Jeffery Norman: Hey, Rupert, it’s Jeff. And we’re definitely seeing flexibility, I would say, the demand for renewable energy is very inelastic, but the pricing is quite elastic. And so we’ve been finding as we go to contract new assets that there is a recognition that CapEx has moved up and the cost of capital has moved up and counterparties who want the green energy are willing to give fair returns for that.
Darren Myers: Yeah, and, Rupert, we have been internally increasing our target returns over the last year and continue to make sure we’re having projects, that we deliver projects above those targeted returns commensurate with our cost of capital.
Rupert Merer: And when you look at closing out the acquisition of the 50% stake in those projects, you don’t have today, how material is that cost to you, and what kind of returns can you expect on that?
Darren Myers: Yeah. So the cost — those projects, when they’re in the JV during the construction cycle, have predominantly financed through construction capital and construction loans. And so when we acquire our 50% of the equity, that’s a relatively thin slice to acquire the portion of the equity, and then we use tax equity proceeds and our balance sheet to repay the rest of the debt.
Rupert Merer: Okay, great. So not material. And then secondly, Chris, you mentioned that you see an opportunity to streamline operations in the Regulated utility. Can you give us a little more color on that? How significant is the opportunity? And is it really an opportunity to create headroom for investment into rate base? Meaning that you’re really looking at benefits to ratepayers, or are there any direct benefits to shareholders here as well?
Christopher Huskilson: Yeah. I think it comes in both categories. And so, first of all, as I’ve said many times, the utilities have been cobbled together and so there’s quite a bit of opportunity to run them in a different way than they run today. Fundamentally, things like the platform, the customer first platform we’re putting in place, are giving us visibility into, into the business that we haven’t had in the past. And so when we look at that, that does allow us to see opportunities to reduce the overall cost of the business. And so that then tends to allow us to invest in other things that are good for customer service, and are good ultimately, for things like net zero type investments. So it’s an opportunity, I think, where we can, at the same time as we improve customer service and customer response, also get to the point where we can put some more good solid investments in that are good for the long-term of the infrastructure.
So that’s the way I look at it and, and I’ve kind of now gone where in fact, by next week we’ll have gone to all the utilities, I think, and we’re absolutely seeing opportunity in each and every one of them. And so when we look at it from that perspective, there’s going to be a great opportunity for us to put the capital we’ve been talking about, which on average will get around $1 billion a year to work in the business. And so we’re quite excited about that.
Rupert Merer: Great. And just a quick follow-up there. Where do you see the best opportunities for investing in growth in your regulated assets?
Christopher Huskilson: Well, as I said, I think it’s — it’s a combination of a few things. So, first of all on the service side, making sure that we have the absolute best visibility towards the service we’re providing to customers. We’ve made some very serious improvements in that over the past year, and that’s through investments in our, in our customer-first project, which is truly an end-to-end application tool that allows us to serve our customers much better. So, that’s one example. But as well as we think about how we’re going to continue to implement our net zero outcome, that’s going to also provide opportunities. So things like making some of our gas assets more, investing in our gas assets so that they’re more flexible.
