Alberta’s push to become a global destination for artificial intelligence infrastructure is colliding with a growing debate over who will pay to power it.
A new report from the Pembina Institute estimates that Meta’s proposed hyperscale data centre in Sturgeon County could add between $267 and $462 annually to an average Alberta household’s electricity costs between 2027 and 2031.
That would represent an increase of approximately 15 to 25 per cent compared with the roughly $1,700 an average household spent on electricity in 2025, according to the clean-energy think tank.
The report attributes the projected increase to the timing of Meta’s connection to Alberta’s electricity grid.
Under Alberta’s developing “Bring Your Own Generation” framework, data centres can connect to the public grid before the new generation intended to serve them is fully operational. Pembina argues that adding an enormous new load during that interim period could tighten electricity supply and push market prices higher.
Meta’s first Canadian data centre is expected to begin with approximately one gigawatt of capacity and could eventually scale to 1.8GW.
A dedicated 932MW natural gas facility called the Greenlight Electricity Centre is being developed in Sturgeon County to support the campus. The project is backed by Pembina Pipeline Corporation, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and Kineticor Asset Management.
The Pembina Institute acknowledges that Meta’s grid connection could lower the transmission portion of household electricity bills by approximately six per cent. However, it concludes that higher wholesale electricity costs would more than offset those savings.
Exact effects would depend on household consumption, electricity providers and whether customers have fixed, regulated or variable-rate plans.
Meta and Alberta’s government dispute the analysis.
Meta called the findings speculative and said it is paying the full cost of connecting its facility to the grid. The company is also reviewing proposals for new clean-energy projects intended to match the data centre’s electricity consumption.
The office of Utilities Minister R.J. Sigurdson said the analysis confuses different components of Alberta electricity rates and does not sufficiently account for how rising demand attracts new generation into the province’s competitive market.
The report landed as Alberta’s Opposition called for an immediate pause on new AI data centre approvals.
NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi says approvals should not resume until Alberta establishes clearer requirements covering electricity costs, water use, setbacks from neighbouring properties, permanent employment, community benefits and plans for facilities at the end of their operating lives.
Premier Danielle Smith and Technology and Innovation Minister Nate Glubish were scheduled to address residents during a province-wide virtual town hall on Thursday evening. Earlier town halls attracted criticism from residents concerned about electricity prices, water consumption, emissions and the proximity of large facilities to homes and farms.
The competing claims illustrate how the Canadian data centre debate is changing. The question is no longer simply whether provinces can attract massive AI investments. Increasingly, it is whether they can accommodate those developments without transferring infrastructure costs and market risks to existing electricity customers.