Alberta's Data Center Alley
What is the potential for the province as a AI data center hub?
What’s on my mind going into the week? One idea and one region will get most of my attention…
My focus remains on the theme of “gas-to-power”. Listening to earning’s calls it is THE topic, even if it is coming in the form questions about DeepSeek or announcements of new gas-fired generation capacity.
This week I am thinking about it through the lens of the potential for Alberta as a AI data center hub (I am preparing for a panel discussing “Scaling Data Centers for the Energy Transition and AI Revolution” at #YYCDataCon2025).
With ~10.9GW of proposed new data center load on the AESO’s Connection Project List, against all-time peak load of ~12.4 GW, data centers have the potential to reshape Alberta’s electrical system and it’s oil and gas focused energy industry.
However, this is still small potatoes relative to Dominion’s 40 GW queue in Virginia. And it makes me wonder how competitive is Alberta really in the global race to attract these new large loads?
Sure the gas is cheap, but the power isn’t that cheap. So is the play dependent a behind the meter gas-to-power play?
Alberta’s AI Data Center Strategy, release in December, points to strategic attributes like being an energy-only electricity market, endowment of natural gas and water, cold climate (for cooling), and regulatory/tax advantages. Are these all really strengths? Is this combination really differentiated?
How does TIER/Canada’s carbon tax play into this? Large emitters (over 100,000t/y) are subject Alberta’s TIER (Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction) program which replaces the Federal Carbon Tax.
However, many data center customers value low/no emissions power and have shown a willingness to pay a premium for low carbon intensity electrons. So is this more of a feature or a bug?
I would appreciate your comments:
How competitive do you think Alberta is?
What questions did I miss?
Who would you suggest I connect with to learn more?
Too much risk of government moving the goal posts dramatically. That is both federal and provincial. That i is if the courts don't shut such ventures down anyway.
Two months ago the energy welcoming federal conservative party was sure to win the election in a landslide. Now they are sure to lose it to a globalist, carbon taxing, climate doomster.
Provincially, the opposition party that was the government just a couple of years ago will shut down the economic drivers of such projects in the first minute if and when they take office again.