Meta's Alberta Data Center to Launch Four Years Before Power Plant Meant to Supply It

Meta is building its first Canadian AI data center campus, worth $13 billion, in Sturgeon County north of Edmonton, its largest such facility outside the United States. According to Global News, the facility will come online four years before the neighboring Greenlight Electricity Centre, which was meant to power it, forcing the company to find a temporary energy solution.

To bridge the four-year gap between the data center's launch and the target power plant's readiness, Meta has secured interconnection rights to Alberta's power grid and will buy electricity from other providers operating in the province during that period.

Where the power will come from until 2030

Capital Power will play a key role during the transition period, supplying 250 megawatts to the campus by the end of 2028. That's still short of the 970 megawatts needed in the facility's first phase of operation, so the remaining demand will be covered from the general capacity pool Alberta has reserved for large industrial customers.

Meta spokesperson Stacey Yip confirmed that the interconnection rights the company secured let it move forward with the investment without waiting for Greenlight's construction to finish. The power plant is expected to have a capacity of 932 megawatts and begin operating in the second half of 2030, with the potential to expand to 1,864 megawatts if further phases go ahead.

Political support and environmental concerns

Alberta's government is presenting the investment as a provincial success in attracting global tech capital. The minister of affordability and utilities stressed that without a path to temporary grid connection, Alberta might not have landed such a large tenant.

Without this path to grid connection, Alberta might not have landed this massive new tenant. - Alberta's minister of affordability and utilities

Environmental activists see it differently. In their view, the decision entrenches Alberta's dependence on natural gas at a time when other regions building AI data center infrastructure are turning to renewable sources. Critics point out that Greenlight is a combined-cycle gas power plant, not a clean energy investment, even though the whole project is being framed under the banner of AI development.

What this means for the AI infrastructure race

Alberta's case illustrates a broader problem now facing every major player building infrastructure for AI models: the physical limits of power grids aren't keeping pace with the speed at which companies want to stand up new data centers. Meta, like other hyperscalers, is opting for stopgap solutions rather than delay bringing computing capacity online.

At full build-out, the Sturgeon County campus is expected to employ more than 3,000 people at peak construction, and for the province it represents the largest single industrial investment in its history. For Meta, it's part of a broader expansion strategy beyond the US border, alongside the five gigawatt-scale campuses it previously announced in its race with Google.

The case also illustrates a tension that's increasingly common in large AI investments: the promise of jobs and tax revenue collides with questions about who actually bears the environmental and infrastructure cost of the rapid buildout of computing capacity.

Sources: Meta data centre in Alberta to start up ahead of adjacent Greenlight power plant (globalnews.ca)