Capital Power Corporation has reached a positive final investment decision on the Greenlight Electricity Centre, a dedicated gas-fired power plant built to supply Meta Platforms.1 The facility will serve a Meta data center located in Sturgeon County, Alberta.1
The arrangement replaces a standard grid purchase with a direct, long-term bilateral contract between Meta and Capital Power.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
The Greenlight project is not an isolated deal. Pembina Pipeline Corporation, another Alberta-based energy infrastructure company, is also moving into dedicated, contracted gas-to-power projects tied to data center demand. "Dedicated, contracted gas-to-power infrastructure represents a promising new growth platform for Pembina," said Pembina's Scott Burrows.2
The pattern points to a structural shift in how hyperscalers secure electricity for data centers. Rather than drawing on utilities' existing grid capacity, companies are signing power purchase agreements that fund new, dedicated generation built specifically for them.
For energy companies, single-customer contracts backed by an AI hyperscaler offer predictable, long-term cash flow, which lowers the barrier to financing new gas-fired capacity. Capital Power's FID on Greenlight functions as an early test of whether that model scales across Alberta and other data center hubs.
The bilateral structure shifts capital risk onto power producers in exchange for guaranteed long-term revenue from a single large customer, rather than spreading demand across the broader grid.
Whether this becomes the dominant financing model for AI-driven power demand will depend on capex announcements and new PPA agreements between hyperscalers including Meta, Microsoft, Google and Amazon and power generation companies over the next 12 to 24 months.12 An increase in gas-to-power project pipelines and positive FIDs in data center regions would confirm AI infrastructure demand is now driving new generation investment directly, rather than simply consuming existing supply.