Non-partisan agency suggests Meta data centre could lead to higher Alberta power bills

A new report from the Pembina Institute says the newly announced Meta data centre northeast of Edmonton is set to cost people more on their power bills. 

The report says people could be paying up to $460 more per year once the centre in Sturgeon County commences operations.

"The impact is that we have this big new source of demand on the system for a couple of years before its sort of corresponding gas plant comes online," said Pembina Institute director of energy David Pickup. "And it's really that gap that creates this massive market pressure on the system."

The Alberta government has been steadfast in its statement that the privately funded project will not raise ratepayers' bills, with Premier Danielle Smith saying it will reduce transmission costs.

Meta's director of public policy Rachel Curran even told a meeting of Sturgeon County council in July that the province's estimate of six per cent saving was conservative, as the organization's calculations brought a larger total.

"When we had done our initial estimates, we thought it would be closer to 10 per cent (savings)," said Curran this past July.

However, the Pembina Institute's report says several energy companies have said the project will drive up costs.

"It was really interesting to see those kind of stakeholders come out with that as we were kind of crunching the numbers to see what the what the numerical version of that might be on on bills and what we're able to publish just this week," said Pickup.

In response, the province rejects the analysis, saying that Pembina Institute is attempting to mislead people by confusing wholesale rates with the retail rates.

"Their analysis deliberately ignores our government’s ongoing work to enhance consumer protections, like stabilizing the default rate, which shields Albertans from wholesale market volatility," said a statement from the Ministry of Affordability and Utilities.

The gas plant is slated to deliver 932 megawatts of power and come online in 2030, while the data centre is projected to open in 2029.

While the centre is expected to scale up, this will come as other data centres are being built, with the report noting that the impacts of those facilities could also lead to a spike in people's bills.

But Pickup says, given the province's current policy towards data centres, there is nothing to stop this kind of impact from happening repeatedly in the years to come.

"There's no indication that it would massively change from the draft, given the government of Alberta statements around bring your own gas and the sort of desire to use this as an opportunity to burn more gas rather than a broader set of technologies, which is kind of what we've been talking about," said Pickup.

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David Boles, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, St. Albert Gazette.