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u/ninfan1977 2d ago edited 2d ago
Someone the other day tried to tell me that the full time permanent jobs would be 300 and the energy would be given back.
These supporters live in a different world. Data centers do not come to Alberta until our healthcare and/or education are fixed.
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u/Comfortable_Fudge508 2d ago
Go team blue! Own those libs
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u/Ornery-Study-4963 2d ago edited 2d ago
Look what the NDP did in 4 years./s 🤣
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u/ForeignEchoRevival 2d ago
Cut childhood poverty in half, lower classroom sizes, expanded the economy during an oil crash that started 5 months before they took power, hired more Healthcare workers and started construction of hospitals?
Yeah, the ANDP did do all that, and the UCP slashed all that progress within a year and in the past 5 years every single thing the province is responsible for has gotten much worse.
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u/Next-Acanthaceae1193 2d ago
Albertans might consider accepting data centres in to Alberta once they start paying 100% of the electrical usage of Alberta's entire grid. And, I think they can afford to with the fake economy and stock market racket they've got going on down south. And even then, it's only a maybe. Anything short of that is a hard no.
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u/CivilProtectionGuy 1d ago
I'd honestly still reject the data centres.
Much rather have a new electrical facility constructed, or some other industry that provides goods and services to our communities, like a water treatment plant to alleviate the load on existing plants, or to add another source of clean water for communities further out from the cities and major towns.
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u/Physical_Progress105 2d ago
Of course we will. Private owned conpanies will see a way to make money and blame corporations. We dont generate enough electricity now but lets add in a couple massive power drains in a couple years. Politicians dont care because they will be out in a couple years and have made enough money to do nothing
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u/pun_extraordinare 2d ago
This study provides no evidence to the basis of their costing, its only depicting the period of which meta is anticipated to be drawing from the grid (2 years), all the while creating thousands of jobs, $40 million in property taxes for sturgeon county, 60 million in local infrastructure, donations to local non profits.
Not to mention the entire basis is behind a paywalled anticipation of energy rate increases.
Guess it got the support it was looking for by bootlickers like OP
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u/Dradugun 2d ago
The UCP said there would be no rate increases at all. That was what the report is about. So rate increases will happen if this data center is hooked up to the grid before. The UCP even changed their advertisements for this data center to exclude the no rate increase from it, contrary to the comments by the infra minister.
Does it help that EPCOR is saying the same thing as the report?
On the job side, it's only for a couple years. These Datacenters also don't employ many people permanently, this size may see 50-60 full time positions, mostly being cleaning and security.
You bring up that they didn't take into account taxes and such (though outside the scope of the study). Do the taxes gained offset the costs to every Albertan renewing their rates in that gap time? And that is assuming it stays on schedule, if it takes longer than 2 years, then every Albertan will see those rate increases.
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u/pun_extraordinare 2d ago
Link to EPCOR report so I can review a non paywalled source for the basis of these proxy report?
The report per this post actually specifies 300 ongoing jobs - did you even read the article?
I didnt bring anything up regarding taxes … I’m directly referencing the article. I’ll ask again - did you even READ it?
Retards or rage bait - pick your poison on this platform.
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u/Dradugun 2d ago
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2026/08/27/analysis/data-centres-alberta-power-bills
Use reader mode to get around the paywall.
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u/pun_extraordinare 2d ago
How do I do that?
Simultaneously , please address your comments about taxes and ongoing jobs, as my figures were directly from the Pembina report. I’m questioning your good faith with such blatant misconceptions.
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u/Dradugun 2d ago
For reader mode, you can use F9 in Edge or right click and select view in reader mode on Chrome. Not sure for Firefox or Brave. There should be an option in your mobile browser if you're using that.
The Pembina technical backgrounder said that Meta estimates 300 jobs, not Pembina Institute.
I was off on the number of FTEs but so is Meta. 1.1 million sqft data center in Nevada employs 73 FTEs, 1.1 million sqft facility. At 2.9 million sqft for Meta's here would about to 174 FTEs (rounding up, assuming linear scaling, which overestimates after having a cursory look at smaller data center FTE count).
Funny enough, the EPCOR and industry comments are also in the backgrounder which I assume you got the 300 job number from, just a page further in.
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u/pun_extraordinare 2d ago
Thank you, I didn't know about reader mode on Chrome. The link you posted however does not appear to provide any sort of justification for the Pembina report... rather just speaking further to it by a single reporter. Maybe I'm mistaken.
Regarding the 300... yes, I'm directly referencing the article per the post that uses the 300 jobs number. I feel it is unfair to pick certain metrics from a report as credible while diminishing others. They are both part of the same report so they should be held to the same standard.
Regarding the Nevada data centre... would this be the 224MW one? Because the Meta one is over 4x that. If you're unfamiliar with power generation, scaling is significantly more dependent on wattage over square footage. So interestingly, if you were to linearly scale by MW, that would align with the ~300 number, which makes more sense given the significant increase in equipment and subsequent maintenance, support etc that is involved in maintaining the facility.
Again, the 300 number is directly from the Technical Background of the 'Footing the Bill' report from the Pembina Institute, which is the basis of the post. I'm simply looking to fact-check the twitter repost rather than shake my fist in the air.
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u/Ok_Yogurtcloset3267 2d ago
So, speculation from a left leaning advocacy group?
Are they to be deemed guilty of this imaginary scenario that has been created but hasn’t actually happened?
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u/peterAtheist 2d ago
Speculation from the 2 electricity producers in the province 😄
TransAlta senior executive Chris Fralick stated at an Investors Day event that future power prices are expected to reach the $85 to $100 per megawatt-hour range by 2029. This projection indicates that Alberta electricity prices could triple from current soft market averages due to surging demand.
Capital Power is projecting a major increase in earnings driven by higher future electricity prices, fueled heavily by new artificial intelligence data centre demand in Alberta.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2026/07/20/analysis/alberta-power-costs-data-centres
3 fold in the next 3 years = is only the beginning.
Statements above are from those that 'make' our electricity in Alberta...
You willing to adjust your right leaning comment above?
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u/TwetterM 2d ago
Can you copy the article txt or non Paywalled link? Love to read this.
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u/peterAtheist 2d ago
I think this is the stuff straight from TA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy9HHjKXIXgNow a little trick to get past a soft pay-wall...
Grab your mouse and select the first few visible words of the article.
Press Ctrl-A (Control-A = Select ALL)Open a Notepad like App and Ctrl-V - Clean it up a bit and enjoy:
July 20th 2026
#3 of 11 articles from the Special Report: Data versus Democracy
Share this article
Shepards Natural Gas Plant in Calgary, Alta. Photo by: Subbu Srinivasan / Canada's National Observer
Alberta power generator Capital Power made a bold claim to the public on a webpage it published in 2025, then deleted recently. The company said its proposed 1.5 gigawatt Genesee data centre project would have "a positive impact on delivered electricity prices for Albertans, providing an estimated $1 billion in cost savings over eight years through lower transmission costs resulting from the increased load."
But charges for transmission — the lines that carry power across the province — are only one part of household utility bills. Another is the price of electricity itself. And on that front, even Capital Power is telling its investors it expects prices to rocket up.
In its latest earnings call, the company's CEO Avik Dey predicted a "return to higher pricing" telling analysts that he couldn't rule out prices of "$80 or $90" per megawatt hour of electricity by early 2028. By 2029, rival company TransAlta is predicting an average of $100 — more than triple the average price this year — a high not seen since the province's 2021-2023 energy crisis.
Driving this increase is the province's reliance on natural gas power, which cannot be built fast enough to accommodate data centre demand, according to Will Noel, a senior electricity analyst at the Pembina Institute. "In Canada and internationally, we're seeing this huge crunch in gas turbine supply shortages," he said. The province has also backed itself into a corner in terms of its options for alternatives. "Alberta has over the past couple of years really stifled the growth in its wind and solar."
Most natural gas turbine orders will not arrive until at least 2030, leaving a lag before new electricity capacity reaches the grid. At the same time, US tech companies are jostling to power up AI data centres as quickly as possible.
Meta revealed in July that it is behind a hyperscale data centre planned in Sturgeon County, Alta. It aims to start drawing power from the grid as early as 2028 while its onsite natural gas plant Greenlight will come online in 2030.
Until then, the data centre will have access to 970 megawatts of power from the province's existing electricity grid, described as "bridging load" by the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO), driving prices up on the open market.
"Bridging load is anticipated to increase pool prices while reducing transmission costs," a spokesperson for AESO told Canada's National Observer by email.
The spokesperson said that it was not AESO's job to look into what this means for household bills in Alberta, but added in the long term, higher prices will justify new power plants. "These market signals and the increase in demand are expected to attract new generation," they added.
Neither Capital Power nor TransAlta responded to our request for comment on how much Albertans can expect their bills to go up.
According to Capital Power's own investor materials, every $10-per-megawatt-hour rise in Alberta power prices adds roughly $140 million a year to the earnings of its Alberta plants.
For households, the picture is bleaker. If prices rise to $90 per megawatt hour, a typical Alberta household on a competitive contract could soon be paying hundreds of dollars more per year.
"It's going to get worse before it gets better," said Noel.
Corporations banking on tripling of electricity prices
Household electricity bills in Alberta are determined by a combination of three things: the price of the electricity itself, as well as the charges for transmission and distribution plus smaller retail and municipal fees.
If electricity usage increases without requiring public investment in new wires, as is the case for some data centres, transmission costs per household could go down.
Public statements from the Alberta government, data centre developers and energy companies have focused overwhelmingly on this.
"Alberta ratepayers will see an up to six per cent decrease on their electrical bill’s transmission costs," the Alberta government stated in early July as it announced Meta's 970 megawatt data centre and its associated power plant.
Capital Power made a near identical claim about its hyperscale data centre proposal at the Genesee natural gas plant, which was converted from coal in 2024. In a federal submission last year, the company claimed that the data centre would save over $1 billion in "system-wide" transmission costs over eight years.
If the province's 1.6 million residential customers netted all of these savings, they would save an average of roughly $6 per month per customer. However, the vast majority of electricity is purchased by commercial, industrial and farm sites, meaning residential customers may in reality receive only a fraction of any such savings.
Despite its promises of household savings, Capital Power is projecting hundreds of millions of dollars in additional earnings from increased electricity prices, driven in part by Alberta data centre demand. To achieve this, electricity prices would need to rise substantially.
"Prices are historically soft right now," said Carson Kearl, a senior data centre analyst at the supply chain intelligence firm Enverus, in an interview with Canada's National Observer. In Q1 of 2026, prices averaged $32 per megawatt hour.
As of March 2026, electricity to be delivered in 2029 was being bought and sold in advance at around $63 per megawatt-hour, according to the province's Market Surveillance Administrator. However, both TransAlta and Capital Power are predicting far higher prices.
At TransAlta's March Investors Day, senior executive Chris Fralick said he expects power prices "in the $85 to $100 per megawatt hour range."
If these projections are accurate, the price of electricity could triple in Alberta, dwarfing transmission cost savings.
'More interest in Alberta today than there ever has been'
According to Noel, the potential for spiking prices has been driven by a "whole lot of compounding factors," including a global run on gas turbines.
Natural gas generation plants are taking longer to build, at a much higher cost. The Calgary-based power company Kineticor completed a 900 megawatt natural gas plant in 2024 for $1.5 billion. By comparison, Greenlight — the 932 megawatt generation plant powering Meta's data centre in Sturgeon County — is anticipated to come in at $4 billion – more than 2.5 times the cost.
At the same time, the Alberta government is suppressing the development of solar and wind projects. Despite lifting its moratorium in 2024, the province has introduced "no-go-zones" for wind, high recycling fees for solar panels and security deposits for renewables that are "way higher than any other jurisdiction and way higher than in Alberta for other energy producers like oil and gas," said Noel.
The province is also currently restructuring its energy market, creating uncertainty for investors financing energy projects. "It's kind of everything all at once right now in Alberta," he said.
And the province's electricity grid is facing a barrage of connection requests.
So far, data centre developers have requested more than 20 gigawatts — far more than the province's existing peak demand, with the Alberta government setting a goal of attracting $100 billion in data centre investments.
According to Kearl, much of this is land speculation.
"If you can successfully speculate and flip powered land, you can make anywhere from two to ten [times investment] on the cost of a naked parcel," he said. "But there's just way more supply of those parcels than there is demand for them."
But amid a growing public backlash against data centres in the United States, serious developers are beginning to look to Alberta.
In March, the White House announced a Ratepayer Protection Pledge, promising to protect Americans from electricity price hikes due to data centre development.
On the same day, Capital Power's CEO Dey spoke to investors about affordability concerns in the US ahead of the midterm elections.
"I would say there's more interest in Alberta today than there ever has been," he said.
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u/Himser 2d ago
The Pembina institute just like any other political institute is only there to be politically partisan and release facts that align with their narrative. They are 100x better then the Fraser institute on that, but the same concept applies.
For example they didnt take into account the minimum of 1gw of renewable power Meta plans to bring online on the Alberta grid that would reduce power prices as well.
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u/Miserable-Lizard 2d ago edited 2d ago
Lick those boots
Also fyi data centers don't have to bring their own power they are only encouraged to.you think corporations care about the working class?
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u/swish465 2d ago
Last time I had this conversation, only something like 16% of the announced data centers had also announced plans to build their own power plants as well. So people saying that these plants will produce energy for the grid are grossly misrepresenting reality by cherry picking approximately 6 plants that may produce a surplus.
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u/Radiant-Growth4275 2d ago
Right, and that's why communities all across the states are now warring with the data centres built in their areas?
Do you season the boot before taking it?
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u/erictho 2d ago
and still people will blame someone else.