Pung Toy, CEO and co-founder of Power Grid Specialists Corp., said in this new era of AI demand there\u2019s a \u201cgold rush\u201d for electricity allotments to build out more data centres, leading to a unique sale such as this one.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s unprecedented in any space, but since transmission capacity seems to be a commodity now \u2014 before it never used to be,\u201d said Toy, who has helped oil and gas companies connect to the grid in his decades-long career. Now, he\u2019s also working with AI data centre developers.<\/p>\n
![\"Pung](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771344188_213_default.jpg\")
Pung Toy, CEO and co-founder of Power Grid Specialists Corp., says he’s seeing a \u201cgold rush\u201d for electricity allotments to build out more AI data centres. (Power Grid Specialists Corp.)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe majority of the time when oil and gas companies [wanted] to connect, there was never a rush. You file your application with the AESO, you go through the studies and whatever they needed \u2026 if the study shows no concerns, they were granted that interconnection,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The demand for connection to the grid now is unprecedented. Currently, there are 42 large-load projects in AESO\u2019s queue, requesting a total load of 21.1 gigawatts from the grid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For comparison, that\u2019s nearly twice as much as the province\u2019s entire power load during peak hours, or 15 times the electricity it takes to power Edmonton.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand why the AESO is going through this allotment phase just to make sure the system doesn’t get overwhelmed. Normally oil and gas developments take a period of time. There’s not really a gold rush because these types of infrastructure [are] you know, $1-billion, $2-billion-type decisions, so they go through very, very methodically,\u201d Toy explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhereas the AI centre space you can plug in a data centre within three years, it doesn’t take much to install these types of facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sale was \u2018transformative\u2019 for Kalina, executive says<\/p>\n
Developers that had already qualified for Phase 1 of AESO\u2019s program were allowed to transfer their allotments amongst each other between June 30, 2025 and July 7, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In that period, Kalina reported it received 180 megawatts for its large load projects, representing 15 per cent of the total 1,200 megawatts up for grabs. In its quarterly report, Kalina said its allotment was \u201cdisproportionately larger than others because its applications for load were integrated with applications for generation as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Kalina Power did not respond to CBC\u2019s request for comment, in October, the company held a webinar<\/a> in which it addressed the 180-megawatt sale.<\/p>\n \u201cClearly, these funds are utterly transformative of our cash position and balance sheet,\u201d said Timothy Horgan, Kalina Power Limited\u2019s executive director.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe change is from a company under pressure to make a deal to one that can confidently pursue the range of transactions, investments, and sales that will allow us to develop these projects and our portfolio in the way most accretive to all of our shareholders.\u201d<\/p>\n Ross MacLachlan, Kalina\u2019s managing director and CEO, said another colleague on the call would help the webinar audience understand: \u201cWhat did we give away? Which is basically nothing \u2026 in return for something, which is fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n AESO confirmed to CBC News that developers did not have to pay a fee to qualify for an electricity allotment in Phase 1 of its Large Load Integration program<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Developers only needed to present a letter of support from the municipality or county it planned to build its facility in, complete power flow studies and provide a provision of security for financial obligations that would be incurred if it was successful in securing a load contract.<\/p>\n Matthew Jenkins, executive director of Kalina\u2019s Canadian subsidiary, said of the sale to Greenlight\u2019s customer, \u201cWe believed it was really important to attract a major hyperscaler there, which is why we made the critical strategic decision to actually transfer those megawatts \u2026 at the end of the day that 180 megawatts wasn’t going to be of use to us.\u201d<\/p>\n Kalina has five projects in the works in Alberta which would power up to 1,700 megawatts of data centre activity. None of those power projects require access to the provincial grid until 2029-2030, according to its June 2025 quarterly report.<\/p>\n Kineticor declined to comment on the sale. Pembina Pipeline and Meta did not respond to CBC\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n AI boom driving resource scarcity<\/p>\n Sam Jenkins, managing partner at Punchcard Systems, an Edmonton-based technology consulting and development firm, said that by AESO introducing the temporary cap<\/a> on data centre connections \u2014 to ensure grid reliability \u2014 it created a limited pool of connection capacity. <\/p>\n “When there’s resource scarcity, the market typically reacts to that in its own curious ways.”<\/p>\n Jenkins added that “from a digital economy perspective, what we’re seeing is a bit of a bottleneck as it relates to infrastructure. And we’ve seen those bottlenecks in other parts of the data centre ecosystem,” like chip production. <\/p>\n “AI growth is really no longer just constrained by the real estate where we’re going to build or the chips \u2026 It really is being constrained by how fast you can secure dependable, reliable power sources for interconnection.”<\/p>\n![\"Power](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771344189_730_default.jpg\")
Developers that had already qualified for Phase 1 of AESO\u2019s program were allowed to transfer their allotments amongst each other during a set period. In that time, Kalina negotiated the sale and transfer of its AESO-allotted 180 megawatts. (Jeff McIntosh\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n![\"Sam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771344189_944_default.jpg\")
Sam Jenkins, managing partner at Punchcard Systems, says AESO’s introduction of the temporary cap on data centre connections created a limited pool of connection capacity. (CBC)<\/p>\n