EDMONTON — Premier Danielle Smith and a pair of her cabinet ministers took questions from Albertans on Thursday, as the UCP government continued their town hall series, attempting to answer questions and hear from Albertans concerned about Alberta's AI data centre strategy. "We will always be looking out for Albertans first, and we will hold every project proponent accountable to our strict rules and regulatory framework," said Minister of Technology and Innovation Nate Glubish. .Over 12,000 Albertans joined the discussion with Smith, Glubish and Minister of Municipal Affairs Dan Williams, and the majority of concerns centred on water usage, power and electricity costs, and noise from the facilities. Numerous individuals asked the leaders what safeguards were in place to ensure Albertans would not have to pay higher utility rates due to the large amount of energy consumed by data centres and the infrastructure required to transmit electricity. Glubish said the first protection is Alberta's requirement that projects bring their own power supply, cover the costs of any infrastructure upgrades needed to connect to the electricity grid, and pay additional transmission fees. Individuals also raised concerns about data centres that do not supply their own power, and the leaders said grid operators have calculated how much electricity they can safely allocate to projects without impacting Albertans, and that these levels will be strictly maintained. .Water usage was another concern raised, especially by individuals in Southern Alberta, who said the region already faces droughts and shortages. Glubish explained that many new data centres are being built to operate with closed-loop cooling systems, which do not require the constant water supply of older designs. Smith added that some regions with water shortages do not grant new water licences, which means data centres would need to negotiate and secure the allotted water from someone who already has access to it. At the same time, there are also areas in Alberta that do not use all of their available water. .On the matter of noise from data centres, much of the conversation centred on regulations requiring facilities to be located a certain distance from homes and other infrastructure. The UCP officials agreed on the importance of setbacks and barriers in protecting communities and mitigating concerns, but those regulations are largely set by individual regulators or municipal leaders. Such a case occurred in Olds earlier in August, after the Alberta Utilities Commission denied the application of a proponent seeking to build a power plant to fuel a data centre, but the AUC determined there was no justification for locating the site 800 meters from the community. Williams said the Alberta government is also working to develop guidance to help municipalities. "Because fundamentally, we need to make sure that we're protecting the interests of Albertans when it comes to development, both the power generation side, which we have regulation on, and a regulator that oversees it, but also the data processing side of it," Williams said.
