Latest news with #AlbertaElectricSystemOperator
Hamilton Spectator
7 hours ago
- Business
- Hamilton Spectator
First Nations say Alberta data centre approach won't attract big tech players
CALGARY - The chiefs of four First Nations in Alberta say they're eager to take part in the province's nascent data centre industry, but argue the province is taking the wrong approach to attract large-scale tech players. The chiefs of the Alexander First Nation, Paul First Nation, Enoch Cree Nation and Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation outlined their concerns this week in an open letter to Premier Danielle Smith and members of her government. 'There are shovel-ready proposals backed by major industry players aligned with government objectives that will be left stranded without a change in proposed policy,' the chiefs wrote. 'Alberta should be a premier destination for hyperscale data centre investment. But strengths only matter if we act on them. Right now, Alberta's ability to execute and deliver on its promise is in question.' Data centres are huge facilities housing the computing firepower needed for artificial intelligence and other applications. It can take an enormous amount of power to run and cool them. The chiefs say the amount of power the Alberta Electric System Operator has allotted to new projects falls short. The Alberta Electric System Operator said earlier this month that it has received requests from 29 proposed data centre projects representing more than 16,000 megawatts — more than 11 times the City of Edmonton's load. It said it will allow the connection of up to 1,200 megawatts of large load projects between now and 2028. 'Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests,' said AESO CEO Aaron Engen. 'As the system operator, we are responsible for ensuring that new project connections do not compromise grid reliability. Because connecting all large loads seeking access would impair grid reliability, we established a limit that preserves system integrity while enabling timely data centre development in Alberta.' The Alberta government has set a goal of attracting $100 billion in data centre investment over five years. But the chiefs wrote that the limit sends the wrong signal to tech powerhouses like Meta and Amazon. 'The hyperscalers 'don't build small.' They think in gigawatts, because their global operations require that scale,' they wrote. 'Under the current proposal, not even one such flagship project may be fully realized here without years of delay, since 1,200 megawatts total divided among many projects signals that Alberta isn't prepared to accommodate a true hyperscaler's needs. 'This sends an unintended but clear message to investors that Alberta's actions do not match its ambitions.' The Alberta government supports the 'balanced approach' the AESO is taking, said the press secretary for Affordability and Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf. 'Alberta aims to be the destination of choice for AI data centres in North America,' Ashli Barrett said in a written statement. 'At the same time, our government will always put the well-being of Albertans first and ensure data centre projects will not compromise the affordability or reliability of the electricity that millions of Albertans, First Nations, and our local industries depend on.' Barrett added the 1,200-megawatt limit is short-term and should not be thought of as a cap. 'It will enable data centre projects in advanced stages of planning and development to get started, while government works to develop a long-term framework for data centres, which will provide additional pathways for data centres projects to meet their power needs, including encouraging them to bring their own power.' Chief Tony Alexis of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation northwest of Edmonton said his community is looking at taking an equity stake in a project, and discussions are in the early stages. He said First Nations want more than to be consulted — they are ready to invest. 'Our nations have been growing. We've got young populations and this industry can bring some real training, some jobs, some long-term prosperity for our community,' Alexis said in an interview. 'Alberta is aiming for a championship-level digital economy. We just need the stadium doors open wide enough so that the star players can participate and everyone wins.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 27, 2025.
Global News
16 hours ago
- Business
- Global News
First Nations say Alberta data centre strategy won't attract big tech players
The chiefs of four First Nations in Alberta say they're eager to take part in the province's nascent data centre industry, but argue the province is taking the wrong approach to attract large-scale tech players. The chiefs of the Alexander First Nation, Paul First Nation, Enoch Cree Nation and Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation outlined their concerns this week in an open letter to Premier Danielle Smith and members of her government. 'There are shovel-ready proposals backed by major industry players aligned with government objectives that will be left stranded without a change in proposed policy,' the chiefs wrote. 'Alberta should be a premier destination for hyperscale data centre investment. But strengths only matter if we act on them. Right now, Alberta's ability to execute and deliver on its promise is in question.' Data centres are huge facilities housing the computing firepower needed for artificial intelligence and other applications. It can take an enormous amount of power to run and cool them. The chiefs say the amount of power the Alberta Electric System Operator has allotted to new projects falls short. Story continues below advertisement The Alberta Electric System Operator said earlier this month that it has received requests from 29 proposed data centre projects representing more than 16,000 megawatts — more than 11 times the City of Edmonton's load. It said it will allow the connection of up to 1,200 megawatts of large load projects between now and 2028. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy 'Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests,' said AESO CEO Aaron Engen. 'As the system operator, we are responsible for ensuring that new project connections do not compromise grid reliability. Because connecting all large loads seeking access would impair grid reliability, we established a limit that preserves system integrity while enabling timely data centre development in Alberta.' The Alberta government has set a goal of attracting $100 billion in data centre investment over five years. Story continues below advertisement But the chiefs wrote that the limit sends the wrong signal to tech powerhouses like Meta and Amazon. 'The hyperscalers 'don't build small.' They think in gigawatts, because their global operations require that scale,' they wrote. 'Under the current proposal, not even one such flagship project may be fully realized here without years of delay, since 1,200 megawatts total divided among many projects signals that Alberta isn't prepared to accommodate a true hyperscaler's needs. 'This sends an unintended but clear message to investors that Alberta's actions do not match its ambitions.' The Alberta government supports the 'balanced approach' the AESO is taking, said the press secretary for Affordability and Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf. 'Alberta aims to be the destination of choice for AI data centres in North America,' Ashli Barrett said in a written statement. 'At the same time, our government will always put the well-being of Albertans first and ensure data centre projects will not compromise the affordability or reliability of the electricity that millions of Albertans, First Nations, and our local industries depend on.' Barrett added the 1,200-megawatt limit is short-term and should not be thought of as a cap. 'It will enable data centre projects in advanced stages of planning and development to get started, while government works to develop a long-term framework for data centres, which will provide additional pathways for data centres projects to meet their power needs, including encouraging them to bring their own power.' Story continues below advertisement Chief Tony Alexis of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation northwest of Edmonton said his community is looking at taking an equity stake in a project, and discussions are in the early stages. He said First Nations want more than to be consulted — they are ready to invest. 'Our nations have been growing. We've got young populations and this industry can bring some real training, some jobs, some long-term prosperity for our community,' Alexis said in an interview. 'Alberta is aiming for a championship-level digital economy. We just need the stadium doors open wide enough so that the star players can participate and everyone wins.'
Calgary Herald
14-06-2025
- Business
- Calgary Herald
Opinion: Don't panic: AESO data centre limits are a red herring
The Alberta Electric System Operator's new 1,200-megawatt cap on large electricity loads understandably has some people warning that Alberta might 'miss the AI economy.' That anxiety rests on an old assumption: that tomorrow's AI infrastructure will sit in ever-bigger, grid-tied campuses. Article content It did — five years ago. But today, the industry is running the other way and taking its money with it. Article content Article content Article content In March, Microsoft walked away from roughly two thousand megawatts of data-centre leases in the United States and Europe, telling analysts it now has 'oversupply' and needs a nimbler footprint. Yet, the company will still spend about US$80 billion on capacity this year — just not in hyperscale blocks wired to public grids, and certainly not at the end of long interconnection processes. Article content Article content Where is that money going? Increasingly to private, self-powered sites. Crusoe Energy, for instance, is building the first 200-megawatt phase of an off-grid watt-bit infrastructure campus near Abilene, Texas, to host OpenAI's 'Stargate' facility, fuelled by local natural gas rather than powered by the Texas grid. Such projects now exceed 10 thousand megawatts in global pipelines, and include some suppliers with roots here in Calgary's energy sector and capital market. Article content Article content The logic of it is simple. Cutting-edge AI chips can cost about $20 million per megawatt and age out in two years — roughly 100 times the capital intensity of a gas turbine that lasts decades. However, unlike a gas turbine, which might earn $50 to $75 per megawatt-hour in traditional power markets, a chipset like an NVIDIA H100 can turn that same megawatt-hour into nearly $4,000 — more than 65 times the commodity value of that same energy at Alberta's wholesale price. Article content When hardware that expensive and short-lived can earn more than 65 times the value of the energy it burns, operators will do almost anything to keep it running — and the regulatory, political and queuing risks that come with a public grid look less and less tolerable. Proposals that would require data centres to operate for the benefit of power grids make no economic sense to operators who do not share a low-margin, multi-decade view of the present value of energy.
Globe and Mail
05-06-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Alberta is overhauling its energy market. Here's what's happening, and why
Alberta is overhauling its energy market through a suite of changes aimed at making the system more reliable and affordable – a gargantuan task that involves a raft of reviews, consultations, and legislative and regulatory changes. One of the largest drivers of that transformation is the development of the Restructured Energy Market. The REM process is examining the main rules and principles that govern Alberta's electricity market in an effort to ensure that the system remains as reliable and affordable as possible. The REM is being overseen by the Alberta Electric System Operator, which operates the province's power grid. The United Conservative government tasked the AESO with developing a new system for how the electricity market operates following years of volatile prices and, later, shortages that led to provincewide outages and pleas for consumers to power down. The REM redesign process began as the Market Pathways initiative, launched on Aug. 1, 2023. In March of 2024, however, the government changed its directive to the AESO. It asked for a much broader overhaul, which was renamed the REM. Alberta's power system is unique in Canada in that it has no central or Crown power provider. Instead, private companies run the plants that feed electricity into the grid. The AESO works with the industry and the government to manage and plan that market. Alberta restructures utilities rules ahead of major power market overhaul The overhaul comes as jurisdictions across North America grapple with how to meet rocketing demand for electricity. Industries are becoming increasingly electrified to reduce carbon emissions, and governments are trying to attract power-thirsty data centres. Alberta, for example, is aiming for $100-billion of investment over a few years. Electricity generation technology has changed dramatically over the past few years. First, coal-fired power plants, which ran 24/7, were phased out. Most producers pivoted to natural gas-fired power stations, which present more flexibility and, for the most part, provide reliable – and cleaner – electricity, no matter the weather. Then came what Matt Davis, the vice-president of policy with Edmonton-based Capital Power, called the 'spectacular build-out' of wind and solar. 'I don't think there's enough appreciation of what that actually does to the system and how challenging it is to operate.' All those changes, coupled with the growing use of batteries to store power and improve reliability, has completely changed the the way Alberta's grid operates. 'Obviously the sun comes up in the morning and goes down at night. We know the wind doesn't always blow,' said Jason Wang, a senior electricity analyst with Pembina Institute, a think tank. 'It's important for electricity markets to be able to make sure it's an even playing field for all types of generation, but also for that reliability to be maintained.' Those in Alberta's utilities sector say that the complexity of the REM review is off the charts – particularly when combined with other changes happening around the same time, including new transmission regulations, local access fees and distribution. It's not easy, agrees Alberta's Affordability and Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf. 'But we thought, 'If we're going to undertake this work, there's no point in doing it half-measure,' he says. 'If we were going to do some significant portions, why don't we do it fully – completely engage with stakeholders and make this adjustment all at the same time – so that we don't have to go through this multiple times over multiple administrations.' Report finds Alberta's restrictive renewables policies dampened investment Opinion: Free the market for renewable energy in Alberta Alberta wants a new market in place by 2027. Other jurisdictions such as Texas, Ontario and California have undertaken similar reviews, but took much longer to implement changes. Alberta could have taken its time, Mr. Neudorf says, but industry urged speedy completion of the task to avoid prolonging the market uncertainty that undermines investment. But Pembina's Mr. Wang reckons the accelerated timeline has created more uncertainty – particularly when combined with the government's seven-month ban on renewable power project approvals in August, 2023. 'In a different world, the government could have said, 'We want to make market changes, but they won't be implemented until 2030, maybe even like 2034, 2035,' so that they were slowly phased in. Then investors would have short-term certainty, and they would have that longer-term certainty.' The REM was initially to be completed by May, but that timeline has been pushed back owing to the scale of the exercise and concerns of the utilities sector. For example, AESO scrapped a mandatory day-ahead market rule that would have had participants agree a day ahead of time on the price and the duration of power production, and which industry said was far too complex. Reliability and planning standards will likely be implemented within the next year, and Mr. Neudorf anticipates that most of the decisions around the REM will be made by this summer. The province has already tabled Bill 52, which allows changes to be made at a rapid clip, rather than going through another year of public consultations. More legislation is slated for fall or spring. For the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, the REM raises broader economic concerns. The community has been investing in renewable power installations in Southern Alberta since around 2018. But the price of power from its renewables sites dropped significantly; in the final quarter of 2024, revenue was down roughly 12 per cent, says Jason Schulz, Athabasca Chipewyan's executive director of strategic advisory services. Promised power transmission infrastructure was never built to support renewable energy projects either, he says, which caused congestion on the grid. Electricity 'pretty well just gets dumped' as a result, he says, adding that the REM is unlikely to change that, given the distribution model being considered. Still, he's hopeful the REM will be a good news story for those in the power sector. With some positive decisions and others yet to be determined, he says, 'time will tell.' Capital Power's Mr. Davis is pleased the REM process has recognized the value of dispatchable, flexible generation capacity, be it batteries or gas-fired generators. 'There's more of an inherent acknowledgement that there is additional value to those resources because they provide critical reliability attributes to the system.' Bob Myles, chief executive of Calgary-based Canadian Utilities Ltd., says he's much more optimistic about the REM today than he was six months ago, given how much the AESO is listening to industry. 'There were a lot of doubters for a long time, that a lot of the comments were not being heard,' he says. 'Do we have everything figured out yet? No, there's still some issues that could have significant negative impacts on generators. But I believe now we're heading in the right direction, in a better direction.'
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Media Advisory - AESO Announces Interim Approach to Large Load Connections
Please note that attendance and registration for this media availability session is limited to . All materials shared with the media will be made available on following the session. CALGARY, Alberta, June 02, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) is hosting a media availability session to speak about the amount (megawatts) of new large load data centres that can be reliably served in the immediate term. The AESO will also share the methodology to assign that load amount to developers currently requesting system access for data centre projects. A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation. Date: Wednesday, June 4, 2025 Who: Aaron Engen, President & CEORobert Davidson, Vice President Grid Reliability – Projects and Planning Time: 2:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. MDT Location: Online via Teams (click here to register) Why: As the Independent System Operator, the AESO is responsible for connecting data centres and other large-load projects while protecting grid reliability in Alberta. Background: Data Centre Connection Process Update (March 20, 2025)Connections Project Dashboard · Starter Portal Contact: AESO Media Relations at media@ X (Twitter): @theaeso The Alberta Electric System Operator is responsible for the safe, reliable, and economic planning and operation of the Alberta Interconnected Electric System. We provide open and non-discriminatory access to Alberta's interconnected power grid, and we also facilitate Alberta's competitive wholesale electricity in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
