Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. And welcome to the Q2 earnings call for Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. At this time, call participants are in listen-only mode. After the speakers presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you need to press star one on your telephone. If you require further assistance, please press star zero. I'd now like to hand the conference over to our speaker today, Ms. Amelia Tsang. Thank you. Please go ahead, Amelia. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us this morning for our second quarter earnings conference call. Presenting the call today are Arun Banskota, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Arthur Kacprzak, our Chief Financial Officer. Also joining us this morning for the question- and- answer part of the call will be Jeff Norman, our Chief Development Officer, and Johnny Johnston, our Chief Operating Officer. To accompany our earnings call today, we have a supplemental webcast presentation available on our website, algonquinpowerandutilities.com. Our financial statements and management discussion and analysis are also available on the website, as well as on SEDAR and EDGAR. Before continuing the call, we would like to remind you that our discussion during the call will include certain forward-looking information, including but not limited to our expectations regarding future earnings and capital expenditures. At the end of the call, I will read a notice regarding both forward-looking information and non-GAAP financial measures. Please also refer to our most recent MD&A filed on SEDAR and EDGAR and available on our website for additional important information on these items. On our call this morning, Arun will provide an overview of our Q2 performance. Arthur will follow with the financial results, and then Arun will conclude with an update on our strategic plan for the business. We will open the lines for questions. I ask that you restrict your questions to two, and then re-queue if you have any additional questions to allow others the opportunity to participate. With that, I'll turn it over to Arun. Thank you, Amelia, a very good morning to those who've been able to join us on the call and online. A special welcome to today, since it's Friday the 13th. I'm pleased to report solid year-over-year growth in our key financial metrics for the second quarter of the year. Q2 adjusted EBITDA was $244.9 million, a 39% increase year-over-year, and our Q2 adjusted net earnings per share was $0.15, an increase of 67% compared to last year's $0.09. I'm pleased to report solid year-over-year earnings growth from the addition of approximately 1,400 MW of new renewable generation projects. These were in construction over the course of last year and this year. This quarter's progress brings the 1,600 MW of projects that began construction in 2020 close to completion. We are also starting to see benefits from the first full year of operations from our Bermuda electric utility, as well as the ESSAL water utility in Chile, which both closed late last year and have both performed in line with our expectations. I'm pleased to report that the company's operating results were not materially impacted by the pandemic this quarter. Recall that in the second quarter last year, the pandemic did have a $0.01 impact on earnings per share. Generally speaking, we have not seen negative impacts from COVID on our loads at this stage as business conditions in the regions we operate in slowly return to normal. Approximately 60% of the company's workforce continues to work remotely, and we continue to employ operational measures intended to protect the health and safety of our employees and customers. Over the coming months, the company is planning to return to base operations as the impacts of the pandemic further diminish. We will continue to keep watch for any developments with the Delta variant and adjust accordingly. Our team continues to focus our efforts on Algonquin's three strategic pillars: growth, operational excellence, and sustainability. We operate through two primary businesses, regulated and renewables, and we will spend some time on each for an update. On the regulated side, one important lever of growth is our greening the fleet initiatives. We continue to make investments for the benefit of our customers as we accelerate our transition to a clean energy future. During the second quarter, we successfully completed our Midwest greening the fleet initiative, as all three wind facilities, North Fork Ridge, Kings Point, and Neosho Ridge, have been placed in service and have been acquired by The Empire District Electric Company. The related closure of the Asbury coal plant in March 2020 comes approximately 15 years ahead of its original retirement schedule in accordance with our most recently filed integrated resource plan and is expected to reduce emissions by nearly 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide as we work to generate and deliver cost-effective, diverse and sustainable energy solutions for our customers and communities. We continue to be responsible stewards of our energy infrastructure assets as we are an early pioneer in seeking to build renewables into rate base. The early retirement of Asbury has also contributed to the reduction in the company's total Scope 1 greenhouse gas emissions, as well as reducing Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions intensity per dollar of revenue by 26% since 2017, the year in which the company acquired Empire. The completion of the Midwest greening initiative is just one more step on our path to reduce emissions. Liberty recently filed an application with the California Public Utilities Commission to approve financing, construction, and operations of the Luning expansion project, which is expected to be a combined 60 MW solar facility and 240 MWh lithium-ion battery storage facility that will benefit Liberty's customers by adding reliability, resiliency, and price stability, in addition to meeting Liberty's renewable portfolio standards' energy supply objectives. Since 2017, we have already reduced the carbon intensity of CalPeco by 46%. This new investment, if approved, will help us continue to decarbonize and provide cost savings over the long term to our customers. Another important growth lever in the regulated business is the organic investments in improving the safety and reliability of our mission-critical infrastructure. Working with our local regulators, we strive to make the ongoing necessary investments to improve service for our customers while managing the affordability of their bills. Rate case activity across our jurisdictions continues to be quite active. I wanted to provide you with a few regulatory updates in some of the jurisdictions that we operate in. In the second quarter, we filed our Missouri electric rate case with the commission at the end of May, which included seeking cost recovery of the three recently completed 600 MW of wind generation facilities mentioned earlier. In addition, while our original filing included costs related to the impact of Winter Storm Uri, legislation has subsequently been passed, which will allow for these items to be securitized, a path which we intend to pursue. Apple Valley, which operates in California, was the subject of a condemnation lawsuit filed by the town of Apple Valley. For the last few years, we have been in legal proceedings over the water system and recently received a tentative statement of decision that supports our continued ownership and operation of the system. We have a track record of providing safe and reliable water services, and we look forward to working with the town of Apple Valley to continue those services for the benefit of our customers. Staying on the topic of California, we filed our CalPeco rate case in May and filed our Park Water Apple Valley rate case in July. Our California utilities will be the first to file rate cases seeking recovery of Customer First, which I'll provide more details on later. In addition, we recently reached a tentative agreement for our Energy North Gas System in New Hampshire. As part of the settlement, the commission authorized a permanent rate increase, which is expected to result in a revenue increase of $7.6 million based on a return of equity of 9.3% and equity capital structure of 52%. In addition, Energy North received an authorization for a property tax tracking mechanism, which is expected to further increase the predictability of earnings. Further, step adjustments of $4 million for 2021 and $3.2 million for 2022 were authorized as part of the settlement, pending further diligence and hearings. Lastly, on the regulatory front, we reached a constructive rate case outcome with the regulatory authority of Bermuda, marking the first completed rate case since the acquisition of BELCO in the fourth quarter of last year. Another lever of growth is acquisitions. We completed two utility acquisitions in Q4 of 2020, ESSAL and Ascendant. The integration of these two utilities into the Algonquin- Liberty family continues to go well. With our pending acquisition of New York American Water, we are currently going through the settlement process. As important work continues to determine the best path forward on resolving issues relating to the special franchise tax, we remain confident that Liberty is the best long-term owner of the utility and expect this transaction to close within the recently extended timeline set out in the stock purchase agreement. Lastly, looking to the future of our gas utilities, we have begun exploring the utilization of Renewable Natural Gas, or RNG, to better serve our customers. We have RNG projects in various stages of commercial development and have already made a regulatory filing in New Hampshire for the approval of supply agreement that includes a purchase option for Liberty to be the ultimate owner of the facility. Moving on now to operational excellence. In a mission-critical industry, safety and reliability are always the most important areas of focus. I'm pleased that we have passed the impressive milestone of 526 days and over 7 million safety hours without a single lost-time injury while keeping our customers and communities safe and maintaining our system reliability and resiliency. I also want to highlight some innovative approaches we are taking to support system resiliency. Our Sagehen project in CalPeco is a microgrid at a Berkeley research station at the end of 4 mi of transmission line in wildfire territory. By putting solar and storage onto the site, we are able to take the transmission line out of service during wildfire season while keeping the lights on for our customers, all for significantly lower cost than installing covered conductors to the 4 mi of transmission line through the environmentally sensitive forests. In the non-wildfire season, when the transmission line is back in service, the microgrid is expected to provide additional resiliency. As previously mentioned, we are excited about the new digital experience for our customers through our Customer First program. During the second quarter, the team successfully completed the first major implementation of our new suite of SAP tools and systems at our Massachusetts gas utility. We'll be rolling out this enhanced technology platform in a phased approach across the rest of the organization over the next couple of years. The customer is at the heart of every good operational excellence strategy. We have continued to bring customer focus into action by asking our customers, after interactions with our team, about their experience. This quarter, we have started the rollout of Net Promoter Score measurements from our customers. This is on top of our existing JD Power survey will allow us to collect more timely and specific feedback to drive focused action as we continue to look to meet and exceed our customers' expectations. Turning to the renewables side of the business. In the second quarter, our 492 MW Maverick Creek Wind Facility in Texas reached commercial operations and has a long-term power purchase agreement with General Mills and Kimberly-Clark. There was a blade manufacturing error, which impacted 26 of the 73 turbines at Maverick Creek. Remedies and work was completed in early June, with all 26 affected turbines returning to service. Our service agreement contains liquidated damage protections in favor of the company for revenue lost due to operating downtime. Altav ista Solar, an 80 MW facility located in Virginia, also reached commercial operations in the second quarter. The facility has a 12-year power purchase agreement with Facebook. We are also excited to be collaborating with JPMorgan Chase on our Shady Oaks II Wind Construction project in Illinois, with JPMorgan Chase agreeing to purchase approximately 70% of the wind energy output, which will contribute towards their 100% renewable energy commitment. All these projects showcase our strong relationships with key commercial and industrial C&I customers. The demand from C&I customers who are helping to drive an acceleration towards clean energy is expected to be an attractive source of growth for Algonquin in the coming years, and Algonquin is well-positioned to help them advance their own sustainability targets. We recently closed the acquisition of a 51% interest in the West Raymond Wind Facility, which reached commercial operations in the third quarter and has a generating capacity of approximately 240 MW, which we had previously agreed to purchase from RWE. With the close of West Raymond, we have completed the acquisition of our 51% ownership interest in four wind projects from RWE located in South Texas, with a total capacity of 861 MW and a net capacity of 439 MW. Finally, we remain firmly committed to sustainability through the inclusion of environmental, social, and governance values in our broader corporate strategy and day-to-day operations. Last year, we released our 2020 sustainability report, which not only outlined our progress on our ESG goals, but also provided a higher level of detail around nine priority issues. I'm pleased to say that we are making excellent progress on achieving our goals. We reached an important milestone with Algonquin now owning, operating, and having net interest in 4,000 MW of renewable generation across our two businesses. We are well on our way to achieving 75% renewable energy generation by 2023, another one of our sustainability targets. We have also added sustainability metrics to both our annual and long-term compensation for our leaders this year, embedding sustainability into our compensation model. Another key ESG goal set out in our sustainability report is to add 2,000 MW of renewable power-generating capacity between 2019 and the end of 2023. By the end of 2022, we have added over 1,400 MW of renewable generation, and we remain on track to achieving our 2023 target. We are focused on progressing and advancing our ESG disclosures to our stakeholders. I'm pleased to report that we recently launched a new data hub that can be found in the Sustainability section of our corporate website, which is further evidence of our increasing breadth and transparency on ESG data. I encourage you to take a look at the data hub, which provides detailed information around our operational metrics, governance, and policy, amongst many other measures. Our efforts in sustainability continue to pay off, and we continue to receive external validation, including the recent inclusion of Algonquin into Corporate Knights 2021 Best 50 Corporate Citizens, ranking within the top quartile of our peer group of power, transmission, and distribution companies. With that, I'll pass it over to Arthur, who will speak to our second quarter 2021 financial results. Arthur? Thank you, Arun, good morning, everyone. I am pleased to report that Algonquin has made good progress meeting its financial targets for 2021 with solid financial results for the second quarter. The Q2 results are underpinned by Algonquin's diversified and resilient business model and proven track record of ambitious but responsible growth. Turning to slide 11, our second quarter 2021 consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $244.9 million, which is up approximately 39% from the $176.3 million we reported in the previous year. The regulated services group delivered $165.9 million in divisional operating profit in the current quarter, which compares to $114.5 million in the same quarter last year. The year-over-year improvement is primarily attributable to the additional contribution from BELCO, our Bermuda electric utility, and ESSAL, our Chilean water utility, as both acquisitions closed in Q4 of last year, as well as from the contribution of our wind facilities that were placed in service as part of the greening the fleet initiative that Arun spoke of earlier. Results are also benefited from new rates implemented at the Granite State and CalPeco Electric Systems, but were partially offset by higher fuel costs in the central region, resulting from out-of-period resettlements relating to Winter Storm Uri and increased operating expenses. I should also note that the regulated services group did not experience any material impacts from COVID-19 this quarter, but the comparative results from Q2 of 2020 were negatively impacted by the pandemic by approximately $9.6 million. The Renewable Energy Group reported Q2 divisional operating profit of $97.9 million, which compares to $82.7 million in the same quarter last year. The increase is primarily due to the addition of the Sugar Creek and Maverick Creek Wind Facilities and the Great Bay II Solar Facility. This was partially offset by lower production due to resource shortfalls, primarily across our wind portfolio. Excluding the impact of the newly added facilities, production at our renewable facilities was approximately 7% lower than last year, or approximately 12% below the long-term average expected production. I should also mention that our investment in Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure continues to provide benefit to the Renewable Energy Group's operating profit, with dividends received increasing by $2.1 million over the comparative quarter, supported by Atlantica's continued growth in cash flows. Quarter-over-quarter, corporate and administrative expenses remained generally flat. Interest and depreciation expenses both increased due to higher property, plant, and equipment and the associated financing related to the acquisitions that closed late in 2020. Income tax expense was lower and benefited from renewable energy tax credits recognized. In total, our Q2 adjusted net earnings per share came in at $0.15, which is up 67% from the $0.09 reported last year. Moving on to slide 12 to provide some updates on our 2021 capital plan and financing activities. During the quarter, Algonquin deployed approximately $1.2 billion of capital pertaining primarily to the previously discussed initiatives and initiatives relating to the safety and reliability of our electric, water, and gas systems. This brings the total capital deployed so far this year to approximately $3.1 billion, and on track to our expected capital deployment in 2021 of over $4 billion. Moving on to financing activities. I'm pleased to say that during the quarter, we made great progress in de-risking our five-year financing plan, further strengthening our balance sheet, and reinforcing our commitment to BBB flat credit metrics. During the quarter, Algonquin completed a green mandatory equity units offer. Due to strong demand, the deal was upsized from the indicated $900 million size, and the full overallotment option granted to the underwriters was exercised, bringing the total gross proceeds from the offering to $1.15 billion. The units are expected to receive 100% equity credit from Standard & Poor's. The transaction represents several firsts for Algonquin and the market in general. To our knowledge, this was the first green mandatory equity unit offering ever done, showcasing Algonquin's ongoing leadership and commitment to deploying capital to support sustainable initiatives. This was also the first offering by a Canadian issuer of a mandatory equity unit, which are more frequently used by some of our utility peers in the U.S. As you maybe heard me mention in the past, what we find attractive about the mandatory equity units is the natural match they provide to our business in terms of when we pay for our capital and when we earn on it. The securities defer the issuance of shares until conversion after a three-year period, but receive 100% equity credit immediately from S&P. Investors benefit from an enhanced yield, and the issuer can partly benefit from share price appreciation, which can result in an overall lower cost of capital compared to common equity. Through this issuance, we have further expanded and diversified Algonquin's investor base and introduced another tool to fund future potential accretive growth opportunities. During the quarter, the company also utilized its ATM program, raising approximately $135 million of common equity. We view the ATM program as allowing us for cost-effective and opportunistic issuance of our common stock, plan to remain disciplined in its use. To date, we have also received funding from over $1 billion from tax equity investors, monetizing the tax benefits associated with their renewable energy projects in the U.S. In total, I would say that we have satisfied the preponderance of our capital needs for the year and have positioned our balance sheet to continue to execute on Algonquin's growth plans. For the rest of the year, we will continue to monitor the hybrid debt markets as a potential opportunistic source of capital in the current low-yield environment. Before I turn things over back to Arun, I'd like to provide a brief update on our 2021 guidance. Algonquin continues to execute well against its 2021 financial targets. As discussed, we have already delivered approximately 1,400 MW of new renewable generation capacity from our 2020 construction pipeline. In addition, we have and continue to expect the benefits from the first full year of operations from BELCO and ESSAL. Excluding the impact of the market disruption on the Senate Wind facility related to Winter Storm Uri in Q1, we continue to expect our 2021 adjusted net earnings per share to be within the range of $0.71-$0.76, as communicated previously. We continue to assume in our earnings expectation normalized weather patterns as well as resource availability and production at our renewable generation facilities that are within long-term averages. We also assume that the closing of New York American Water will occur sometime within the fourth quarter of 2021. Although a further delay in the closing is not itself expected to materially impact our 2021 adjusted net earnings per share estimates. I also want to reiterate that our five-year capital plan of $9.4 billion remains on track. Having already deployed over $3 billion of capital this year, we are well on our way to meeting our five-year targets. With that, I'll now hand it back to Arun to outline our growth plans. Thanks, Arthur. Before we close out our prepared comments this morning, I want to give an update on our strategic initiatives. As we look to simplify our business further, on August 6th, we took a step towards simplification by exercising the option to acquire Abengoa's interest in AAGES. Given the change in ownership, we will be referring to AAGES and associate entities as Liberty Development. Liberty Development will remain focused on advancing Algonquin's non-regulated development pipeline in North America and selected international markets. Abengoa's interest is expected to be acquired by funds managed by the infrastructure and power strategy of Ares Management LLC, with Algonquin retaining the right to acquire 100% of Liberty Development projects. We also anticipate that Ares will remain involved in projects until commercial operations. At Investor Day, we spoke about our $9.4 billion five-year investment plan from 2021 through 2025, which has identified projects that make up the entire $9.4 billion, with most of them now in operation, under construction, or in advanced stages of development. Let me provide the latest update. The following projects have reached commercial operations since last November. Maverick Creek, Sugar Creek, Altav ista on the renewable side. While on the regulated side, our three Midwest wind projects totaling $1.1 billion in investments were also completed. On the construction side, our 175 MW Blue Hill Wind Project in Saskatchewan and 24 MW Val-Éo Wind Project in Quebec continue to progress well, with turbine deliveries in flight. We are also progressing well on our new sites, demonstrating the ongoing execution of our development portfolio. Shady Oaks II has signed an agreement with JPMorgan Chase, as I discussed earlier, and the project commenced construction in May. We have also included two PJM solar projects that were incremental additions at Investor Day. In the first quarter of 2021, we completed the acquisition of these two Ohio solar projects, which have an expected combined capacity of 235 MW, with the first project, New Market Solar at 100 MW, having begun construction in May. We also recently executed equipment procurement contracts for both our Deerfield II and Sandy Ridge 2 wind projects. I note that recent inflation and commodity pricing trends will likely result in higher project costs. Conversely, offtake contracts have seen similar increases in pricing recently, which may help to offset the impact, if any, of increased commodity risk. The Renewable Energy Group seeks to mitigate impact on project returns by locking in generating equipment, construction prices, and offtakes as close to contemporaneously as possible. We continue to invest in the 3,400 MW greenfield pipeline that we discussed at Investor Day. As a reminder, this greenfield pipeline investment is over and above our $9.4 billion capital plan. Our greenfield investments are focused on securing new opportunities and continuing to advance the projects comprising the 3,400 MW. The Chevron projects are included in the 3,400 MW greenfield pipeline. These projects continue to progress well, and we are on track to achieve final investment decisions for the initial projects by year-end. As discussed in the past, the greenfield pipeline is being built to replenish the more advanced projects included in our five-year $9.4 billion capital plan. I'm proud of all we've accomplished so far this year, but even more excited for what lies ahead. With society and economies working hard to minimize carbon emissions, I'm excited about how Algonquin's regulated and renewables businesses position the company to contribute to and benefit from this decarbonization transition. We have multiple levers of growth across our two businesses that I've spoken about throughout today's call, which gives me further confidence in our ability to execute and deliver on our five-year investment and growth plan. In summary, 2021 has been a very productive year so far as we continue to execute and deliver on the company's largest construction program in its history. With approximately 1,400 MW of the 1,600 MW already placed in service. For context, these new projects are expected to approximately double the size of the company's portfolio of renewable energy generation facilities that we own and operate. Our three strategic pillars of growth, operational excellence, and sustainability will be a key foundation as we continue to build the business and strive to deliver steady earnings and dividend growth, creating long-term shareholder value. With that, I will turn the call over to the operator for any questions from those on the line. Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. We'll now pause for just one moment to compile a Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Sean Steuart with TD Securities. Thank you. Good morning, thanks for all the detailed commentary. A couple of questions. With respect to the Empire rate request, 10% ROE and 52% equity thickness, that looks similar to what was rejected last year. Can you give us some thoughts on the request this time? What gives you confidence that this is reasonable, how things might have changed over the last year to give you that confidence? Sure. Sean, good morning, thanks for that question. Look, first of all, it's still early. We just very recently filed for that rate case. As we've said in prior calls, we continue to be confident in our position on equity thickness. We believe we will get the right outcome around equity thickness. Okay. Further to that, the securitization of the costs tied to the weather event, can you walk us through that process and how that could evolve to get the $30 million there? Sure. As you know, Sean, the legislature has recently passed legislation that approves securitization of such extraordinary costs. We do plan to avail of that mechanism. We've started the internal process around that. Just as a reminder, of the $80 million increase, $30 million of that is from Storm Uri. Outside of that, our rate case increase is more in the 7% range, which translates approximately into 1.4% CAGR when you look at it from the last rate increase in 2017. Okay. One last question, maybe for Arthur. You guys seem very focused on, obviously, growth here, but any updated thoughts on capital recycling as a longer-term funding source to feed the broader growth ambitions for the company? Any updated thoughts on potential for asset sales to fund earlier-stage developments? Before I turn to Arthur, I will say that, look, capital recycling is always on the agenda for us. When we announced that back at Investor Day, we're still, what, six, seven months now from that point onwards. Still early days, capital recycling is absolutely something we continue to look at as an option. I don't really have anything to add, Sean. It's on the radar. We look at it. It's nothing concrete to talk about at this stage. Okay. Thanks very much, guys. I'll get back in the queue. Your next question comes from the line of Rupert Merer with National Bank. Morning, everyone. Good morning, Rupert. Getting back to the rate cases that you filed, can you give us a sense of the timing of the hearings here? Are you seeking any additional smoothing mechanisms and maybe a move off PIS accounting with the rate case you filed with Empire? Sure. We filed the rate case just late May. Let me turn to Johnny for further details. Yeah. Hearing schedule will be later on towards the back end, I think, of this year. We're not expecting a decision until Q2 of next year. We will work through with the commission and our stakeholders in terms of the best way to implement any increase. We're certainly open to smoothing rates in a way that works for us and for our customers. All right, great. Thanks. Arun, you've completed the greening the f leet initiative in Missouri. You're looking at some new regulated investments at CalPeco. Is there more to come here? How soon before you could look at, say, greening the fleet phase II in Missouri? Is there political support for doing many more investments like this across your asset base? We believe so, Rupert. Again, we're proud of the fact that we are pretty much entrepreneurs in this area. We look at it across our existing fleet. In fact, even on our water utilities, which there's a lot of energy that goes into moving water. We look at that as well as an option. Even when we acquired BELCO, one of the attractions for us was the fact that in an island economy, pretty much all of it is thermal generation. With customers paying over $0.30/kWh, and we strongly believe that there's a lot of ability to greening the fleet in that case as well. That's something we look at in pretty much every instance, whether it be with our existing portfolio or anything new, possibilities, we look at as well. How long before you think we could see some more greening the fleet initiatives, like at BELCO, for example? Stay tuned, Rupert. We're obviously excited to let everybody know as soon as we are able to announce it. Okay, great. I'll leave it there. Thank you. Thanks, Rupert. Your next question comes from line of Nelson Ng. Great. Thanks, everyone. Just to follow up on Rupert's question, now that you have finished the first phase of greening Empire, I'm just wondering, bigger picture, now that you've kind of gone over that hump on your capital plan, spending about a third of your five-year capital plan in the first six months. I guess the question is, if you see an opportunity that's similar to Empire, where you had the opportunity to buy some assets that has coal, would you do it? Would you buy a utility with significant coal assets? Is that something you would look to do? Look, it's a speculative question. I'll answer it in a similar way. Right. First of all, we have a very attractive ESG profile. When you look at our carbon intensity at 0.0013 per dollar of revenue, that's among the lowest among our peers. Right. In our history, Nelson, I like to repeat this fact. In our 33 years of existence, we've never ourselves developed and therefore added to the world's stock of emissions. At the same time, we are very good stewards of infrastructure. Some of the numbers we gave you around Midwest greening with a reduction of 26% carbon intensity in just three years, in CalPeco, a 46% reduction in carbon intensity in just three years. I think besides what we do on the renewable energy side of the business in terms of investing in renewable energy assets for the good of our customers and our shareholders and the world at large, I think it's a similar profile on the regulated side of Greening the Fleet, which I believe is good for our customers, our shareholders, and the world at large. If there are similar kinds of opportunities where we can utilize our greening the fleet initiatives, we will take a hard look at that. Okay, thanks. That's clear. Just moving over to CalPeco, in terms of the rate case filing. I haven't gotten a chance to go through it, the roughly $36 million increase seems like a big increase for a utility that's not that big. Could you just run through some kind of big picture items in terms of what's driving the rate increase there at CalPeco? Let me give the big picture, and I'll turn it over to Johnny. The vast majority of that increase is really associated with wildfire mitigations. As you know, in California, in that greater geography, that's obviously something that's extremely important. We want to make sure we keep our customers and community safe. Johnny? Yeah, I think the short story is it really is what our wildfire costs have driven that increase, and it's the investments that we're making to reduce the risk of future impact in the area. It's the ongoing activities of increasing our tree trimming and monitoring so that we are able to sort of take our lines out of service at high-risk periods of time. I think maybe the important point to note, despite the significant increase, even if it were fully approved, we'd still be one of the lowest cost rates in California. Actually, if you look at what the other California utilities have been filing in terms of their rate increases, the majority of them have had 30%-40% increases in this timeframe, really driven by similar activity. It is a big step up, there's no doubt. We're always very focused on the bill impact for our customers. But really, this is being driven by the evolving landscape in California. Just to follow up on that, is that increase mostly to service higher operating costs, or are you making a lot of capital investments? What's the mix, roughly? It's roughly 50/50, and so there is significant investment going in terms of putting in covered conductor, modernizing our switching and fusing technology, as well as then some of the operating cost expenses that are covered. It is roughly 50/50. Okay, thanks. I'll get back in the queue. Thanks, Nelson. Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Greenwald with Bank of America. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Ryan. Good morning. Appreciate your commentary earlier on potential coal opportunities and transition. Kind of given the media reports earlier this week, can you comment a bit more broadly just on your overall assessment of the regulated M&A landscape ahead of the pending CapEx update at the end of the year here? Sure. As everybody well knows, just the number of regulated M&A opportunities out there. When you look at it in 2010, for example, or 2000 versus now, that landscape has significantly shortened. Right? Just the number of utilities out there are fewer with some of the consolidation that has been going on. Look, if you look at our $9.4 billion five-year plan, we only include acquisitions that we've already announced. You find New York American Water in there. Our $9.4 billion plan does not depend on any future acquisitions. Having said that, we do look at that as a possible lever, another growth lever to enhance our growth even further and provide more shareholder value. That's really the context. Great. Thank you for that. Given broader concerns around the supply chain and inflationary pressures, is this having any impact in the way you think about the development pipeline? Any hesitation to go through with some of the potential projects given pressure on returns? Far, we have not seen that, Ryan. Again, what we have seen is some of the increases on the supply chain have been offset by price increases on the off-take side of the ledger. Also one of the strategies we're deploying is trying to finalize the supply contracts, the construction contracts, and the off-take contracts as close together as possible, so that there is very little residual risk that we're taking in terms of commodity increases and the like. Far, we continue to accelerate our greenfield pipeline and other such projects. We always have the options of delaying anything if such a contingency does happen. Great. I'll leave it there. Thanks for the time. Thanks, Ryan. Your next question comes from the line of Rob Hope with Scotiabank. Morning. First question is just on the 2021 EPS outlook that you reiterated. As we're kind of halfway through the year, can you talk about the puts and takes? It looks like taxes have been a pretty strong tailwind so far. Was that originally anticipated, or is that offsetting some of the weakness we're seeing in the renewable generation side? Good morning, Rob. It's Arthur here. Sure, I can speak to that. In terms of our outlook for the rest of the year, like I mentioned in my prepared commentary, we are reiterating our guidance between $71 and $76. In terms of when setting that guidance, we factored in several things. One of the things obviously being impacts of COVID, which, thankfully, we actually didn't see. That is providing us a little bit of room. On the flip side, we did have a little bit of milder weather obviously throughout the year as well. Those two things are to some extent offsetting. Now, to your second question around tax credits, I would say a portion of the tax credits, yes, were not on plan. Maybe it's more of a function of geography or where they're recorded. I'll explain a little bit further where, as you're aware, we had the delays in the final commissioning of Maverick and Sugar Creek due to the blade issues there. What that basically did is, in essence, it delayed the final investment by tax equity into those projects. Normally, what we would've seen for the year is if tax equity invested, we would've seen those credits that were generated from the turbines that were operating going through HLBV. Versus here, we had the opportunity to obviously take those credits and self-monetize them. You're maybe seeing a little bit more in the tax line versus what you would've been seeing a little bit more in the EBITDA line, otherwise, if that wasn't the case. Overall, it kind of washes in the results. That's some great color. Thank you. Maybe just a follow-up question on the Ares partnership there. Can you just walk us through your thinking of not taking 100% of AAGES as well as I guess what does Ares bring to the table and what future partnerships could look like? Rob, just to give you context, as you know, Abengoa was our 50% partner on AAGES. Given all of the challenges that they were having with the restructuring, we felt it was timely for us to find a new partner. We have exercised the option. We believe Ares does provide quite a bit of constructive experience and know-how in this sector. They were, in 2020, for example, one of the 10 largest wind financiers. They also have companies that are in the construction business as well. We believe that they bring both the development and construction expertise as well as a financing capability to both develop and to finance our construction activity. That's where the fit is. Thank you. Thanks, Rob. Your next question comes from the line of Ben Pham with BMO. Hey, thanks. Good morning. I've got a couple of follow-up questions on the utility M&A. Can you comment more broadly the criteria you most focus on now, size, geographic diversification, synergies, anything else you can share? More specifically, just listening to your answers to earlier questions and with these Kentucky assets, would that fit into your overall preferences or targeting? Sure. Ben, lots of questions in there, let me try to talk through those questions. Right. First of all, geography is pretty clear. It's North America. Again, we don't say never on other than North America. For example, Chile was a case in point. By and large, the geography is North America, right? We are one of the few companies that are across all three modalities, electric, water, and gas. We are very bullish on electric and water. They fit extremely well with our ESG profile. Right now on the gas side, we are focused much more on deploying renewable natural gas into our facilities. We have filed the first one in New Hampshire. We're looking at a pipeline of a lot more, and we're also looking at green hydrogen. In New Brunswick, for example, we participated in a maritime study. We are forming a number of other pilot projects that are out there in green hydrogen. That's our focus on the gas modality. On specific transactions, we have a policy never to comment on specific transactions, so I'll probably leave it at that. Okay, then accretion, you want accretion out of the gate? On the financial? Absolutely. Look, from a strategy perspective, clearly it has to fit all of our strategic objectives, we do not do transactions based upon strategy. These transactions absolutely have to stand on their own. We look at a lot of different metrics, we are extremely disciplined around those. We obviously end up not doing many more transactions than we end up transacting on. Absolutely extremely disciplined around the financial metrics. Okay. The second one is based on the funding side. Here would execute something maybe a bit larger than usually you see every month. Your balance sheets are hard, natural convert to the common, investing in hybrids. How would you think about that impacting your funding plan? Yeah. From our perspective, one thing I would say, maybe generally, look, we've never kind of fallen behind on our balance sheet strength. We've maintained a strong balance sheet. I think that itself kind of brings us from a position of strength call it. To some extent, in speculating around any funding sources, as I said in my prepared remarks, lots of tools in the shed, right, in terms of where to source capital. Okay. That's great. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Mark Jarvi with CIBC. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Just wanted to clarify one thing on the response to Ben's question. When you talked about the different financial metrics you look at for a deal making sense, was EPS accretion sort of the top list? It wasn't 100% clear. EPS accretion has to be on day one. Absolutely. We look at our EPS accretion. That's why we are most fundamental and most important metric we look at. Absolutely, Mark. Oh, perfect. Thanks for that. Also, I'm also lots of wildfire action in California this year. We've seen reports of the energy lines at CalPeco. Can you just update us in terms of any earnings hit or any potential liabilities that might be faced or so far you've been unscathed by that wildfire action? Sure. I think, Mark, we did report earlier, we talked about the Mountain View wildfire and the investigation continues on that one. We also recently faced another wildfire, the Tamarack wildfire, which is a much smaller one in comparison. That one is largely contained. Look, our employees did an amazing job in terms of mitigating that wildfire and bringing all of the customers back online in a very short period of time. It is extremely impressive to see what our employees were able to do out there in bringing generators in place, even for just a few customers, because reliability is so important. That was all of our background and context behind what we're seeking for in terms of the new rate case, because we do believe we need to continue to invest in wildfire mitigation aspects. That is really the context behind the most recent rate case filing. Okay. Just one more thing, just on the Ares partnership in the simplification. Maybe, Arthur, you can explain in terms of, will all the investments flow through your own financial statements or are there still some SPVs involved in some of that stuff? Any capital commitments from Ares on any investments going forward? Maybe the simplest answer is, in essence, how it's going to flow through the financial statements. It's basically status quo in terms of how you currently see it, to the extent that you will still see AAGES being accounted for as a joint venture. Okay. Thanks for that. Your next question comes from the line of Naji Baydoun with iA Capital Markets. Hi, good morning. I just wanted to start with the renewable projects that are already in the hopper. Can you just remind us of what's contracted? Shady Oaks, you have the contract with JP Morgan. What about the Ohio solar projects or some of the other projects coming down the pipeline? Sure. Sure. Yeah. Thanks, Arun. Happy to do that. You're absolutely right with Shady Oaks, too, in terms of the offtake with JP Morgan. The New Market portfolio is also contracted. All the projects that we have under active construction are contracted at this point in time. Okay. I guess the other projects that are in, let's call them advanced development, what's still left to be contracted from those? The two, we've got the Sandy Ridge 2, which is in advanced development, which is contracted, and we've got Deerfield II, which we're in active discussions on contracting but have not signed the contract yet. Okay. Got it. That's good. Just for context, the offtake contracting happens towards the really very end before what we say internally as notice to proceed. That's where we try to make sure the supply contract, the construction contract, and the offtake contract comes together, and that's when we give notice to proceed. Usually, it really happens towards the end of the development cycle. No, fully agree, that's very intentional on our part for the reasons that you cited earlier in terms of making sure we get alignment between costs and the offtake contract. Understood. Just on the Luning project, is this both the solar and the storage system together that you're working on? That is correct. It's a solar plus a 240 MWh battery storage system. That's correct. Okay. I just want to get your thoughts broadly on, I guess, how you're thinking about storage. This is maybe the first project within the utility business, but just wondering how you're thinking about storage, both within the regulated portfolio, but also maybe the non-regulated side of the house. Actually, we already have around, what? 20 MW worth of capacity on the regulated side of the business on storage. On the renewable energy side of the business, our first project in New York State is under construction, that it's a solar plus battery storage project. Look, given the prices on storage, and ability to shape up perhaps the energy outflows, we look at storage on every wind and solar project to see if it makes sense. It's very much part of the equation always. Okay. It sounds like there's maybe opportunities to add on both sides. Absolutely. The reason I was telling you about the 20 MW [inaudible] on the regulated side is we're already deeply in it. We already have a lot of know-how and experience in operating these battery storage systems. We absolutely will continue to look at storage as yet another area of technology growth. Understood. That's very helpful. Just, I guess last question on that is what I also meant by regulated versus non-regulated, maybe how you think about the risk and the returns. If you had to choose a project on the storage side, does it make more sense for you today to have it within the utilities or not? Look, the risk profile is somewhat different on the two sides but not that much given the fact that even on our renewable side of the business, it's largely contracted. It was a long-term contract, remainder average weighted life of 13 years. Still, there is some risk-reward difference. It's not large enough for us to say we're going to put all of our capital on storage on one side or the other. We believe that there's a lot of opportunities on both the regulated and the renewable side of the business. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Thanks, Naji. Your final question comes from the line of David Quezada with Raymond James. Thanks. Morning, everyone. Just one quick one from me. Arun, you mentioned renewable natural gas a little bit in your comments. Just wondering if there's any color you could provide around the timing and maybe the quantum of that opportunity, and given the tax credit that has been, I guess, proposed, could you look at that outside of the regulated footprint? Absolutely, David. We are already looking at it outside our regulated footprint as well. We have a development pipeline across every one of our gas utilities that is looking at renewable natural gas. We believe that at its maximum, it could actually substitute for approximately 25% of all of the natural gas that flows through our gas LDC system. It's pretty attractive from that perspective. The pricing is something obviously we're working on. One of the things we're very focused on is trying to make sure that it doesn't impact customer bills. We're looking at different kinds of structures. It reminds me of the days of renewable energy a decade ago when the prices were higher. There were enough of a customer base out there that were willing to pay higher prices for the sustainability gain for renewable energy. I think we see a similar pattern on the renewable natural gas side as well, where there's enough of a commercial and industrial customer base that is willing to pay the initial higher prices on renewable natural gas. A lot of the stuff that is going on with the Biden administration climate action bills should help in terms of bringing that cost down even further. We're absolutely looking at that and have a fairly robust development pipeline on that energy. That's great color. Thank you very much. Okay. David, thank you very much, and thank you everyone for taking the time on our call today. With that, please stay on the line for our disclaimer. Thanks, Arun. Our discussion during this call contains certain forward-looking information, including, but not limited to, our expectations regarding earnings, capital expenditures, and size and timing for completion of our project. This forward-looking information is based on certain assumptions, including those described in our most recent MD&A filed on SEDAR and EDGAR and available on our website, and is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from historical results or results anticipated by the forward-looking information. Forward-looking information provided during this call speaks only as of the date of this call and is based on the plans, beliefs, estimates, projections, expectations, opinions, and assumptions of management as of today's date. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, and you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. We disclaim any obligation to update any forward-looking information or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and such forward-looking information, except as required by applicable law. In addition, during the course of this call, we may have referred to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including, but not limited to adjusted net earnings, adjusted net earnings per share or adjusted net EPS, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted funds from operations, and divisional operating profit. There is no standardized measure of such non-GAAP financial measures, and consequently, AQN's method of calculating these measures may differ from methods used by other companies, and therefore, they may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. For more information about both forward-looking information and non-GAAP financial measures, including a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the corresponding GAAP measures, please refer to our most recent MD&A filed on SEDAR in Canada or EDGAR in the United States and available on our website. That concludes the conference call. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now all disconnect.