Canadian midstream gas company Pembina Pipeline Corporation (PBA) and Kineticor Asset Management, a Canadian power generation firm, have formed a joint venture (JV) to develop a natural gas power plant in Alberta, Canada, to serve the data center sector.
The 50/50 JV Greenlight Electricity Center Limited Partnership will co-develop the Greenlight Electricity Center (GLEC), a multi-phase gas-fired power generation facility with a planned capacity of 1.8GW in the "Alberta heartlands." The exact location of the project has not been disclosed.
It will be developed in modular phases of 450MW and, when operational, will be managed by Kineticor.
The project is currently in the third stage of the Alberta Electric System Operator's interconnection process. The JV said the project could be brought into service as early as 2029.
In addition, the project has a large plot of land adjacent, which the JV says can accommodate a colocated data center project.
Greenlight has said it is in "active discussions with data center customers to commercially underpin the project and believes the lands within Alberta's Industrial Heartland are well suited given their proximity to transmission and utility infrastructure."
The Alliance Pipeline, a natural gas pipeline connecting Alberta and British Columbia in western Canada with Illinois in the US, is located close to the project. According to PBA, which manages the pipeline in Alberta, the JV will leverage the pipeline to supply natural gas directly to the GLEC.
Alberta is Canada's biggest natural gas producer. In 2023, the province produced 11.2 billion cubic feet per day, 61 percent of Canada's total production.
Late last year, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced that data centers seeking to set up shop in Alberta must "bring your own electricity, bring your own generation. Partner with a generating company."
This has led to several data center firms partnering with natural gas companies to power their installations directly.
Last month, artificial intelligence data center developer Crusoe entered into a multi-year framework agreement with natural gas-fired power provider Kalina Distributed Power (KDP) to develop multiple colocated AI data centers powered by natural gas power plants in the province.
Under the agreement, Crusoe will develop, own, and operate the data centers and purchase power from three KDP-owned 170MW gas-fired power plants through Power Purchase Agreements with a minimum term of 15 years.
Before this, Gryphon Digital Mining agreed to purchase an 850-acre industrial site in southern Alberta with access to a natural gas supply from Captus Energy. The company plans to develop an on-site AI data center powered by natural gas. The site's initial generation capacity is 100MW, which the company claims can be scaled to 4GW.
