“Given the heavy power requirements for AI data centres, developers will likely need to bring their own power to the table and some creative solutions will need to be considered in securing sufficient and reliable energy to fuel these projects,” McMillan’s law bulle- tin reported.
The Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO), which operates the province’s power grid, is working with at least six proposed data centre proposals, ac- cording to the latest public data. “The companies that build and oper- ate these centres have a long list of requirements, including reliable and
affordable power, access to skilled la- bour and internet connectivity,” said Ryan Scholefield, the AESO’s manag - er of load forecasting and market an- alytics. “The AESO is open for business and will work with any project that express- es an interest in coming to Alberta.”
“ The companies that build and operate these centres have a long list of requirements, including reliable and affordable power, access to skilled labour and internet connectivity, ”
W hile the majority of established data centres generally have clus- tered near telecommunications infra- structure, the next wave of projects is increasingly seeking sites with electric- ity infrastructure and availability of re- liable power to keep their servers run- ning. The intermittent nature of wind and solar is challenging for growth in these projects, Rusty Braziel, executive chair- man of Houston, Texas-based consul- tancy RBN Energy wrote in July.
“These facilities need 24/7, super-reli - able power, and there’s only one pow- er generation fuel that has any hope of keeping up with the demand surge: natural gas,” Braziel said. TC Energy chief operating officer Stan Chapman sees an opportunity for his company’s natural gas delivery in Can- ada and the United States. “In Canada, there’s around 300 data centre operations today. We could see that load increasing by one to two giga- watts before the end of the decade,”
Chapman said in a conference call with analysts on August 1st “Never have I seen such strong pros- pects for North American natural gas demand growth,” CEO François Poir- ier added. Alberta is Canada’s largest natural gas producer, and natural gas is the base of the province’s power grid, supply- ing about 60 percent of energy needs, followed by wind and solar at 27 per - cent.
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