Power plant approved northeast of Edmonton for AI data centres
1,864-megawatt facility in Sturgeon County will supply electricity to provincial data centre industry, expected operational by 2031.
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A massive electricity generation facility has cleared a major regulatory hurdle and is one step closer to being built northeast of Edmonton.
The Alberta Utilities Commission approved the Greenlight Electricity Centre, a 1,864-megawatt facility to be built 47 kilometres northeast of the city near Gibbons in Sturgeon County. The project is a joint venture between Pembina Pipeline and Kineticor.
The facility will convert natural gas into electricity using gas and steam turbines. It's designed to supply power to the province's rapidly expanding data centre industry, which is fuelling demand for AI computing and cloud services. The company expects the project to employ about 1,500 workers at peak construction and be operational by 2031.
"The off-grid power supply generated by Greenlight will support future industrial growth and enable new development in our region," Sturgeon County Mayor Alanna Hnatiw said.
The approval comes as Alberta aggressively pursues the federal government's $100 billion AI investment goal. Global data centre electricity consumption is projected to double by 2027, reaching 2.6 per cent of global electricity usage.
However, the project has drawn environmental scrutiny. Will Noel, a senior analyst with the Pembina Institute think-tank, cautioned that greenhouse gas emissions tied to natural gas generation should be weighed carefully. "This doesn't mean data centres shouldn't be explored in Alberta, but Albertans deserve the full picture of environmental impacts that come with using natural gas to power them," Noel said, noting other jurisdictions are actively exploring wind, solar, and battery storage alternatives.
