Data Center That Would Consume As Much Energy As Edmonton Too Much Even For Alberta Regulators

A massive data centre proposed for the town of Olds, Alta., has been rejected by the provincial utilities regulator. Synapse Data Centre’s project would have been the largest of its kind in Canada, consuming as much power in a day as the entire city of Edmonton, fed by a 1.4 gigawatt natural gas power plant built to fuel the centre.

The Alberta Utilities Commission, which regulates power plants in the province, denied the company’s application, citing missing information and a lack of public consultation. “The deficiencies include, but are not limited to, errors, insufficient or incomplete information and internal inconsistency among the application documents,” reads the decision, issued on March 6. “Collectively, the deficiencies create a significant lack of clarity as to whether application requirements have been met.”

Residents of Olds expressed concern over the project, worried about a massive power plant and data centre located across the street from homes, as well as the agricultural college and its wetlands and fields. Those concerns were not sufficiently addressed, according to the commission. It notes the public consultation process started 14 days before the application was submitted for approval, and says information packages lacked details. The company’s application didn’t include key concerns raised by residents or identify how it attempted to mitigate them, for example.

Environmental impact evaluations were also a concern for the regulator. “The environmental evaluation is a draft document with missing information, including incomplete citations, missing figures and document mark-ups including highlighted text,” according to the decision. It says environmental evaluations were based on “preliminary desktop data” and “conclusions relating to wildlife and wetlands are made from incomplete field studies conducted during the winter.”

EDIT

https://thenarwhal.ca/olds-data-centre-denied/