risks. Actual results may differ materially from management's expected or forecasted results. Please read the forward-looking statements section in yesterday's news release announcing Northland Power's results and be guided by its contents when making investment decisions or recommendations. The release is available at www.northlandpower.com.

I will now turn the call over to Ms. Christine Healy.

Thanks, Didi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'll begin with a business update that will include some key construction milestones and development progress. I'm going to turn it over to Jeff to walk us through then our financial results. Following our remarks, we'll open the line for questions. So I'll start with a moment on health and safety, which, as you know, is of the highest importance at Northland.

And I've been doing site visits at our locations around the world where I continue to observe firsthand our team's strong safety commitment, and that's across all of our project sites and our operating facilities. But I did want to take a moment to tell you about something a little bit special that happened recently when our utility EBSA hosted the 16th annual Colombian Electrical Rodeo.

So the Electrical Rodeo is an initiative that was started by EBSA in Colombia, where multiple companies come together and line worker teams compete at the national level. So this initiative showcases and rewards safe work practices in the field and elevates those safe practices to make sure that we're sharing the information across the industry. I'm pleased to advise that not only did we host this year's event, but we also took first place.

So EPSA showcased the company's technical excellence and strong safety culture. So we're very proud of the work that the team has done there. So to start the quarter, a quick update on construction. I know it's top of mind for many of you, but the first of our 3 major construction projects was completed ahead of schedule and under budget.

The 250-megawatt Oneida battery storage project in Ontario became Canada's largest operating storage facility and 1 of the largest in the world. I'm pleased to say Oneida has performed well in its first month. It's delivered capacity and capturing market revenue upside as a first mover in the grid. The grid operator has placed Oneida's rapid response during recent high demand periods. For any of you who are living in the Toronto area.

You know we've had some quite high weather -- quite hot weather and heat waves and Oneida was pressed into service and responded very well. So during those high-demand periods, Oneida reinforced grid reliability and I think was certainly a benefit in the system.

So learnings from Oneida now are being applied on our 80-megawatt Jurassic battery storage project in Alberta. That project secured financing and began construction with the installation of the foundations for the battery pack and we are preparing for key electrical equipment deliveries in the coming months. That project, Jurassic, is expected to be completed by the second half of 2026.

So I will turn then to our other 2 major construction projects, Hai Long and Baltic Power. And it's worth reminding you that together, these projects will add 2.1 gigawatts of gross capacity and they will expand our offshore wind portfolio to 5 projects. More importantly, we'll diversify our exposure beyond the North Sea for wind conditions.

So let's start with Hai Long. In the quarter, Hai Long which is our 1 gigawatt offshore wind project in Taiwan, that project achieved first power. This is a major milestone because it confirms successful grid connection and turbine commissioning -- we also completed installation of all of the pin piles. This is a very important step in terms of derisking our interface with the seabed and derisking the rest of the construction process.

So the completed installation of those pin piles is an important milestone for the project as well. In addition, the team has worked hard to install 72 out of 73 jacket foundations as of today and the last jacket foundation should be installed in the coming days. So overall, Hai Long remains on track for full commercial operations by 2027. So then we turn then to Baltic Power, our 1.1 gigawatt project in Poland, in the quarter, Baltic Power installed its first turbine, and that's an important milestone in the construction progress.

You will recall that first power on that project will follow grid interconnection, which is expected in 2026, and that's in line with our construction schedule. Offshore construction progress has included installation of both offshore substation main foundations, mechanical completion of the topside structure with electrical outfitting underway, and installation of 38 monopile foundations and 2 substation monopiles in the water.

So overall, Baltic Power remains on track for full commercial operations in the second half of 2026. In addition to our construction program, we're advancing our development pipeline, we continue to identify and pursue new opportunities in our core markets of Canada and Europe aligning with our investment criteria and projects that offer strong value creation for shareholders.

So I'll say a few notes on that because we're focusing more time and attention on our home market of Canada lately, where we do see some near-term opportunities to leverage our existing platform and our strong domestic brand, and we see those opportunities in storage, onshore renewables and gas power generation.

During the quarter, we've advanced several development projects in Canada. As an example, we are actively evaluating opportunities for Ontario's LT2 process and these are opportunities within our gas power generation and onshore renewables groups, and we see our ability to deploy multi-technologies brings a strong capability to the process because we can adapt to what the system operator is looking for. As part of our continuous process and focus on projects with best risk-adjusted returns, we've been looking at those Ontario opportunities, and we've decided to high-grade those opportunities and focus on the projects we see having the highest probability of success, and we'll continue to monitor the procurement details to make sure that we're targeting the right risk/reward balance.

Some of the projects that are being deprioritized for LT2 will still remain in the pipeline because they can be contenders in future years. We're also sharpening our focus in Europe, where we see positive momentum around grid build-outs and industrial resilience, and that creates opportunities for Northland. As an example, we're looking at several onshore power and battery storage opportunities in Europe, and we see that base here for Northland to deploy our strong project execution and operational expertise and drive value for shareholders.

So we've also been working on our international project pipeline and assessing where and when we want to allocate capital. In offshore wind, a permit came due in 1 of our South Korean projects and having looked very carefully at that opportunity, we chose not to renew the permit. Given the evolving regulatory framework and the uncertainty around development terms in that jurisdiction, we decided this was the right step for Northland. So this decision, I think, is a positive example of our efforts to focus our development work on our markets that we know and understand where we have lower early-stage risk. So we do see that there are ample opportunities, and we're evaluating opportunities in high-potential regions of Europe, particularly Central Europe, where we see positive policy support for offshore wind and financial structures that support the way Northland does business.

So that's just an example of the type of strategic decision we're taking to ensure we're focused on the right opportunities the ones that will deliver long-term value to shareholders. And I look forward to sharing more with you about that later this year at our Investor Day.

Before I turn it over to Jeff to walk through the financials, I did want to provide a brief overview of our second quarter performance. As you've seen, low offshore wind resources in the North Sea persisted into the second quarter and have continued the trend from Q1. We view this as natural variability especially when you compare it to the record high output we had in some of our assets in 2024. So unfortunately, our offshore assets in the North Sea have had the lowest wind half year since we started production 10 years ago.

Our global operations, however, remains strong. And as I talked to you last quarter, the thing for me that I always ask the teams to focus on is the things within our control. We had solid performance in terms of reliability and we had excellent performance in our onshore natural gas business. You can see overall fleet availability exceeded 95% in the quarter.

Our wind park availability improved in Q2, and that's a testament to the effectiveness of our asset management teams and our proactive asset management strategy. Our teams are continuing to implement predictive maintenance approaches, and we apply learnings from past events to reduce our downtime, maintaining our assets in optimal condition positions us well to capitalize when favorable wind conditions occur.

So as a final note, I'll say our global offshore wind diversification strategy is advancing. And one of the things we talked about last quarter, and we'll repeat again that when Baltic Power and Hai Long come online soon. This will change the profile of the wind resource for the company. So expanding into the Baltic Sea and the Taiwan Strait balances our production profile across geographies.

So 2025 continues to be a year of key milestones for Northland and our long-term value proposition is strong. Our dedicated teams are bringing deep expertise across the full project life cycle from origination through development, construction and operations.

Strong market fundamentals throughout highlight that the global demand for sustainable, affordable secure power continues to rise, and Northland is well positioned to capture this momentum.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jeff for a detailed update on the financial results.

Thanks, Christine, and good morning, everyone. This quarter, we achieved a number of key construction milestones continued to maintain strong operations with commercial availability of 95% and completed planned maintenance outages.

Looking at our second quarter results, Northland generated adjusted EBITDA of $245 million a 9% decrease compared to the same quarter of 2024. This was predominantly due to the low offshore wind resource and higher unpaid curtailments related to negative prices at our German offshore wind facilities. The low offshore wind resource was partly offset by the contribution from the Oneida battery facility, which achieved commercial operations this quarter and good wind conditions across our North American onshore wind fleet.

During the second quarter, we generated free cash flow of $58 million, which was approximately 15% lower than the same quarter last year. And on a per share basis, free cash flow in the second quarter of this year was $0.22 compared to $0.27 in the second quarter of '24. The decrease of free cash flow was primarily related to the lower adjusted EBITDA that I mentioned earlier.

That was offset by a decrease in income taxes due to that lower EBITDA and a onetime tax benefit following the German Federal Fiscal Court recently released ruling for offshore wind farms. The net loss for the quarter was $53 million compared to a net income of $246 million in 2024 and this is primarily due to the lower operating income and noncash mark-to-market losses on foreign currency hedges. And turning to our investment program at Hai Long and Baltic Power. As of the end of the second quarter of '25, we spent $9 billion to date with remaining gross capital expenditures for the 2 projects expected to be $6 billion. And at Hai Long we have started to see the first pre-completion revenues and at Baltic, we continue to advance the first power in 2026 when grid connection is planned.

Now I'll turn to our updated guidance, which is primarily a result of lower offshore wind resource year-to-date and DeBu having a schedule -- a grid outage in the third quarter. We have adjusted our full year forecast for adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion compared to the previous guidance of $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion.

We also revised free cash flow, which is now projected to be between $1.15 and $1.35 per share, and that compares to $1.30 to $1.50 per share in previous guidance.

And I'll hand it back to Christine to conclude the call.

Thanks, Jeff. I'm excited about Northland's future. The progress on the projects is very strong. The operational performance is very strong. We have a good set of assets, and we're delivering within those assets. I will zoom out for a moment and say, we're at a unique moment in time where we see many governments around the world poised to make investments with respect to focus areas of grid security, reliability, interconnection received financial institutions committed to this process.

And with that strong drive from industry and government. We just see that there's a great set of conditions to invest in and deliver clean, reliable, affordable secure energy.

Before we turn to the Q&A, I can announce that our 2025 Investor Day event will be on Thursday, November 20, here in Toronto, Ontario. More details will follow. I hope you join us there. Our team looks forward to connecting with you at the event and sharing more about our future plans.

So this concludes our prepared remarks. So I'll turn it over to the operator. And operator, if you can open the line for questions, that would be great.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Sean Steuart of TD Cowen.

Christine, you referenced some of the turnover in the prospective growth pipeline, and you gave details on Korea. On the onshore renewables and storage piece of it, that dropped by 1 gigawatt versus what was shown at the end of Q1. And I guess some of that is Ontario projects. Can you give a little bit more detail on what was dropped off that growth pipeline list?

Sure. Thanks for the question, Sean. So for onshore, there's sort of a mixed bag of things. Yes, there's a couple of opportunities we have been looking at in Ontario, but now that we understand the terms for the procurement by the ISO -- we're not so convinced that those are the right sites that are going to bring to -- that if we were to bid them, I don't think they'd be bringing value to the process.

So we've just decided to high-grade on those and not spend more money chasing those right now. It's not to say those ideas go away, but they weren't the right idea for this time. So we've taken them out of the pipeline because we're not actively pursuing them at this point. And there was a -- we similarly had a couple of -- one opportunity in Alberta that we decided that now with the new information we have on the Ram in Alberta, that opportunity is not going to be as good as we had hoped. And again, it's just getting the teams to refocus on the things that we think are going to drive the most value. And then we also have one opportunity in New York State that just given some of the changing conditions in New York right now, we've decided that that's not something that we're interested in continuing to pursue.

Okay, question for Jeff. The Q2 free cash flow included about $16 million in a maintenance reserve positive this quarter. Should we think of that as a one-off? how does that variability for that line item trend through the second half of the year?

Yes. No, I think that's a fair way to look at it is it's more of a one-off and not something structural. And for us, it's just optimizing and utilizing our resources or our financial resources efficiently. So there's nothing to read through there, and I wouldn't we continue to be forecasting that.

And our next question comes from Nelson Ng of RBC Capital Markets.

My first question just relates to the curtailment in Germany. Can you just talk a bit about what you expect over the next few years in terms of curtailments? Like should does it get worse before it gets better? I know -- I think this particular quarter, there was a lot of solar on the grid and there was a lot of negative pricing, but can you just provide a bit of color on what you're expecting.

Nelson, thanks very much for the question. And I would say right now, we're actually doing a bit of a deep dive on exactly that question ourselves to understand where we think it's going. We've been having a number of meetings in Germany, both with other companies who are in our sector and feeding into the grid, but also with some officials as well as understand what's happening there.

Overall, we do see that there's sort of variability, and we expect that there's going to be variability in that we make -- when we budget, we budget for a certain amount of curtailment that's going to happen within the system. I think, so right now, everything is sort of sitting within that band from our perspective. There's nothing unexpected -- but I guess, do we see that, that's changing as we have new entrants coming on to the grid. Right now, I would say no. I don't see a big shift, but we're keeping a watch on it because it's important to understand our markets that we're feeding into.

Okay. And then just a follow-up on -- more specifically, like when I look at Nordson, I think about 19% of the production was curtailed in the first half of this year compared to, I think, 9% for DeutscheBu. So I think those 2 facilities are pretty close together. Can you just provide a bit of color as to why one is being impacted more than the other?

So Nelson, I'm going to have to admit that I don't have a reason for why they're dramatically different from each other, but I will certainly ask the teams how about that.

That sounds great. And then just sticking with...

And we'll come back to you on that 1 as well.

Sure thing. Yes. And then just sticking to Germany, the German trade tax refund of about $31 million. Can you just provide a bit more color there? Is that like a onetime item, whether you expect to see any more going forward?

Yes, certainly. Yes, it is absolutely -- and thanks for the question. It is onetime. And the way to broadly think about it is the reality of the kind of differences in provincial rates in the allocation. And so ultimately, there was a ruling on how our income -- or how income and offshore wind would be attributed. And that ruling actually resulted in income from the offshore wind being attributed to a lower effective tax rate. And so this is really to reflect that benefit historically. We were paying a higher tax rate. And with that ruling, we've reassessed and actually pushed the effective rate down. And so it's a onetime kind of cleanup for the history there. So kind of viewed the differences between provincial rates to lock a better tone.

It's like a onetime true-up for past.

100%, 100%. Okay. 100%.

And then just 1 last question, Christine, you provided you provided good color on progress at Hai Long and Baltic. But can you just give an update on how many turbines have been installed for each project to date?

Yes. So at Hai Long, we've got 20 turbines installed. And I think I mentioned in my comments, 72 out of 73 jackets with hopefully the last 1 in the coming days. And then at Baltic, you'll recall, we have a monopile foundation. So we've got 40 monopiles out of 76 installed and 5 turbines.

And our next question comes from Mark Jarvi of CIBC.

Christine, you mentioned exploring some opportunities in Europe batteries, onshore renewables and that showed up in the development -- prospective development pipeline. Can you share any more details in terms of where you're looking? Is that solely a Northland effort? Is it a partnership? How far off are these opportunities?

So Mark, I'm not going to offer more color on that right now. But hopefully, by Investor Day, I'll be able to shape that out a bit more just because we're in active conversation about some of these opportunities. And so -- but we do see in the markets where we already are in Europe, we see some opportunities around storage and around generation. So then which of these are going to make it to the front of the queue and on which time line. is a bit of an internal debate right now because we want to make sure that we're putting the highest value projects first. And in parallel with that, you'll recall, I talked -- not sure actually if we talked about it in the last call, we'll talk about it more at Investor Day, but we're also looking at what I call brownfield opportunities, which are opportunities within our own fleet where we can deploy storage in our existing fleet and we see that there's an uplift in value from that. So we have to look at these opportunities next to each other and prioritize the highest value ones first.

Can you share whether or not these potential projects in Europe have been things that have been percolating and I just feel like they're getting to a stage where you can start to talk about them? Or are they things that have kind of popped up or you've identified more in the last couple of quarters?

I would say that certainly, since I arrived, we've been focusing on some of our key geographies, and this is the work that I've been doing with the team to really take our development focus and zoom in on the markets that we know well. So the markets that we're already active in the markets that we've done a lot of work to understand and instead of having a broad lens and looking at every possible jurisdiction, we're really focusing in on the places where. We think we can drive better value.

Understood. And then you made the comment about opportunities in offshore winning you said that were used Central Europe, is that Poland or does that go be on Poland? And then maybe just updated view in terms of how you think PK and ORLEN is going to progress with their development. Are they going to bid and then select a partner? Or are you having some discussions with them as they did potentially their next sites into the RSP.

So certainly, with Central Europe, Poland is one of the Central European countries, and we're already in Poland. So it's -- we certainly -- obviously, we like Poland or we wouldn't be there making the investment that we are -- so it's Poland, but also, I would say, areas adjacent. I think the entire region has many of the same goals in terms of energy. So for us, it's we look at the region, I would say, and being able to deploy within the region. The process that's happening in Poland, we have a very strong partnership with ORLEN and so we're working with them. Now they will -- they're publicly owned their state-owned entity, so they will go through a process as they select their future partners. We certainly hope that they will consider us in a favorable way when they're looking at future partners. But the processes in Poland will go through the normal process. We evaluate what's the best way for us to center, whether it's as a bidder or whether it's as an acquirer in a post bid process. So either way, we're sort of neutral. It's -- we look at the way that's going to get us into the projects that we like the best.

Okay. And then any update on Nordsee in terms of post-PPA, if you're active in the market looking to do a corporate PPA? Or is it going to be more of a longer-term hedge with a trading partner.

Yes. So it's a really good question. Thanks for asking it. We've been exploring the potential for long-term PPAs, and it's a very interesting discussions and -- we're looking at that. And then we do have a decision to make, I would say, in the coming couple of months. And I wouldn't be surprised if we actually split it a little bit, and we might do a PPA on card, and we might do a bit more -- keep an open position on part.

So I'm looking at that in terms of the overall portfolio and what kind of volatility exposure we're okay with. We don't have to make the decision right away because really, we continue to be we don't have a lot free on that until 2027. But I'm glad we started early because it means we can have a good look at what the market is offering. So right now, it's a little bit dealer's choice and we're the dealer. So I like that. But we certainly see some interesting long-term contracting opportunities. The question is, is that how we want to structure that asset or not for the future, and that's still to be determined.

And is it likely you'll make a decision by year-end?

Certainly, if yes, we will be making a decision by year-end.

Our next question comes from Robert Hope of Scotiabank.

On the Q1 call, you spoke about M&A a couple of times. Can you maybe walk us through how your thinking has been evolving on that front, whether or not you think you can pick up some we'll call some gas assets in Canada or other kind of, we'll call it, modalities and geographies.

So thanks for the question. We are very active in terms of screening M&A opportunities, and we've actually taken a deeper dive into, I would say, a strong handful of opportunities. One of the things that I'm really impressed with actually is that our operational teams when they dive into these are really able to see through and see the value. And so there have been a couple of things that I was excited about, but we've decided to not proceed with. And that's I think sometimes the deals you don't do are better than the deals that you do, do. So I'm okay with that outcome. We do see that there's quite a lot of interesting things coming on the market or available in the market. So I'm very positive about M&A for the future, but I'm very impressed with the team's ability to look through and understand the value of what we're seeking to acquire. So for me, I'm happy to see the muscle in the team. And I expect that we will be transacting, but we'll be transacting when we find the right match, not transacting on any match.

Great. And then maybe turning the attention to Eastern Canada. The federal government is speaking quite favorably about offshore wind there. Are you able to interface with the federal government to help shape that process to make a Maiden Canada solution?

Yes. So I mean, offshore wind, I think, is -- we obviously like [indiscernible], and we think it's an important part of the energy mix for the future in many geographies around the world. The federal government in Canada certainly seems to be more interested in offer wins than we've seen in recent years. And we have had meetings with government officials in order to talk about the types of things we need to see as an investor. And as I think we're a very credible investor in offshore wind that we're delivering on some important projects globally.

So I'm hoping that they hear what we have to say. And the reality is that it's the same story everywhere. We need to have certainty on terms, and we need to have efficient permitting processes, that when permitting takes a long time or has an uncertain process for it costs a lot of money in order to get to an investment decision that's less attractive than jurisdictions where you can do that faster, more efficiently and cheaper.

So I don't think that I'm saying anything deeply insightful there. But when we have long and uncertain permitting times, it's a disincentive for investment. So I hope that's being understood. And then the goal is to compete and it's international capital. So Stephen, for Northland, we're deploying our capital internationally for offshore wind because we see that those are the best opportunities for us. So if Canada wants to be competitive in that space, I think that will be a great thing.

Our next question comes from Balta Sidhu of National Bank of Canada.

Christine, have you seen any incremental supply chain pressures during Q2 to now? And any technologies or regions that could be more problematic in that view?

So thanks for the question. I think it's actually been a bit of a mixed bag because you see that there have been some projects that seem to be delayed or paused -- you see other parts of the world where they're trying to accelerate. So I would say supply chain, I don't know that it's actually just 1 answer. But so I would say, overall, we don't see a big change from last quarter. We see that sort of the projects that we're pursuing. There's no impact on time lines as we frame them right now. But we are keeping a careful eye on that and we're frequently meeting with some of our key suppliers to make sure we understand that and that what are the things that we don't see that could be happening that would impact our proposed project time lines.

So we do keep a watchful eye on it, but I would say no major change from last quarter.

Great. And then just on the [indiscernible], got the first quarter or a partial contribution of its performance. And then on a revenue basis, it looks like it exceeded expectations. Could you provide any details of that project in terms of how much of that was merchant revenues versus capacity. And I think the split that we had seen was 60-40 for the capacity.

Yes, it's Jeff here. Yes, you're right, what I laid out is 60-40. And obviously, being an early mover and you look and Christine alluded to it in her prepared remarks is we do see upfront some some potential upside with the market being really the first in place there. What I'll say is the economic case when we laid out was around $40 million EBITDA. I think we're within that range annually. And I think we do see some upside on the merchant side here being an early mover, but it's something that it's early stage. We're going to be prudent on how we're out looking and just see how it performs and how the grid operator utilizes it as well. So we'll -- we'll continue to see some benefits there. But no change to that $40 million EBITDA, and we'll see what upside we can capture over the next few months.

And maybe I'll just add on to that, [indiscernible] yes, it's a bit too soon to to say anything other than we see some positive green shoots. And then understanding how that works together, we're in a new system in Ontario. So it's new for us, and it's new for the system operator. So we're cautiously optimistic.

Sounds great. And then just 1 last 1 for me. For Hai Long, how many more turbines would you expect to place before before winter break? And just as an extension -- do you have any further insight if you'll look to release any of the excess vessel capacity and what this could present in terms of upside you're going to?

Sure. Can I get you to repeat the -- I heard the first part of the question but not the back part of the question. So can I just get you to repeat that?

Yes, you bet. So the first part was just how many more turbines do you expect to have in case by a winter break. And if you have any further insight if you'll be looking to release any of the excess vessel capacity and what that could mean in terms of upside for [indiscernible].

Okay. Sorry. Okay. I couldn't hear any of that, but now I got. Okay. So I would say in terms of installation at Hylan, big focus right now is on array cables and installation of the rate cables. So that's something that we really need comes in order to do that. And every day that we can get that done is a day closer to completion. So for me, it's -- right now, it's less about the turbines and more about the rate tables.

Of course, we're moving in parallel on that. But the array cables, the weather window is important. I mean you may be aware about us that we had a typhoon much earlier this year than we've seen in previous years. So normally, typhoon season would be much later. So we're -- right now every day that we get in the good weather window, we're taking full advantage of. So the team is active. I think it would be a bit too soon for us to say what we're doing with vessel capacity, where we want to maintain our project schedule, and we want to make sure that everybody stays safe.

That concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn it back to Christine Healy for closing remarks.

Well, thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We'll hold our next earnings call after the release of third quarter results in November. I want to thank you all for your excellent questions and for your continued support. Thanks very much.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.