Good morning and welcome to Genie Energy’s First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today’s presentation by Genie Energy’s management, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Brian Siegel of Hayden IR.

Thank you, operator. With me today are Michael Stein, Genie Energy’s CEO; and Avi Goldin, Genie Energy’s CFO, who will discuss operational and financial results. Any forward-looking statements made during this conference call, whether general or specific in nature, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those statements. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to those discussed in the reports that we file periodically with the SEC. Genie assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements that we have made or may make, or to update the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those that we forecast. During the remarks, management makes reference to adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure. Management believes that its measure of adjusted EBITDA provides useful information to both management and investors that supplement our core operating results. Our earnings release, which is posted on the genie.com IR page, includes a reconciliation of consolidated adjusted EBITDA to its nearest comparable GAAP measures, consolidated net income and income from operations for all periods presented. In addition, adjusted EBITDA for applicable segments are reconciled in the earnings release to the respective segments’ income from operations for all periods presented. I will now turn the conference over to Michael Stein, Genie’s Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Brian. Welcome to Genie Energy’s first quarter earnings call. As those of you who have been following us know, in 2022, we achieved remarkable financial results. Those results were driven by our ability to be nimble with customer acquisition and renewals while our risk management team did an excellent job managing market volatility. It was a banner year, but it came at a cost. Throughout 2021 and 2022, we saw the size of our customer base shrink as, due to extraordinary volatility in the wholesale energy markets, we scaled back our customer acquisition efforts. However, during that period, we repeatedly stated that when the volatility subsided, we would be ready to return to growth. In the first quarter of 2023, we delivered on that promise. Allow me to elaborate. In the first quarter, our REP business, GRE, increased its meter base by 63,000, an increase of 22% over last year, and the customer base grew by 92,000 RCEs, a 35% increase from last year. With this increase, in just one quarter, we were able to climb to within 3,000 RCEs of the highest domestic RCE count in the company’s history; meanwhile, our SG&A expense decreased compared to the year-ago quarter. Financial results were also excellent. While not at the level of last year’s Q1’s extraordinary performance, we were able to deliver the next best Q1 bottom line results in GRE’s history. Looking ahead, we expect solid growth and strong financial results to continue in the second quarter. Genie Renewables, or GREW, increased revenue reflecting our increased services to third-party customers. Additionally, we expanded our resource investment to support our vertically integrated strategy to develop and own solar power generation projects, which led to negative adjusted EBITDA for the segment. Of note, we’ve moved closer to notice to proceed,…

Thank you, Michael, and thanks to everyone on the call for joining us this morning. My remarks today cover our financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2023. Throughout my remarks, I will primarily compare first quarter 2023 results to the first quarter of 2022 to remove from consideration the seasonal factors that are characteristic of our retain energy businesses. The first quarter is typically characterized by seasonally elevated levels of per-meter electricity and gas consumption as it includes the year’s peak heating months in most of our REP service areas. Genie’s first quarter financial results reflected our retail businesses’ very strong underlying fundamentals and continued investment to build out our renewables platform. Last year and with the elevated levels of volatility in the global energy markets, we disclosed that we generated stronger than usual margins at GRE by moderating our customer acquisition engine to reduce consumption. In addition to lowering our customer acquisition spend, this enabled us to monetize a portion of our forward commodity hedges and reduce our effective supply costs, but also had the impact of reducing the size of our customer bucket. We said at the time that we’d work to rebuild our customer base when market conditions warranted, and we were, as Michael discussed, remarkably successful in the first quarter, adding 92,000 RCEs. We accomplished this without increasing acquisition expense by aggressively pursuing lower cost marketing channels. From a balance sheet perspective, our strong operating results this quarter enabled us to further fortify our financial position even as we continued to return value to stockholders through quarterly common stock dividends and redemption of our preferred stock. Now let’s look at the quarter’s results in more detail. First quarter consolidated revenue increased 23% to $105 million from $86 million in the year ago quarter,…

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator instructions] This concludes our question-and-answer session and conference call. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.