Good morning and welcome to the Ormat Technologies’ First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. After today’s presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this event is being recorded. I’d now like to turn the conference over to Alec Steinberg with Alpha IR. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Hosting the call today are Doron Blachar, Chief Executive Officer; Assi Ginzburg, Chief Financial Officer; and Smadar Lavi, Vice President of Investor Relations and ESG Planning and Reporting. Before beginning, we would like to remind that information provided during this call may contain forward-looking statements relating to current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about future events that are forward-looking, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements generally relate to the Company’s plans, objectives and expectations for future operations and are based on management’s current estimates and projections, future results or trends. Actual future results may differ materially from those projected as a result of certain risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, please see Risk Factors as described in Ormat Technologies’ annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q that are filed with the SEC. In addition, during the call, the Company will present non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures and management’s reasons for presenting such information is set forth in the press release that was issued last night as well as in the slides posted on the website. Because these measures are not calculated in accordance with GAAP, they should not be considered in isolation from the financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP. Before I turn the call over to management, I would like to remind everyone that a slide presentation accompanying this call may be accessed on the Company’s website at ormat.com, under the presentation link that’s found on the Investor Relations tab. With all that said, I would now like to turn the call over to Doron Blachar. Doron, the call is all yours.

Thank you, Alec, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We’re pleased to report a strong start to the year with impressive net income and adjusted EBITDA growth year-over-year supported mainly by our electricity sector. Our operating income and adjusted EBITDA saw significant improvement of 17.9% and 14.5%, respectively. And our net income increased 57.5% as income tax was positively impacted by the Inflation Reduction Act. We attribute this success to our strategic growth initiatives from last year, as well as our operational performance and the regulatory tailwind that allowed us to maximize shareholder value. Our Electricity segment continued to lead the way with strong performance that demonstrated the benefit of our ongoing portfolio expansion strategy. In our Product segment, the step-down in revenue compared to the first quarter last year was largely due to the timing we made in recognizing revenue throughout the year, which we expect to accelerate in the remaining of the year. Our storage segment’s quarterly performance was negatively impacted by an overall reduction in energy rates, which impacted our result in the PJM and CAISO facility. As we enter the second quarter, we completed construction and started operation of two new energy storage facilities, and we are near completion of additional two facilities with a total capacity of 64 megawatt, 64 megawatt hour. We expect the overall positive momentum we saw in Q1 to continue in the rest of 2023 with the IRA providing additional benefits to the tax credits available for geothermal energy storage projects, which we expect will positively impact our bottom line. We remain on track with our full year guidance for 2023 and capacity expansion goals for 2025. As we look to the future, we are confident in the continued demand for renewable energy and we expect to benefit from it in all our three segments. Now, before I provide further updates on our operations and future plans, I will turn the call over to Assi to review the financial results. Assi?

Thank you, Doron. Let me start my review of our financial highlights on slide 5. Total revenue for the first quarter was $185.2 million, up roughly 1% year-over-year, mostly driven by growth in our Electricity segment. First quarter 2023 total gross profit was $76.1 million. This resulted in a gross margin of 41.1%, up from the gross margin of 38.1% in the first quarter of 2022. Net income attributed to company stakeholders was $29 million or $0.51 per diluted share in the quarter. This compares favorably to the results of $18.4 million or $0.33 per diluted share in the same period last year. The 57.5% increase in net income was mainly the result of a strong increase in operating income, driven by new capacity added in the Electricity segment in the second half of 2022 and the contribution of the IRA benefit to both, our new geothermal and storage facilities. Adjusted EBITDA of $123.5 million increased 14.5% in the first quarter, compared $107.9 million in the first quarter last year. The increase was largely driven by 17.9% increase in operating income as a result of the new assets added, further supported by the impact of the PTC generated in the quarter. Breaking the revenues down to the segment level. Electricity segment revenue increased 4.8% to $170.3 million. This increase was driven by contribution from Ormat’s portfolio expansion efforts in 2022, mainly from CD4, Tungsten, and solar facility, as well as from the successful repowering of Heber 2 in the Heber complex. These drivers of revenue growth were partially offset by lower energy rates at Puna. In the Product segment, revenue decreased by 31.4% to $10 million and represented 5.4% of the total consolidated revenue in the first quarter. The year-over-year decline was mainly due to the timing of revenue recognition…

Thank you, Assi. Turning to slide 10 for a look at our Electricity segment operating portfolio. Generation growth continues to be positively supported by the addition of CD4, Tungsten, Heber 2 repower and the new solar facilities including with the Wister Solar. This was partially offset by lower generation at our old facilities that are mainly constrained by heat availability from the natural gas pipeline. In addition, to the end of the first quarter, we added 31 megawatts to the Electricity segment from the new North Valley power plant and the completion of the solar facility adjacent to our Brady geothermal power plant and reached total electricity portfolio of 1.10 gigawatts. Moving to slide 11, our Puna geothermal power plant has recently achieved a generating capacity of approximately 28 megawatts, which is a significant improvement from the 23 to 25 megawatts range in the fourth quarter of 2022. While prices for our electricity generation remain healthy, they were lower than last year. As for the product expansion, we agreed with HELCO on new terms of the PPA that are more favorable to Ormat and we are awaiting approval from the Hawaii PUC. In regard to our Olkaria power plant in Kenya, we have made progress in our ongoing efforts to increase the complex capacity. We have raised the capacity of approximately 127 megawatts, up from 125 megawatts in the fourth quarter of 2022. With respect to Heber 1, the new power plant is nearing completion and expect to be on line by the end of the second quarter. The new facilities together with the repowering of the Heber 2 is expected to bring the total complex capacity to 89 megawatts and improve its efficiency and profitability. Turning to slide 12 for an update on our backlog which stands at $147…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The first question is from Noah Kaye with Oppenheimer.

Maybe we can start with the Heber 1 repowering. Congratulations on getting that done timely. I think if we went back a year ago and looked at the impact from the fire and look at where you are now, impressive what you’ve been able to do with that complex. Maybe talk through how that process has played out. What you’ve actually done to be able to affect the repowering?

So, as I reminder Heber 2 started already to operate in Q4 of last year, really throughout December. And Heber 1 is expected any day now to have the COD, should be during the Q2, before the end of the quarter. Heber 1 used to be a 40-megawatt power plant and 50% of the power plant was Ormat equipment and 50% was basically Toshiba or Mitsubishi equipment, it was steam equipment. During the fire, the steam equipment were all obsolete. And during the last year, we were able to basically reinstall all of the units. We’re not going to use even the old unit that Ormat used to operate. And then the further the new capacity of Heber between Heber 1 and Heber 2 and the surrounding facilities will be close to 90 mega. And we also expect it to happen in a much better profitability, because the cost to operate a brand new plant is much better than the cost of operate an older steam plant.

Very helpful. I think it opens up a broader question about repowering opportunities across the portfolio. I don’t know whether ITC benefits would factor into that decision. But perhaps you can comment to PTC -- ITC, I should say. Perhaps you can come into the repowering opportunity that you see today? Any potential quantification of that would be helpful.

So, as you said, the Heber facility was repowered. We’ve done a similar project in our Ormesa facility and the G2 in Mammoth and in other sites. So, we currently don’t have any big repowering project, like a Heber in our facilities. We have smaller one, like Dixie Valley that you see and in Guatemala. So, we do have a smaller project. Beowawe is another project that we’re actually doing -- call it for repower basically taking an old facility that is doing 9, 10 megawatts and will generate over 20 megawatts when it comes on line in the middle of next year. And that’s the big repower that we have today.

And maybe the last one, just on the Puna, PPA restarting, nice to hear that move forward. You mentioned it’s more favorable for the Company. Can you just sort of dimension for us in what way is it more favorable? I know that for the PUC, there was a desire to get away from linkage to fossil fuel prices. Talk about why this is more favorable for the Company?

Actually, Puna is another big repower that will resume basically -- once we have the PPA, we’re going to replace the entire facility within new facility that will come on line. Since you’re obviously following us over the time, you’ve seen that we’ve invested quite a lot of efforts and drilling into Puna. None of these costs are basically embedded into the new and updated PPA. So, the PPA is better for us because it takes into account higher cost that we had in order to drill and find resources to support the 46 megawatt facility. And we finished it -- and they filed it with the PUC. And we hope that Q3 we’ll get -- middle of Q3 we’ll get the approval from the PUC in Hawaii and we can move forward with the project.

The next question is from Justin Clare with ROTH MKM.

First off here, just wanted to see if you could talk about the visibility you have into growing your geothermal capacity beyond the projects under development that you have already identified in the presentation. When might you be ready to share additional details on projects that you have in the pipeline? And I’m just wondering at this point in time, beyond the projects identified, are you developing additional projects that will have CODs potentially in 2024, or are they likely to be 2025 or sometime beyond?

Thank you, Justin. We have approximately 40 sites now that are listed in our 10-K, traditional prospects that we have globally, most of them in the U.S., in Nevada and California. We started this year a core hole program; we wanted to drill in three location core holes in Nevada. And the plan for the core holes, seven location core hole plan where we will drill before we start to drill two side -- with real core hole. This will be the next level of development that we will have. But they will come assuming everything is successful in their ‘26, ‘27 timeframe horizon. That’s in the U.S. In Indonesia, we’re drilling in two locations. We just responded to a new tender that was issued by the Indonesian government and utility -- the state owned utility, and we’re competing with Pertamina and Chevron on the site. And we have additional location that we are in various stages of negotiation as part of the exploration. In Indonesia, the process takes a bit longer. So it’s maybe a little later, but there’s definitely many potentials that we’re working today for the next round of development beyond what we have listed in our presentation.

And then, I was wondering if you could just update us on what you’re seeing in terms of the trend in PPA pricing for geothermal assets, maybe in the U.S., but then also in other markets. It sounds like the PPA signed for the Puna project was favorable. But maybe you can just comment on what you’re seeing more broadly.

We see a continuous demand for a geothermal project. I can tell you -- to follow-up on your previous question, we have been -- actually been asked already by different utilities and CPAs on a signing PPA, so the end of the 2020 and maybe to the beginning of the 2030. So we see quite a lot of demand. And when demand is high and the number of projects are not very high, prices go up. So, we continue to see increased pricing in the U.S. Indonesia has set -- the other locations we’re operating has set a presidential tariff that ranges between $95 to $110, $120 per megawatt, depends on the location of the site. So, these are also good PPA pricing.

And then maybe just one more for me. Shifting to the Product segment. Revenues declined a bit quarter-over-quarter. I was wondering if you could share why the revenues declined in that segment. Was this just happened to be the timing for product deliveries, or do you see any issue in supply chain or logistics? And then, also on the margin profile. You indicated that margins in that segments are expected to increase through the rest of the year here. I was wondering where could we see gross margins for the Product segment in Q2, Q3 or Q4 moving through the year here.

So, as we mentioned in our brief remarks, we expect the full year revenue to be on the high end of the revenue as basically we were able to have a sufficient backlog to almost guarantee, almost the revenue for the year. And the reason why we were behind this quarter is -- was just the way we decided to allocate work between internal work, building projects for Ormat and working for third-party. With respect to margin, I think that on an annual base Ormat in this environment should be somewhere between 15% to 20% of gross margin. These are the types of margin that we should have based on the combination of the some of the contracts that have lower margins that are coming from 2022 and the ones that are tracking with higher margins that was signed in early 2023. So, when you combine between them and also some of our fixed costs, we should come somewhere between 15% to 20% margin maybe on the higher end towards the end of the year.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Bank of America.

Look, I wanted to talk about California first and foremost. Obviously, California capacity prices are up very meaningfully in the last few months here and obviously year-over-year in a big way. I know that you principally operate a contractor portfolio, but I just wanted to get a sense as to how that might impact even modest amounts of exposure in the next few years, as you might see some step-up from that, as well as does that actually change your development focus to fixate on California and the opportunity there, just given how much more robust the IRRs are conceivably between, first, the higher capacity and secondly, IRA, if you will?

Hey, Julien, thank you. We see the demand is very strongly in California as you say, but we also see a very strong demand in Nevada, that is coming from the basic requirement to go to renewable. As preparation for this growth that we started to see a couple of years ago with the resolution of the CPUC, we have more than doubled our exploration efforts. In the past, we’ve been drilling in two to three locations at the maximum. Today we’re drilling in five locations in parallel and targeting to go up to seven locations. We see the benefits that we get in the higher PPA pricing and the IRA as you mentioned. We’re working the geothermal and PTC is up until the end of ‘24. And we hope they will be extended. But regardless, we are operating in the context of getting to start a construction, according to the IRS requirements by the end of the year. So most of our projects coming on line in the following four years will enjoy the IRA, PTCs, even if they will not be extended for geothermal. So, we’ve put a lot of efforts into the U.S., mainly in the resource and exploration phase. And as I said before, we are drilling a -- drilled already in three new locations in Nevada four holes, planning to build another for this year, in the beginning of next year. And this will be the base for the next wave of projects that if exploration will be successful will be part of our growth going forward.

And if you can elaborate briefly, if you don’t mind. Key question is around the ITCs and PTCs recognized through the forecast period. I think you guys had 150 million in the current year here. How does that flow through over the next few years? Just what does that amount to per year? If you can try to give some sense of visibility. I know these things are moving around a little bit.

Julien, this is Assi. Thank you for the question. So first, the ITC is an outcome of the amount of CapEx and the timing of the COD of the storage assets. This year, the amount of assets that we’re bringing on line, we expect somewhere around $15 million to $18 million of ITC benefits. All of which should flow to the reduction in income tax and reduce the tax rate for the companies, similar to what we saw this quarter. When we look to next year, we have two large projects, the larger of one, of course is Bottleneck, which cost us around $105 million, $110 million. It looks like based on preliminary analysis, that Bottleneck will be entitled to 40% ITC, which means under this scenario, only Bottleneck next year should give us compared to the 50 million and 80 million this year, 40 million. So next year ITC benefit will be more than double this year. Because in addition to Bottleneck, we also have as you can see on the list, Montague, which also we expect to get around $6 million of ITC. So, on ITC net income next year, we see a boost and we see roughly $45 million of ITC proceed. When we look at tax equity transaction, we do every while -- next year, it won’t be as big as what we saw this year, it will be equal to somewhere around North Valley. And we should add around $30 million, $35 million of proceeds. So between the two next year, we expect around $75 million of ITC and PTC proceeds. In addition to some other PTCs that will generate during the year from some of the solar projects, so, it’s probably going to be around $80 million. But the P&L impact in 2024 will be much higher. The cash impact will be lower, but the P&L impact will be much higher. So, we expect a very good net income exchange.

And that’s because you flow the ITCs pretty much instantaneously, right? When we’re talking these numbers, that’s not necessarily delayed or staggered over some period of time, right, just to confirm with you, right? The numbers that you quoted are flowing through the P&L?

The ITC proceeds, as I quoted, flying to the P&L, you are correct. The PTC flying to the cash flow and then amortize over usually 9 to 10 years through the tax equity line item. And you can see that this quarter there was $4.8 million more than the same period last year. It’s because we are producing more PTCs. We expect to sell them either through tax equity transactions or through PTC transfer transaction. We have seen the market moving to a higher level and values on PTCs. It started with $0.89 -- $0.80 to $0.85. Now we’re getting quotes up to $0.92 on the dollar for PTCs. Hopefully Bank of America will be buying from us more PTCs is in the future.

There we go. Indeed. All right. Thank you guys very much. I appreciate it. All right.

Thank you.

The next question is from Jeff Osborne with TD Cowen.

Just a couple of questions on my side. I think, Assi, you’ve given some hints or breadcrumbs over the past two earnings calls about some of the leverage in the model and new projects that are flowing through, through ‘24. In response to Julien question, you talked a lot about the tax side. But I was wondering if you could talk specifically on EBITDA as you get a full year of Puna breakneck some of the other projects or Bottleneck, is there a way of quantifying? What sort of incremental EBITDA you have in ‘24, either through the rebuilds of the two facilities or some of the new projects?

So first, already last quarter, we meant that the assets that will be built in 2023 and will be operated in 2023, will add roughly a $30 million of adjusted EBITDA to 2024. Puna will only be upgraded in 2025. In addition to that, there are new assets that will be operated in 2024, partially, which are Bottleneck, Montague on the storage side, combined probably over a $50 million of EBITDA. And then, we also have the upgrade of Beowawe, largest project in 2024, which will add few more million dollars of EBITDA. So, the assets that will be COD, hopefully, as early as we can, this year, should add to the following year around $30 million of EBITDA, which means, if in 2023, our guidance are for $480 million to $510 million of EBITDA, the year after, we should benefit by additional $30 million from the assets that were already paid by the Company. And then, we’ll start adding the new assets for 2024.

And then, maybe just one follow-up. I think it was on Justin’s question about the product gross margins. I think you mentioned, the Turkish support has come back. I think they have an election this weekend, if I’m not mistaken. But I’m just curious, A, two-part question, how political that process was? If the outcome of the election changes, is there any risk to that program? And then, B, I think, historically, your Turkish margins in particular were pretty depressed relative to other countries. So, I’m just curious, as Turkey starts resuming orders if there’s any risks to the 15% to 20% number they talked about?

SO, the elections in Turkey is on May 14th, the new tariff was signed last week. We cannot predict who’s going to win the election, and obviously what the winner will do following the election. But what -- this feed in tariff was due for a long period of time. So, the market did stop, I think the government in Turkey saw that the market stopped because of the feed in tariff that was initiated a few years ago. And the discussion on improving the feed in tariff was a very long discussion. So, we hope that it will not be changed or reduced. I can tell you that unlike previous year, the requirement is for product -- a lot of production in Turkey. And as you know, we have a facility in Turkey and we know subcontractors that can deliver the required goods in Turkey. So, we’re very encouraged that the feed in tariff came in. We’re waiting for the election. We hope that after the election, the economy in Turkey, regardless who wins, will be more stable and stronger that will allow the local developers to this project. We’ve already been approached by multiple of them. But similar to what you asked, everybody’s waiting for the elections on May 14th. Margins in Turkey, in the past had ups and downs. There are a few projects with very nice margins, other with lower margin. We do expect significant competition on the supply in Turkey. But if it’s going to be a big market, I’m sure we’ll be able to take a large portion of it with good margins.

We have no further questions at this time. I’ll turn it over to the presenters for any closing comments.

Thank you, operator. Thank you all for joining us and your continued support. We look forward to continue and deliver to all our shareholders -- all our stakeholders a profitable growth. Thank you, all.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.