Blaming Data Centres, Alberta Electricity Industry Expects Tripling of Power Prices

If you believe Meta, its forthcoming Albertan data centre will be, at worst, unnoticeable to people across this province: We pay the full costs of our data centers’ energy use so consumers aren’t negatively impacted, and fund new and upgraded infrastructure. We worked closely with Greenlight Limited Partnership, Altalink, Capitol Power, and the Alberta Electric System Operator to plan for and meet our energy needs years in advance of this data center coming online. Sure sounds like the commitments of a stand-up corporate citizen. However, if you listen to the power companies, they tell a somewhat different story. Rory White, the National Observer: In its latest earnings call, [Capital Power’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…