The town of Rocky Mountain House is exploring its feasibility for hosting a data centre.
Councillor Ken Moesker discussed the motion at the Jan. 14, 2025, Governance and Priorities Committee (GPC) meeting, citing several large data centre projects announced across Alberta in recent months, including a $750 million facility in Rockyview County and a $4 billion complex in Foothills County near High River. Moesker also referenced a $70 billion data centre project in Greenview, south of Grande Prairie, as evidence of the growing interest in this sector.
The provincial government has made the development of data centres a priority, he says, with a strategy focused on three key pillars: power capacity, sustainable cooling, and economic development. Moesker believes Rocky Mountain House meets all three criteria and urged the town to move forward with investigating the potential for such a project.
“We should explore this opportunity further,” Moesker said. “Rocky Mountain House checks all the boxes for this type of development, and I’d like to see us take the next step.”
While some councillors raised concerns about the availability of land in the town itself for a data centre, others suggested that a regional approach, potentially collaborating with Clearwater County, could be more practical.
Councillor Tina Hutchinson questioned whether the project would be better suited for county land rather than within town boundaries.
Councillor Moesker acknowledged the possibility of a regional approach but emphasized the town should first explore its own options. He asked administration to bring back some initial data for the next meeting.
Deputy Mayor Dale Shippelt expressed support for pursuing the project within the town, highlighting potential economic benefits, and the need for an increased tax base.
Council has directed administration to compile initial data for consideration to be reviewed at the next GPC meeting on Feb. 12.
A recently proposed power plant project for the far northeast corner of Clearwater County was identified as helping to facilitate a data centre.
In an e-mailed statement to 94.5 Rewind Radio News, a spokesperson with Kiwetinohk Energy Corporation (KEC) says the project will provide significant tax revenues to the county, create a number of well paid jobs, and potentially attract data centres to the area who would employ many more people and invest significant capital in the area, further increasing the tax base.
A data centre is a facility used to store and manage large amounts of data. It typically houses computing systems, servers, networking equipment, storage devices, and related infrastructure necessary to support data processing, storage, and communication for various applications and services.
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