Firm Power Is an Architecture
That brought the morning back to its recurring problem: What counts as available power?
During the “Solving for Power” panel, moderator Lillian Kasa of Metlen Energy & Metals argued that data centers cannot operate on announcements. They need reliable electricity delivered on a schedule and backed by a commercial structure that can be financed.
Margarita Patria of Charles River Associates made the distinction even sharper. Firm power is not merely generation. It is generation, transmission and fuel availability working together.
Todd Detling of FortisAlberta added an important Alberta-specific qualification. Despite perceptions that the province had substantial transmission capacity available for new development, FortisAlberta is encountering constraints, particularly around the Edmonton and Calgary fringes.
At the distribution level, the demand is already material. Detling said FortisAlberta has connected nearly 80 MW of data center load over the past several years, has approximately another 80 MW in the build queue, and has received roughly 300 MW in additional requests.
Those smaller increments matter in a market dominated rhetorically by gigawatt announcements. They are another indication that developers are searching for power pathways they can execute now.
AI Is Not Just a Bigger Load
Tesla’s Sean Jones added another technical wrinkle: AI training loads can change extremely quickly.
Data center power planning traditionally focuses heavily on annual consumption, peak demand and hourly load. GPU clusters can create significant changes at the second or even sub-second level.
Jones described AI training demand falling from full load to around 30% in less than a second. That kind of movement can be difficult for onsite turbines and reciprocating generators to follow and potentially disruptive to the grid.
Battery energy storage is therefore taking on a different role. The familiar data center battery story is backup power. The emerging AI story is power quality.
Storage can act as an electrical buffer between rapidly changing GPU loads and generation assets that respond more slowly. It may also help data centers meet voltage, load-stability and ramp-rate requirements, participate in demand-response programs, or increase utilization of an existing power feed.
That makes batteries less an isolated piece of backup infrastructure than part of the interface between AI compute and the power system.
Matthew Swinamer of Collicutt Energy Services made a corresponding point about onsite generation. It can accelerate a project dramatically because developers gain more control over timing.
But again, it does not eliminate risk. Permitting, emissions, fuel infrastructure, noise and equipment availability all become the developer’s problem. As Callaghan had argued earlier in the morning, risk moves. It does not disappear.
The Data Center as a Grid Participant
The longer-term result may be a fundamental change in the relationship between data centers and utilities.
Historically, a large facility asked for firm service and the utility supplied it. The scale and behavior of emerging AI loads increasingly make that model difficult.
Patria pointed to evolving large-load policies in U.S. power markets where flexibility could become part of the price of earlier interconnection.
Instead of waiting five or more years for unconditional firm service, a data center might accept curtailment conditions or demonstrate that batteries, onsite generation or other systems can reduce its demand during periods of system stress.
Detling said FortisAlberta is already testing demand-response concepts. Jones divided the emerging requirements into two groups.
Some are likely to become basic conditions of connection: stable loads, voltage ride-through capability and behavior that does not destabilize the grid. Others could become incentives.
Bring additional generation. Add storage. Accept demand response. Offer flexibility. In return, receive power sooner. That transforms the data center from a passive industrial consumer into an active component of the energy system.
Alberta’s Likely Answer: Hybrid
By the end of the power panel, there was substantial agreement about the direction Alberta is likely to take. To wit: Hybrid.
Grid power where available. Onsite or nearby generation where needed. Batteries to smooth load and support system requirements. Renewable generation where economic. Flexible interconnection where appropriate.
And, eventually, greater integration among all of them.
The reason is simple arithmetic. Alberta’s existing interconnected system was built over generations. Data center developers are now contemplating several gigawatts of new load on timelines measured in years.
The grid cannot simply absorb every announced project immediately. Nor is it realistic to assume that every large data center will permanently become an electrical island. The practical answer is likely to sit between the two.
Kasa closed the discussion with a formulation that captured much of the morning: The projects most likely to move forward will not necessarily be those making the largest announcements. They will be those with the most credible, firm and financeable path to power.
That may ultimately describe Alberta’s opportunity better than any gigawatt forecast. Cheap energy alone will not create a major data center market. Neither will land, tax policy, natural gas, hyperscaler interest, cooling technology or political support considered separately.
The winners will be the projects capable of assembling all of it into something that can actually be delivered. That was the larger message running through Data Centre West 2026. Alberta no longer needs to prove that AI infrastructure is interested in locating there. Now it has to prove that it can execute.
