The whole stack is designed around two scarce resources — water and transmission — and the grid services AESO will pay for.
DLC captures ~80% of heat, rejected via dry coolers + evaporative assist. Remaining 20% handled by air-handling with evaporative support. Target WUE: 0.5 L/kWh — 72% below the 1.8 L/kWh industry average. At 1 GW full buildout, ~4.4 billion litres/year vs. >15 billion for a conventional facility.
Lithium iron phosphate, grid-forming inverters. Addresses the AESO WSCR deficit (Milo corridor WSCR 2.06). Eligible for FFR+ and R30 ancillary services revenue.
100–200 MW of Capstone Green Energy C1000S microturbines — each 1 MW unit is five 200 kW air-bearing microturbines running in parallel, deployable in clusters up to 30 MW. NOx emissions warranted below 9 ppm, among the lowest of any fossil-fuel combustion technology. Fuel-flexible on natural gas, renewable natural gas, biogas, and hydrogen blends — so the firming fleet transitions cleanly into the Phase 3 hydrogen layer without replacing hardware. Modular skids ship faster than large reciprocating engines or utility-scale gas turbines; air bearings mean no lubrication and far less on-site maintenance than traditional engines.
Renewable-fed electrolyzers produce hydrogen when Alberta wind and solar are curtailed; fuel cells discharge it back through the cold months and low-irradiance stretches. A seasonal storage layer that spans what batteries can't — and a pathway to replace the natural-gas share over time.
Solar arrays designed to unlock agrivoltaics potential — dual land use where crops, forage, or grazing continue beneath and between panel rows. Land stays productive.
Using BRID reservoir elevation and existing water infrastructure. A right-sized long-duration asset already surveyed into the corridor.
A pragmatic mix for Alberta's grid realities today — renewable-heavy, but firm enough that tenants never see a flicker. The natural-gas share shrinks as pumped hydro and hydrogen scale through Phase 2 and Phase 3.
Water and fast-interconnect transmission are the binding constraints on every Alberta data-centre project. Hybrid DLC at 0.5 L/kWh cuts water. Grid-forming LFP plus natural-gas firming shortens time-to-power from years to months — while hydrogen and pumped hydro layer in the seasonal depth renewables need to carry more of the load each year.