Albertans have historically paid the highest electricity rates in the country and those costs may soon rise again as the province doubles down on gas-powered AI data centres. Case in point is Greenlight Electricity Centre, a 932 MW natural gas plant proposed to be built north of Edmonton to power the recently announced enormous new Meta data centre.
The Pembina Institute, a non-partisan environmental policy think tank, was unequivocal about the impact this could have on working families. “Adding a new power plant of this size — generating enough electricity to power a city two-thirds the size of Calgary — will massively increase demand for gas in the province,” David Pickup, director of Pembina Electricity program, explained in an analysis of the project. “This likely means household electricity costs for Albertans will keep rising in the years ahead.”
The story of gas-hungry data centres jacking up people’s utility bills is playing out around the world. US-based grid giant PJM will soon increase electricity costs in 13 states by $6.3 billion due to AI driven demand. In a statement PJM said “…electricity demand is growing faster than new generation can be built to supply it. The primary driver of that growth is data centers.”
