A $1.3B power plant and data centre is in the works northwest of Edmonton
A $1.3 billion power plant is in the works for an area approximately 200 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, with plans for a large data centre to be developed alongside it.
The Black Bear Power Project is a proposed 466 MW natural gas combined-cycle power plant that would be located about 19 kilometres south of Swan Hills.
The idea to build the power plant isn’t new. It was first proposed for the area in 2024 and previously under development by Kiwetinohk Energy, but is now being developed by Teton Digital.
Now, the project also includes 1,500 acres of adjacent Crown land being developed for data centre use.
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The company site shows the first phase would generate 466 MW, while Teton says the broader site could eventually support up to approximately 3 GW of power across one or more data centre campuses.
While the new power plant isn’t expected to be fully operational until 2028, Teton says data centre operations could begin as early as 2027 by temporarily drawing electricity from the grid.
Teton is pitching Alberta as an attractive location for data centre development, pointing to relatively low-cost natural gas, a cold continental climate, abundant water, and relatively inexpensive electricity.
Meanwhile, the company says power demand waiting to connect in the region outpaces new supply by roughly 30 per cent, and the site was assigned the lowest connection fee in the province, the “clearest signal that new dispatchable generation is wanted exactly here.”
“Black Bear sits squarely between Edmonton’s growing retail load, Grande Prairie’s industrial expansion, and the oil sands — the center of a transmission corridor that needs far more generation than it has,” Teton’s website stated.
Alberta Major Projects shows that the Black Bear power plant is listed as a proposed project, with a scheduled completion of 2028.
You can find out more about the project on the Teton Digital website.