Canadian data centre power · updated 2026-08-18

Data centre power, province by province

How long a data centre waits before it can draw power in each of Canada's 13 jurisdictions, and what has moved since. The answers differ because disclosure does: Alberta publishes a project-level list every month, and most other operators publish nothing comparable.

The gap

Power is measured in years. Your date is not.

Every bar is a published figure, read from the operator or the regulator that published it. The bars are the jurisdictions that will commit to a number at all.

0 of 13 jurisdictions publish no grid timeline
0 days, median slip on the one queue that does publish, across 20 editions

Alberta Grid · conditional 4–6
Ontario Grid 3–5
British Columbia Grid · conditional 3–5
Alberta Behind the fence 2–4
New Brunswick Behind the fence 2–4
Saskatchewan Grid · conditional 1–2

Years to power

And then it moves. The median filed project on Alberta's list has pushed its in-service date out by 416 days, which is 1.1 years on top of whatever it was quoted.

A conditional figure covers a defined subset, not the general case: Alberta's 4 to 6 years is for the two projects already allocated capacity, and a new entrant has no published figure at all.

Jurisdiction	System operator	Publishes projects	Grid	Behind the fence	Projects	MW announced, not operating
Alberta	AESO	Project level	4–6 *	2–4	24	9,761.9
Ontario	IESO	Project level	3–5	n/a	16	1,744.2
British Columbia	BC Hydro	Nothing project level	3–5 *	n/a	11	583
New Brunswick	NB Power	Project level	n/a *	2–4	1	390
Saskatchewan	SaskPower	Nothing project level	1–2 *	n/a	2	300
Quebec	Hydro-Québec	Nothing project level	n/a *	n/a	19	137
Manitoba	Manitoba Hydro	Nothing project level	n/a *	n/a	3	5.5
Nova Scotia	Nova Scotia Power	Project level	n/a *	n/a	0	0
Newfoundland and Labrador	Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro	No data centre load identified	n/a *	n/a	0	0
Prince Edward Island	Maritime Electric	No data centre load identified	n/a *	n/a	0	0
Yukon	Yukon Energy Corporation	No data centre load identified	n/a *	n/a	0	0
Northwest Territories	Northwest Territories Power Corporation	No data centre load identified	n/a *	n/a	0	0
Nunavut	Qulliq Energy Corporation	No data centre load identified	n/a *	n/a	0	0

Years are as published, not modelled; an asterisk marks a conditional figure. MW counts announced capacity not yet energized, which is a different set from an operator's own list and is never summed with it. How the figures reconcile.

Alberta AESO 9,761.9MW

Courting load loudly while the near-term connection queue is already spoken for.

4–6years to grid power
2–4years behind the fence
24tracked projects

Publishes a project-level connection list.

Binding constraint. Alberta is the source of the 1,200 MW interim cap, and it is fully allocated and now superseded. Sequence: AESO rolled out Large Load Integration Phase I on 4 June 2025 with a 1,200 MW interim large load connection limit. 15 projects from 5 developers (4,800 MW) qualified; 1,200 MW was assigned to 2 projects from 2 developers; contracts executed October 2025 (deadline extended from 4 August to allow developers to assess the new provincial levy). Final result: P2936 GLDC Load 970 MW and P3083 Keephills Data Centre Phase I 230 MW. Nothing else received firm grid capacity.

Full Alberta record Updated 2026-08-16

Ontario IESO 1,744.2MW

Open door dressed in new gatekeeping: government now picks winners before IESO's technical process even starts.

3–5years to grid power
n/ayears behind the fence
16tracked projects

Publishes a project-level connection list.

Binding constraint. There is no Alberta-style cap and no Quebec-style block allocation. Ontario has never set an MW ceiling for data centres, never run an allocation call, and never declared a provincial moratorium. If you are looking for a single number, there isn't one. What binds is five separate things, and right now the sharpest two are legal limbo and municipal land use, not grid capacity per se. 1. Regulatory limbo, the top constraint as of 2026-08-01. Electricity Act s.28.1 has been in force since December 11, 2025 and prohibits connecting a "specified load facility" unless regulatory requirements are met.

Full Ontario record Updated 2026-08-16

British Columbia BC Hydro 583MW

Effectively closed to unsolicited load: capacity is capped and allocated by competitive call, not first-come-first-served.

3–5years to grid power
n/ayears behind the fence
11tracked projects

Publishes nothing at project level.

Binding constraint. A Statutory volume cap plus A Competitive allocation, and it is roughly 2x oversubscribed on the first round. B.C. Reg. 8/2026, s. 3, for the two-year period beginning 1 Feb 2026: BC Hydro "must not... make available for conventional data centre purposes more than a total of 100 MW of new electricity capacity," and not more than "300 MW of new electricity capacity" plus any unused conventional allocation for AI data centre purposes. So 400 MW total for all data centres in BC over two years. Separately 200 MW for hydrogen-for-export.

Full British Columbia record Updated 2026-08-16

New Brunswick NB Power 390MW

Open but non-committal: the utility says it can handle a specific 190 MW request but wants flexible, interruptible load, not firm baseload commitments.

n/ayears to grid power
2–4years behind the fence
1tracked projects

Publishes a project-level connection list.

Binding constraint. There is NO formal cap, NO moratorium and NO block-allocation process for data centre load in New Brunswick as of 2026-08-01. Nothing resembling Alberta's 1,200 MW interim cap or Quebec's allocation calls exists. That absence is itself the finding, and it has been tested twice in 2026: - 2026-06-11/17: Green MLA Megan Mitton moved a resolution for an immediate moratorium on big data centres. The government refused; when Mitton sought unanimous consent to extend the sitting to force a vote, Liberal members shouted "no" and the House adjourned without voting.

Full New Brunswick record Updated 2026-08-01

Saskatchewan SaskPower 300MW

Open and courting, but riding on coal-refurbishment and nuclear plans that are not yet built.

1–2years to grid power
n/ayears behind the fence
2tracked projects

Publishes nothing at project level.

Binding constraint. There is no capacity cap, no moratorium, and no allocation round in Saskatchewan. Nothing equivalent to Alberta's 1,200 MW interim cap or Quebec's block allocation calls exists. The binding constraints are different in kind: 1. Dispatchable baseload availability, not headroom on paper. SaskPower has roughly 5,900 MW installed against average system demand of about 2,600-3,500 MW seasonally, but the province's own framing is that new AI load depends on firm always-on supply.

Full Saskatchewan record Updated 2026-08-01

Quebec Hydro-Québec 137MW

Went from selling surplus hydro to data centres to actively pricing and gatekeeping them out.

n/ayears to grid power
n/ayears behind the fence
19tracked projects

Publishes nothing at project level.

Binding constraint. There is no numeric cap and no moratorium. The binding constraint is Discretionary ministerial allocation of a scarce energy balance, compounded by very thin local transmission headroom. It is not comparable to Alberta's 1,200 MW interim cap, it is looser on paper and tighter in practice. Correction to the premise: Quebec has Not run block allocation calls for data centre load. The only block RFP Hydro-Québec has ever run in this space was the 300 MW non-firm block for "cryptographic use applied to blockchains," launched 5 June 2019 following Régie decision of 29 April 2019, crypto mining only, not data centres.

Full Quebec record Updated 2026-08-01

Manitoba Manitoba Hydro 5.5MW

Closed to unsolicited large load: government now picks which projects get power, and it has already said no to at least one data centre.

n/ayears to grid power
n/ayears behind the fence
3tracked projects

Publishes nothing at project level.

Binding constraint. Discretionary ministerial allocation plus a hard capacity wall, not a numeric cap. There is no Manitoba equivalent of Alberta's 1,200 MW interim cap and no Quebec-style block allocation call for data centre load. The binding constraints, in order: 1. Ministerial priority gate (in force 1 Sept 2025). Every >5 MW request is ranked low/medium/high by the Minister; low-priority requests are deferred behind all medium and high requests and served only if capacity would not be impaired; no appeal. M.R. 68/2025 ss.7-13. This is a political allocation decision, not a technical one, and no allocated volume is published.

Full Manitoba record Updated 2026-08-16

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia Power 0MW

Not actively pursuing data centres: the Premier says the file does not exist yet and won't until offshore wind is built.

n/ayears to grid power
n/ayears behind the fence
0tracked projects

Publishes a project-level connection list.

Binding constraint. No formal cap and no allocation process, and that is itself the finding. Nova Scotia has nothing equivalent to Alberta's 1,200 MW interim cap or Quebec's block allocation calls. There is no moratorium, no queue cap, no data-centre allocation call, no large-load tariff. The binding constraint is physical scarcity plus political unwillingness, mediated by an undefined process. 1. System scale. Nova Scotia's all-time record system peak was 2,459 MW on 25 Jan 2026. A single 100 MW data centre is ~4% of provincial peak; the 325 MW IRL01 request is ~13%.

Full Nova Scotia record Updated 2026-08-01

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro 0MW

No data centre policy exists; the province is preoccupied with Gull Island/Churchill Falls megaproject planning and general industrial load growth, not data centre-specific rules.

n/ayears to grid power
n/ayears behind the fence
0tracked projects