Hello, and welcome to the BEP Third Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce CEO, Connor Teskey.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our third quarter 2025 conference call. Before we begin, we would like to remind you that a copy of our news release and investor supplement can be found on our website. We also want to remind you that we may make forward-looking statements on this call. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks, and our future results may differ materially. For more information, you are encouraged to review our regulatory filings available on SEDAR, EDGAR and on our website. On today's call, we will provide a review of our third quarter performance, then Jen Mazin, Co-President and General Counsel, will discuss the recently announced partnership between Westinghouse and the U.S. government and how we expect this partnership to benefit our business for years to come. And lastly, Patrick will conclude our remarks by discussing our operating results and financial position. Following our comments, we look forward to taking your questions. We had another strong quarter, delivering solid financial results and advancing our strategic initiatives across the business. We generated $302 million of FFO during the quarter or $0.46 per unit, up 10% year-over-year, and we continue to expect to deliver on our 10% plus FFO per unit growth target for 2025. We were successful advancing our commercial priorities, signing contracts to deliver another 4,000 gigawatt hours per year of generation and continue to deliver on our growth initiatives, commissioning 1,800 megawatts of new projects in the quarter. We also made strategic investments across our key markets in critical technologies to support both energy demand and grid reliability. We continue to see accelerating demand for power across nearly all the markets in which we operate. This growth is being driven by the same three key themes…

Thank you, Connor, and good morning, everyone. As Connor mentioned, in October, we announced a strategic partnership between the U.S. government and Westinghouse, where the U.S. government will order new Westinghouse nuclear reactors to be built in the United States with an aggregate investment value of at least $80 billion. The agreement supports the government's goal of having 10 large-scale reactors with completed designs under construction by 2030 and aligns the U.S. government with the owners of Westinghouse to dramatically enhance the value of the business by providing for an opportunity for profit sharing in certain circumstances. Westinghouse, which we and Cameco acquired in 2023, is a leading provider of mission-critical technology, services and products to the nuclear power industry. Westinghouse is the U.S. nuclear champion, currently servicing over 50% of the global nuclear fleet. Over 2/3 of operating nuclear reactors in the world are derived from Westinghouse Technology. Westinghouse operates through three main business segments. Today, its operating plant services and nuclear fuel businesses together generate roughly 85% of the company's earnings, driven by long-term contracts with a global fleet of operating reactors. These segments generate stable infrastructure-like cash flows anchored by Westinghouse's position as the leading nuclear service provider. As the nuclear industry grows globally through greater usage, life extensions and new reactors, Westinghouse's core business of operating plant services and nuclear fuel will continue to grow alongside the broader nuclear market. This leading position and the stable growing cash flows from these two businesses form the foundation of our original investment thesis. Westinghouse also owns the intellectual property for the world's leading utility scale reactor, the AP1000 as well as the AP300, its small modular reactor version. Through its third main business segment, the Energy Systems business, Westinghouse provides design, engineering and procurement services for new nuclear…

Thanks, Jen, and good morning to everyone on the call. Our business performed well this quarter, delivering funds from operations of $302 million or $0.46 per unit, an increase of 10% year-over-year, driven by contracted inflation-linked cash flows from our diverse global operating fleet, commercial and operational execution and contributions from recent M&A activity and project development. Our Hydroelectric segment delivered another strong quarter, generating FFO of $119 million, up over 20% from the prior year on the back of solid generation from our Canadian and Colombian fleets, higher pricing across our U.S. operations and increased earnings from commercial and operational activities. The performance of this segment reflects growing demand for scale baseload power and our ability to capture improved pricing in the current environment. Our wind and solar segments generated a combined $177 million of FFO, supported by contributions from our acquisitions of Neoen, Geronimo Power and the portfolio of offshore wind assets in the U.K. that we invested in last year. The benefits of this growth and our organic development were offset by the impact of the sale of wind assets in the U.S., Spain and Portugal since Q3 last year. Our distributed energy, storage and sustainable solutions segments delivered a solid quarter, generating FFO of $127 million, up from the prior year. Results were supported by growth from the Neoen acquisition and strong performance at Westinghouse. Now turning to our financial position. During the quarter, we were successful in deploying significant capital into growth while maintaining strong liquidity of $4.7 billion and a sector-leading balance sheet, reaffirming our BBB+ investment-grade rating from three major rating agencies. We continue to differentiate our franchise with our access to scale capital. In the current environment where there is increasing demand for energy and opportunities for those with the right mix…

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Nelson Ng with RBC Capital Markets.

Quick question. So just in the U.S., obviously, there's better visibility on tax credits, which is great. But can you talk about whether you're seeing any improvements in the pace of permitting, whether at the state or federal level? And are you seeing any changes being made to speed up the pace of power deployment? I know we're hearing a lot about the need for power, but are you seeing any other changes take place?

Nelson, thanks for the question. You're right. The biggest dynamic that has spoken about greatly in the United States is just the increased demand for power. In terms of are we seeing things move faster on the ground, we would say incrementally, but not dramatically, if we're being candid. Given the size of our platform, that means we are bringing significant amounts of megawatts through into operations on an ongoing basis. But the bottleneck to growth is not capital, is not demand, it's execution on the ground level. The one thing we would highlight, and this is consistent across the United States, and I would say, markets around the world, is there is a very clear level of intent from all stakeholders to remedy the situation to accelerate permitting to fast track approvals. The intent is there. Progress to date limited, but we are confident it can only get better from here.

Great. And then just on data centers, obviously, the U.S. is a big focus. But given your global platform, can you just talk about regions outside of the U.S. in terms of where you're having discussions about adding additional power for data centers?

We wouldn't want to give you an oversimplified answer, but I would say it is almost everywhere. But let's go a layer deeper on that. Clearly, the largest concentration of data center build-out is in the United States. Following the United States, it would be Western Europe. So we are seeing a heightened number of conversations there. But this does extend to almost every market around the world. We are seeing more conversations around power to data centers in Australia, in India, even in South America. So it is a very consistent topic globally. But to layer a size dynamic on top of that because of the concentration of build-out that is largely in the United States and then Western Europe, that is where we are having the greatest number of those conversations. And maybe just to go a layer deeper on one of the things you said, what's interesting is, clearly, the biggest opportunity is building data centers for hyperscalers, the largest corporates around the world. There is also a secondary opportunity of very meaningful scale, which is to build data centers for countries. Sovereign compute is increasingly a growing source of demand and something we feel we're equally well positioned to support the same way we support data center demand from corporates.

Our next question comes from the line of Sean Steuart with TD Cowen.

First question for Connor or Jen. Can you give us an expected time line for the U.S. build-out associated with the Westinghouse agreement? Just trying to gauge the time line of expected FFO contribution for that. And I guess the question is in the context of the U.S. has some ambitious time lines for this build-out. How would that compare what's typical for AP1000 reactors in terms of the time frame?

Sure. So thanks for the question, Sean. Maybe just to take a step back, what has the U.S. government look to do here? And typically, to pull a nuclear reactor out of the ground, you need to work to get alignment and buy-in from a large number of stakeholders, and that takes a large period of time before you can start development and construction. Essentially, what the U.S. government has done and our partnership is a big part of this effort is to say we will backstop all of that. We want to get shovels in the ground as quickly as possible. We will facilitate permits. We will facilitate financing. We will facilitate the use of federal lands. So when do we start seeing these reactors begin to be developed and constructed, almost immediately. We expect the first reactors, the first projects to begin their development process, I would say, in the next quarter or two, nobody has taken a breath. We worked from trying to close the agreement to immediately turning our attention to what can we do to pull the first project out of the ground. So we would expect contributions out of this agreement relatively quickly because as soon as that development process starts, Westinghouse does begin to generate revenues. But now let's put some context around that. In the Energy Systems division of Westinghouse that Jen described, which is how Westinghouse generates profits from new build reactors. The way to think about it is essentially in the reactor life, there's three stages. For the first 3 to 4 years, it's a development stage where Westinghouse does generate revenues and profits, but they are, I would say, candidly, a little bit more modest. Once the reactor starts construction, which we would say is probably in year 3, there is a period of heightened profitability for the Energy Systems division of Westinghouse. And that lasts anywhere from 3 to 6 years the time it takes for the plant to be constructed, and that is a very profitable high-margin period for Westinghouse. And then the reactor turns on and Westinghouse gets an 80-year almost annuity on fuel supply, fuel fabrication and supply and then operating plant maintenance and services contracts. So we do expect revenues from this contract to -- or this partnership with the U.S. government to start as quickly as the next couple of quarters, but it will really ramp up, I would say, in the 3- to 4-year time frame.

Second question is with respect to the Santee Cooper project and assets. If Brookfield invests directly, how do you hedge the basis risk around cost overruns or delays in those risks at the BEP level?

Certainly. So maybe just for everyone's benefit, the timing of the U.S. Westinghouse partnership and the Santee Cooper announcement was entirely coincidental that they came a day or 2 apart. These are separate and distinct processes and opportunities that we are looking at. And with Santee Cooper, we see an opportunity where Brookfield is potentially very well positioned. Obviously, the construction of this facility was started with Westinghouse Technology. So it has to finish with Westinghouse technology. So we're well positioned there. But then importantly, our ability to bring both capital and offtake to the project consistent with what we do across our broader business, differentiated us and allowed us to be positioned in preferred bidder status, which is where we're at today. In terms of us investing in the actual build-out and ownership of nuclear reactors, we are only going to do so if we can get the appropriate protections around cost overrun and key nuclear risks and generate the appropriate risk-adjusted returns for this type of activity. And as such, if we pursue an opportunity like Santee Cooper, we would look to structure our investment to ensure that we have appropriate protections around those key risks, particularly cost overrun risk. And that's something that absolutely is part of our current thinking in terms of that opportunity.

And our next question comes from the line of Robert Hope with Scotiabank.

Maybe to follow up on Sean's question. When you think about the build-out of the next phase of nuclear with the partnership with the U.S. government, could Brookfield and BEP potentially be a source of capital there? And under kind of what other framework or protections would you look to be a potential buyer of, we'll call it, backstopped reactors by the U.S. government?

Rob, thank you for the question. Perhaps to break it into two parts. We feel that Brookfield Renewable is extremely well positioned to play a major and significant role in the growth of nuclear power, both in the United States and around the world. And that comes from a couple of factors, but maybe to name a few of them. One, our ownership of Westinghouse. We own the global nuclear champion. As Jen mentioned, 60% of reactors around the world run on Westinghouse technology. Westinghouse already services more than half the global nuclear reactor fleet today. We are very much in the flow of almost every nuclear power generation facility around the world. Secondly, our relationships with the largest offtakers and consumers of power and our ability to source offtake for these projects, our access to capital and ability to potentially fund these build-outs and then Brookfield's long-established history as a disciplined developer and constructor of large infrastructure and power projects. What we would say today is we are -- we do feel that we are well positioned to pursue opportunities in this space. When it comes to our partnership with the U.S. government, as previously mentioned, the U.S. government is essentially taking the position that they will backstop everything to get these projects started. But we do think over time, these facilities probably do find a path to landing in the hands of more natural owners, whether that be utilities or IPPs in the market. In terms of Brookfield's ability to invest and get the protections that we would need in order to be comfortable investing in nuclear power, there's a number of ways that we can do this. You can share cost overrun burdens with the offtakers, i.e., they pay a higher PPA price if the facility overruns. You can share cost overrun burdens with the technology and construction suppliers. And you can also arrange financing that provides incremental liquidity in the event of cost overruns. So those are the types of levers that we're looking at when considering are we comfortable investing in the construction and ownership of nuclear, again, ensuring we're only going to do this if we think we can get the right protections. But based on what we're seeing in the market, we do think there will be considerable opportunities for us in this space.

All right. Appreciate that. And then maybe pivoting over to the Microsoft Renewable Energy framework. Can you walk us through the factors that led to contracting the existing hydro asset versus building new wind and solar? And could we see some additional hydro deals with Microsoft?

So our Microsoft framework agreement from a couple of years ago, always considered the inclusion of hydro. So this does not feel overly unnatural. And could more hydro be introduced in the future? Absolutely. What we think it speaks more to is just the broader dynamic we're seeing around demand for our hydro generation, whether it be through our hydro-specific framework agreement with Google or the recent contracting of a contract, a hydro facility in PJM directly with Microsoft. So our framework agreement always included other technologies, including hydro, and we could see more of it in the future, absolutely.

Our next question comes from the line of Mark Jarvi with CIBC.

Connor, you mentioned having the U.S. government backstop the new builds. So would they bear all the cost overruns? And I guess since that framework has been identified, have you had engagement with other stakeholders like EPC firms, utilities and offtakers to say whether or not they're on board with that framework agreement to get moving ahead?

So I think we need to separate out two things there. In the situation under the U.S. government partnership, Westinghouse is not an owner of those facilities. We are simply the provider of the engineering design and technology services. We are essentially the critical component provider to the build-out of those facilities. And the cost overrun risk and the financing responsibilities of those facilities sits entirely with the U.S. government. And that is the construct of the facility. Could that create opportunities in the future should the U.S. government look to bring partners into specific projects, perhaps. But that has not been discussed or agreed at this point. It's only in context of something like Santee Cooper, which is a live opportunity outside the construct of our partnership with the U.S. government, where we're considering ways to socialize cost overruns to get the protections that we are seeking that would get us comfortable for investment. And in that regard, in terms of conversations with construction companies, technology suppliers, off-takers, financing providers, yes, there has been a very warm reception to this idea of everyone participating to reduce the burden, but create a large growth opportunity for a large set of market participants.

No, I wasn't trying that you would take the risk, but there's been hesitancy by other participants to maybe get involved because they don't want to shoulder the risk. I'm just curious if the U.S. government has alleviated all the concerns for other stakeholders potentially.

I wouldn't say it's our job to speak on behalf of the U.S. government, but maybe to be a little bit more helpful. We are obviously very central to a lot of the discussions around new nuclear in the United States right now, given our position with Westinghouse. And we would see the tone from construction providers, technology providers, offtake providers and even capital providers, including Department of Energy and Loan Program Office of the U.S. government, all have been very constructive and positive of the idea of participating in the build-out of new nuclear with some socialization of cost overrun protections. And we -- obviously, nothing has been signed, and we're early stages on these opportunities, but the demand and willingness from the necessary stakeholders is very robust.

And in terms of moving from the term sheet to buy an agreement, is that something that could be done by year-end? Or is that sort of mid- to late first quarter of 2026?

So perhaps just to be clear, are you speaking about the U.S. government opportunity or...

Yes, yes, yes, the government opportunity, yes.

Yes, sure. So we expect that to be done within 90 days of the signing -- of the announcement 2 weeks ago. So I guess that positions us to right around year-end.

And our next question comes from the line of Mark Strouse with JPMorgan.

Connor, I appreciate you don't want to speak on behalf of the U.S. government. But to the extent that you're able to share this, do you think the government is more committed to the $80 billion backstop? Or are they more committed to the 10 reactors? Basically, I appreciate that you're not taking the risk of the overruns -- probably, the potential cost overruns. But to the extent that there are overruns, would the $80 billion be kind of a fixed number, but there would just be fewer reactors that get built?

So our agreement is around $80 billion of reactor contracts. That would be the initial order prior to any cost overruns. But maybe to take a step back and here, again, it's not our position to speak on behalf of the U.S. government. But I think we can say with confidence this government is very committed to catalyzing the growth of nuclear power generation and the supply chain that supports it in the United States. They are not -- I would be extremely confident in saying they are not focused on a specific number of reactors. They are not overly focused on, is it $80 billion or $82 billion or $78 billion. What they want to see is the U.S. be the leading provider of nuclear power generation in the world. And [ Natalie ] is going to lead to a build-out of both domestic supply chain and domestic nuclear power generation reactors and also a very meaningful increase in the export of U.S. nuclear technology to other regions around the world. One thing, and apologies for being redundant that we feel we cannot stress enough about our partnership with the U.S. government is, yes, the $80 billion of reactor orders is very beneficial to Westinghouse. We're thrilled with that part of the agreement. But what this really does is kickstart the flywheel of nuclear power generation growth, both in the United States and around the world. And we expect it will lead to the development of a significant number of reactors outside of this partnership with the U.S. government, with Westinghouse beating the leading technology provider of those new build reactors on a global basis. And that's in Europe, that's around the world in addition to the $80 billion of reactors from the U.S. government.

Got it. And then if I can ask a follow-up. Just -- I appreciate what you said earlier about the revenue during the different three stages. Can you talk about how we should be thinking about the margin during each of those stages, either on EBITDA or FFO?

Sure. So Westinghouse, the way to think about it is the Energy Systems division of Westinghouse typically operates at, at least a 20% margin during the development and construction period of a facility. That may fluctuate year-to-year. But over the life of this facility, about 20% margins historically in the Energy Systems division, we expect those margins to go up with economies of scale on the back of an order of this size. But historically, it's been about 20% margins, and we would expect that to almost be the floor going forward.

And our next question comes from the line of Baltej Sidhu with National Bank of Canada.

Connor, have there been any changes in your perspective regarding the eligibility of projects in your U.S. development pipeline through 2029 for federal tax credits?

Certainly. So two key points there. Obviously, there has been greater clarity around safe harboring. And as we mentioned, I believe, on our previous call, we have safe harbored the entirety of our U.S. development pipeline out to 2029. We feel very comfortable about our position there. The second consideration there is obviously in and around FEOC and there really isn't much more clarity at this time around the specifics of the FEOC definitions. We continue to monitor. We do expect as those definitions are released and in the event that those definitions do become stricter, similar to other regulatory changes, those changes will likely favor large players such as ourselves who are well positioned with our global supply chains, our centralized procurement functions and our relationships with domestic U.S. suppliers. So what we would say is on the safe harboring side, we feel in a great position. And on the FEOC side, we continue to wait, and we'll react accordingly. But similar to other regulatory changes, we expect it to be manageable within our portfolio.

Great. And just on the asset rotation side of the business, just given the need for power and coupled with the current policy and macro backdrop, how are you seeing valuations trend in the private markets relative to the public? And if you can give any color on jurisdiction, no breakdown, whether it's Europe and rest of the world, that would be great.

Thank you for the question. In no uncertain terms, the demand and valuations for recently built contracted high-quality operating cash-generative renewables assets is significantly higher in the private markets than the public markets right now. And we would classify the demand for those assets as very robust. We feel perhaps that we've increased our capital recycling activities in that regard over the last 12 months. I would say we're just getting started. We're in the early innings of accelerating our capital recycling opportunities and capital recycling activities to take advantage of that dynamic as one, we are bringing more new build projects through COD each year through our growing development capabilities; and two, a growing demand for acquisition of these assets at attractive prices in the broader market. Obviously, this quarter, we've done some recycling of assets, particularly in the United States. Through Neoen, we've been doing it on a global basis. We would say with a strong degree of confidence given processes that are currently ongoing, we would expect to see significant asset recycling activities in North America, Western Europe, Australia and India, I would say, over the next 2 to 3 quarters. That's probably where the bulk of our monetization activity is currently planned.

And our next question comes from the line of Benjamin Pham with BMO.

I had a couple of follow-up questions on the nuclear deployment strategy. Can you talk about potentially in the next 5 years context, what do you think nuke is going to be as a percentage of your business? Is it potentially a new business line that you can break out? And maybe just related to that, it might be a bit of an odd question just given what you mentioned. Is there any sort of like internal constraints or ESG constraints on how big that exposure could be for renewable?

There's certainly no constraints as we do across our broader business, we'll allocate capital to where we see the best risk-adjusted returns across our business. And if that happens to be in nuclear, we could see ourselves overallocate to that space. I would highlight, yes, there were a lot of headlines around nuclear in the quarter. I think that's probably an understatement. However, our core businesses of hydro are producing perhaps better than they ever have and the demand we're seeing for contracting there is certainly at its highest level that we've ever seen. And our wind and solar business also continues to accelerate. Today, when we look at the FFO of Brookfield, I think Westinghouse and nuclear represents about 5%. We would expect that to grow over time. It's got a long way to run before it overtakes something like our hydro FFO that is north of 40%. So could we see nuclear grow from its current position? Absolutely. But it's going to grow in proportion to a business that's seeing growth across essentially every sector that we operate.

Okay. Got it. And then switching to the Santee opportunity. Can you talk about -- I know you're looking to de-risk construction as much as you can. But can you talk high level just for the nuclear opportunity, where it fits in the target return? Is it that 12% to 15%? Are you targeting above that? And then related to that, how do you think about the synergies of Westinghouse potentially on the services side in a total return?

So across Brookfield Renewable, we target 12% to 15% returns on a blended basis. Obviously, our long-term contracted operating assets are probably at the low end or potentially even below that. When we look to do construction and development, even if it's in solar, we target north of 15% return. So if we're looking at nuclear, we are certainly going to be well and meaningfully above our 12% to 15% return target for the business for that sector. So absolutely higher returns relative to some of the other asset classes that we focus on. In terms of Westinghouse and what it provides for us, Westinghouse as a stand-alone business is extremely well positioned to participate in the growth of nuclear in a number of ways. Even if a reactor is not a Westinghouse technology, Westinghouse is likely to benefit from its Fuel Fabrication business and its operating Plant Services business, even if it's not a Westinghouse technology. So any growth in the Nuclear segment around the world, Westinghouse benefits from. Obviously, the new build of Westinghouse reactors is incredibly beneficial to Westinghouse, which is why we're so excited about some of the ongoing opportunities. But then thirdly, there are very few people, if any, who have the knowledge and experience of Westinghouse when assessing new nuclear opportunities around the world. We think our ownership of Westinghouse provides an undeniable competitive advantage and expertise when we assess new opportunities in this space. However, when we do assess those opportunities, we would not blend Westinghouse's economics with the returns on capital that we would expect to generate as a owner and constructor of a new facility. Westinghouse would have to make an appropriate margin on its services, and we would have to make an appropriate return on capital. We would not socialize those two things in order to justify a transaction.

Okay. Got it. That's what I was thinking. I just wanted to clarify. Maybe one last thing then. I know it's -- [ nuke ] 5% today, it's got a lot of ways to go. Do you -- but do you think though, like dollar for dollar, you look at the new set of things, isn't in a sense that the best reward right now? Because it sounds like the returns are above your targets and then we're -- not a lot of comps out there, but we're seeing new exposure trade something like 20, 30x EBITDA.

Similar to how we approach every part of our business, we're going to take a long-term view to value creation. And there is certainly a lot of excitement around nuclear around the world. We think a lot of it is warranted due to the growing demand for clean, dispatchable baseload power and nuclear as one of, if not the only incremental scale provider of that type of electricity. But we're only going to put money to work where we see attractive returns on capital. We obviously will look to capitalize on opportunities in the market if we're seeing great prices for our assets or our businesses. But right now, we think we are in the early innings of a multi-decade build-out of nuclear power generation that fortunately, through our ownership of Westinghouse and now our partnership with the U.S. government, we think we are in the pole position on. And our focus here is capitalizing on that position and driving long-term earnings growth in our business for years and decades to come. And we think that's the best way to create huge amounts of value to BEP in the future.

I'll now hand the call back over to CEO, Connor Teskey, for any closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for joining our Q3 earnings call and your continued support and interest in Brookfield Renewable. We look forward to speaking to you at the end of the next quarter for our year-end 2025 results. Thank you, and have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating. This does conclude today's program, and you may now disconnect.