DC DataCentreDebate.ca

First question, every time

Power: where does it come from, and who pays if the answer changes?

A gigawatt-scale project needs a public power plan, not a shrug toward natural gas and a promise that somebody has it handled.

Start with the load

A one-gigawatt data centre is not just “another customer.” It is a large industrial load. Alberta can build power. Alberta also needs to know who pays, when it arrives, and what happens in the meantime.

1 GWApproximate Meta Sturgeon project load discussed publicly
10,316 MW2025 average Alberta Internal Load
12,785 MW2025 winter peak
23,242 MW2025 installed generation capacity
1 GW project
1,000 MW
Average load
10,316 MW
Winter peak
12,785 MW
Installed capacity
23,242 MW
Do not abuse that last number. Installed capacity is not guaranteed available power at every hour. Outages, dispatch, fuel, transmission, weather, maintenance, and economics all matter. It is still useful for scale. It is not a magic surplus bucket.

Your bill is not just electricity

Will the rest of us pay more?

They can affect the power system, but “more demand means your bill goes up” skips the important part. A residential electricity bill includes the energy itself plus transmission, distribution, retailer charges, local fees, riders, and taxes. Those pieces are not the same thing and they do not all move for the same reason.

The useful question is simple: which part of the bill is expected to rise, by how much, and what project cost caused it?

The Canada Energy Regulator's current Alberta example makes the distinction clear. The energy component is 7.431¢/kWh, while transmission, distribution, administration, riders, and local charges are separate. Alberta can therefore have relatively inexpensive energy and still have a relatively expensive delivered residential bill.

Headlines need stages

A proposal is not a power supply

Large headline totals mix together projects at very different stages. An announcement is not a connection contract. A connection request is not a financed project. An approval is not construction, and construction is not an operating load.

A better public tracker separates announced → proposed → seeking connection → contracted/approved → financed → under construction → operating.

That distinction matters. In June 2025, AESO said 29 proposed projects representing more than 16 GW were seeking grid connections, but the interim grid-access limit through 2028 was only 1,200 MW. AESO later allocated that full 1,200 MW to two projects: 970 MW for GLDC and 230 MW for Keephills Data Centre Phase I.

Who pays for the connection?

Alberta's Utilities Statutes Amendment Act, 2025 encourages data centres to bring their own generation and explicitly describes a cost-causation approach for transmission: data centres, not existing Alberta ratepayers, are to pay for necessary transmission upgrades attributable to them.

AESO is still developing the longer-term Bring Your Own Generation framework, including connections, planning, operations, markets, tariffs, and reliability. That means the protection is not something to take on faith. It should be tracked from promise to actual bill allocation.

The upside test

What happens to dedicated generation later?

Large data centres can add huge electricity demand. If they also finance new generation, that changes the calculation and needs to be measured project by project.

If a developer builds new power, pays for the related infrastructure, and the plant can later operate as part of Alberta’s usable generation fleet, that could become a real public upside. If the AI market changes, the data centre closes, or the customer leaves, Alberta should not be left with a stranded private plant or a half-useful asset behind a fence.

Bring-your-own-power only works if the power is real, the costs stay with the project, and the second-life plan is known before approval.

What I would require

  • Show the day-one power source and the ramp to full load.
  • Name who pays for generation, substations, transmission upgrades, interconnection studies, and delays.
  • Publish what happens if the dedicated plant is late.
  • State whether power is grid-supplied, behind-the-meter, contracted, temporary, or some mix.
  • Separate “renewable matching” from actual electrons used at the site.
  • Disclose gas demand, emissions assumptions, and water use for the power plant.
  • Publish the second-life plan for dedicated generation if the data centre closes.

What I would not accept

  • Say “Alberta has lots of gas” and call that a plan.
  • Announce a gigawatt load without a public interconnection story.
  • Hide ratepayer costs in system upgrades.
  • Pretend a delayed private power plant has no public impact.
  • Use “clean energy” language so fuzzy it covers everything and nothing.
  • Make the public guess who carries risk if the power deal changes.
  • Treat a private power plant as someone else’s problem if the compute project fails.

Six questions worth answering

  1. How much power at each phase? Not just ultimate build-out. Phase 1, Phase 2, peak, average, and emergency backup.
  2. Where does it come from on day one? Existing grid, existing generators, new plant, contract, behind-the-meter, or temporary generation.
  3. Who pays for the upgrades? Generation is only part of the system. Wires, substations, roads, gas supply, and emergency services count too.
  4. What happens if dedicated generation is late? Delays are not hypothetical. Megaprojects slip.
  5. What is the water and emissions profile? The data centre may have little cooling water while the power plant still uses water.
  6. Who verifies it? Not a self-marked report. Independent, Alberta-based reporting.

Don’t hide power-plant water

A megawatt-hour generated for a data centre does not use different water than a megawatt-hour generated for homes, hospitals, farms, or factories. The plant’s water use depends on the plant design, output, cooling method, and operations.

That matters because a project can have low data-centre cooling water and still have real power-generation water use. Those are different arguments and should not be mashed together.

What to ask about water

The useful questions are not exotic. Is the plant using wet, dry, or hybrid cooling? What is the expected makeup water? What blowdown or discharge is expected? What is recovered, what is lost, and who reports the numbers publicly?

Sources and notes