Capital Power Corporation has reached a positive final investment decision on the Greenlight Electricity Centre, a gas-fired power plant built solely to supply a Meta Platforms data center in Sturgeon County, Alberta.1 The plant will not feed the public grid at all.1
Meta and Capital Power signed a direct, long-term bilateral contract, bypassing the standard model of buying electricity from a shared grid.1 "The agreement is exactly the kind of opportunity Capital Power has been preparing for, as AI infrastructure..." said Capital Power's Avik Dey.1
Alberta is becoming a proving ground for this financing model, which is also spreading through North America's other data center hubs. Pembina Pipeline Corporation, another Alberta-based energy firm, is pursuing similar dedicated, contracted gas-to-power projects tied to AI demand.2 "Dedicated, contracted gas-to-power infrastructure represents a promising new growth platform for Pembina," said Pembina's Scott Burrows.2
The structure marks a global shift in how hyperscalers secure electricity. Instead of drawing on utilities' existing capacity, companies are signing power purchase agreements that fund new generation built for their exclusive use — a model already tested with nuclear and renewable deals in the United States and Europe.
For energy companies, single-customer contracts backed by an AI hyperscaler offer predictable, long-term cash flow, lowering the barrier to financing new gas capacity. Capital Power's FID on Greenlight tests whether that model scales across Alberta and other data center regions worldwide.
The bilateral structure shifts capital risk onto power producers in exchange for guaranteed revenue from one large customer, rather than spreading demand across the broader grid — a trade-off increasingly weighed by utilities from Ireland to Malaysia as data center growth strains local power supplies.
Whether this becomes the dominant financing model for AI-driven power demand depends on capex announcements and new PPAs between hyperscalers including Meta, Microsoft, Google and Amazon and power generators over the next 12 to 24 months.12 A rise in gas-to-power project pipelines and positive FIDs across data center regions would confirm AI demand is now driving new generation investment directly, not just consuming existing supply.
