On Dec. 11 last year, Alberta’s grid peaked at 12,785 megawatts, the most power the province has ever used in a single hour, according to the province’s data centre fact page. By July, companies had asked the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) to connect about 19,565 MW of new data centre load. That’s about one and a half times the record. By October, The Globe and Mail reports, the requests had grown to 26,849 MW.
The province stresses that these are requests, not approvals, and not all of them will be built. But the numbers explain why every province with cheap or plentiful power is now writing rules for AI data centres, and why the same question keeps coming up at town halls and regulatory hearings: if a data centre needs as much electricity as a city, who pays for the power plants and power lines, and what happens to everyone else’s bill?
Every province has the same answer on paper: the data centres pay. How they make sure of it is very different. Here’s what Alberta, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia are actually doing, and where the risks are.
Alberta: bring your own power
Alberta has gone furthest, fastest. The province launched a data centre strategy in late 2024 aimed at attracting $100 billion in investment within five years, the Globe reports. The grid couldn’t absorb that much at once, so AESO set an interim limit of 1,200 MW for new large loads. AESO says all of it went to two projects: 970 MW for a project listed as GLDC, which matches Meta’s 970 MW allocation for its Sturgeon County campus, and 230 MW for the first phase of a Keephills data centre. Everyone else is waiting for a permanent framework that AESO is still designing.
The rule that matters most came in June. Under Alberta’s Data Centre Regulation, projects that bring “dedicated new generation or storage” go to the front of the connection line, the province says. So far, that has meant natural gas plants built beside the data centres:
| Project | Location | Power plant | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meta campus | Sturgeon County | Greenlight Electricity Centre, 932 MW, $4.6 billion | Grid connection approved; campus up to 1,800 MW at full build-out |
| Beacon Heartland | Sturgeon County | 920 MW gas plant | Alberta Utilities Commission approved Oct. 23 |
| Beacon Indus | Near Calgary | 1,494 MW gas plant | AUC decision expected by Dec. 8 |
Sources: Alberta, The Globe and Mail, The Globe and Mail.
On who pays, the province is blunt. “The cost of serving a data centre lands on the data centre,” its power bills page says. Alberta says it offers no subsidy or discounted electricity, and that Meta will pay nearly $200 million a year in transmission fees on top of its own connection costs. Because more big customers share the fixed cost of the grid, the province expects the transmission line on household bills to fall by up to 6 per cent. It doesn’t show how it calculated that, and it calls the figure an expectation, not a promise.
Alberta also collects money from the data centres: a levy of up to 2 per cent on the value of their computing equipment, which can be deducted against Alberta corporate income tax, plus royalties on the gas the power plants burn. The province puts the total flowing to Albertans from the Meta project at about $250 million a year, and says investors carry “100 per cent of the risk” if a project fails, according to its own page.
Two caveats, and this is our analysis. These are government projections on pages built to make the case for the projects. And the arithmetic covers transmission, not the price of energy itself. The province notes that most households are on fixed-rate contracts that shield them from day-to-day wholesale price swings, but its pages don’t say what tens of thousands of megawatts of new demand would do to wholesale prices if new generation doesn’t keep pace.
Quebec: charge them more
Quebec has the opposite problem. Hydro-Québec used to have surplus power to sell. That era is over, the utility now argues.
In February, Hydro-Québec asked Quebec’s energy regulator, the Régie de l’énergie, to create a new rate for data centres that need more than 5 MW. It would raise their average energy price from 6.82 cents per kilowatt-hour to about 13 cents, roughly double, BNN Bloomberg reports. Hydro-Québec says its own average cost of energy is about 12 cents and rising. Selling below that means other customers make up the difference.
The numbers are small compared with Alberta’s: data centres on the proposed rate use about 190 MW at peak today, and Hydro-Québec expects that to reach 1,000 MW by 2035. The opposition is not small. Google is among the tech companies fighting the proposal at hearings that started in October and resume in December. One analyst told BNN Bloomberg that Quebec’s data centre power is much cheaper than in most places, and the new rate would bring it closer to what they pay elsewhere.
Quebec’s approach is the most direct: price the power at what it costs. Whether the Régie agrees, and when the rate would take effect, is still open.
Ontario: the province decides who connects
Ontario took the power to say no. Under the Protect Ontario by Securing Affordable Energy for Generations Act, the provincial government gets the final decision on which large-load projects, including data centres, can connect to the grid. In August it released a draft Data Centre Playbook explaining how it would decide.
The playbook’s second core principle is that “data centres pay the full cost of electricity”: they would invest in the generation and transmission upgrades they need, and “other ratepayers do not bear the cost.” To enforce that, Ontario is considering a separate electricity rate class for data centres and restricting their eligibility for the Industrial Conservation Initiative, a program that lowers costs for some large electricity users. Its assessment of each project would also consider whether it brings its own on-site power.
Critics say the cost principle is the strongest part of the draft and the rest is weak. Rachel Pettigrew of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives argues that the playbook doesn’t say whether the province’s assessments of each project will be made public, sets no binding limits on gas generation on site, and gives municipalities little real say. We couldn’t find a final playbook, or the regulation that will set which data centres need approval.
British Columbia: make them compete
B.C. went with rationing. In January, the province and BC Hydro said AI and data centre projects must now compete for a fixed amount of clean electricity, up to 400 MW over the first two years, the province announced. Bids are judged on price, plus economic, community, data sovereignty and environmental benefits. Projects already far along in BC Hydro’s queue keep their place.
BC Hydro’s CEO, Charlotte Mitha, said the process “protects long-term affordability and grid reliability for our customers.” The province said winners would be notified in September. We couldn’t find a public list of who got power.
Side by side
| Province | Main tool | How it protects other customers | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alberta | Priority for projects that bring their own power | Data centres pay their own connection and transmission fees; no subsidies | In force; permanent connection rules still being designed |
| Quebec | Higher rate for data centres over 5 MW | Price roughly doubles to about 13 cents/kWh | Before the regulator; hearings resume in December |
| Ontario | Province approves each connection | Separate rate class and limits on an industrial discount program under consideration | Draft; final playbook pending |
| B.C. | Competitive call for a fixed amount of power | Caps total supply; price is a selection factor | Up to 400 MW over two years |
The pushback, and the federal push
The opposition so far is local and specific. In Alberta, landowners near the Indus site have refused to sell. Samson Cree Nation was the last intervenor standing against the Sturgeon County plant, and Rocky View County paused new data centre land-use applications in July, the Globe reports. The province also passed a law in May that lets it override municipal bylaws, and councils worry it could be used on data centres. In the U.S., the Globe counts 575 active restrictions on data centres across 46 states.
Meanwhile, Ottawa wants more computing in Canada, not less. Its investment of up to $1.6 billion in Cohere requires the company to spend at least $1.7 billion on Canadian computing infrastructure by 2030, The Logic reports. A separate $890-million program will fund a public AI supercomputer, with the lead to be named early next year, BetaKit reports. Each of those needs power from one of the four systems above.
What to watch
- Dec. 8: The Alberta Utilities Commission’s expected decision on Beacon’s 1,494 MW Indus gas plant near Calgary.
- December: The second part of Quebec’s data centre rate hearing. A decision follows after that.
- Ontario’s final playbook: and the regulation setting which projects need approval. We found no public date.
- AESO’s permanent rules: How much more load Alberta lets on, and on what terms.
- B.C.’s results: Which projects won power in the first call.
Why it matters: Every province says data centres will pay their own way, and on transmission and connection costs the rules are getting tighter. The open question is energy itself. In Quebec, the fight is over whether data centres pay what the power actually costs. In Alberta, it’s whether enough new generation gets built to keep wholesale prices in check. Those decisions, made over the next few months by regulators most people never hear about, are where the effect on your power bill will be settled.
Figures are from the sources linked, as of Nov. 3, 2026. Alberta’s connection requests come from AESO’s July 30 list (via the province) and the Globe’s October figure; they are requests, not approvals.
