Pembina plans expansion near Meta’s Alberta data centre
Discussions are underway for Pembina Pipeline to expand the power plant currently under construction to support Meta’s $13-billion data centre in Alberta, while recent corporate and regulatory filings indicate the company is preparing for an even larger project in the vicinity.
Acquisition of land near Sturgeon County
A review of Alberta land records reveals that a newly formed company with ties to Pembina acquired approximately 134 acres in Sturgeon County last month, which is the same area where a substantial proposed data centre development, known as Lynx, has been identified in filings with the province’s electricity grid operator, with a potential capacity of up to 3.6 gigawatts, surpassing Meta’s existing one-gigawatt campus.
Regulatory filings outline plans for a 3.6-gigawatt data centre and adjacent gas-fired power plants on the same site, including two proposed facilities, both named Sturgeon Gas, which would collectively generate sufficient power to meet the substantial electricity requirements of the Lynx data centre.
Pembina and its partners have acquired land adjacent to the Greenlight Electricity Centre, currently under construction for Meta’s Sturgeon Data Centre project, although the company’s head of communications, Rachel Wenger, declined to provide further details on the plans for the property, while Pembina’s chief executive, Scott Burrows, offered some insight during the company’s third-quarter earnings call.
“We’ve always said we see this as a business, not a project,” he said. “The existing site we have today is not only licensed for 1.8 gigawatts—so double what we’re building today—but we also have significant industrial zone land right beside the existing site. So we are feeling confident about future development phases.”
Connections between landowners and Pembina
During the same earnings call, Pembina announced that it is engaged in discussions to finalize commercial agreements necessary for the next phase of Greenlight’s development, which could potentially lead to a doubling of the size of Meta’s Alberta data centre campus, although a final investment decision has yet to be made by either Pembina or Meta.
Meanwhile, the proposed Lynx and Sturgeon Gas developments, which are separate from Pembina’s potential expansion of Greenlight, suggest more ambitious power generation plans than the company has publicly disclosed, with The Logic identifying at least four executives from companies involved in Greenlight among the directors of a recently incorporated Alberta company that owns the land where the Lynx and Sturgeon Gas power developments are to be located, including Pembina’s chief operating officer, Jaret Sprott, and chief marketing and strategy officer, Chris Scherman, as well as Daniel Barbosa, who led Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners’ investment in Greenlight.
The new multi-gigawatt data centre project and gas plant proposals are in the initial stages of the electricity grid-connection process in Alberta, with filings to the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) describing a phased data centre development alongside two proposed gas-fired power plants, targeting an in-service date of June 2031.
Strategic positioning for growth
In its third-quarter earnings release, Pembina described supplying electricity to data centres as a “significant and scalable growth opportunity,” hinting at potential future projects, with Chris Scherman, Pembina’s chief marketing and strategy officer, stating, “We’re certainly positioning ourselves to make this a business beyond Greenlight One.”
Grid capacity concerns
The Alberta government is expected to attract such projects because they offer a significant new domestic market for the province’s gas producers, driving increased royalty revenues in the process. However, the sheer volume of data-centre proposals seeking access to the power grid represents enough energy demand to overwhelm Alberta’s electricity system. Developers have applied for connections requiring more than 27 gigawatts of electricity, according to an analysis of AESO’s latest project list.
That’s more than twice the province’s record peak electricity demand. So far, the province has responded by temporarily capping grid access and introducing new bring-your-own-generation rules for major projects. The Alberta government is also expected to introduce legislation governing data-centre development as early as next week, which could establish new limitations on where the facilities can be built, including setbacks from neighbouring properties and measures to protect farmland.
