Electricity producer Capital Power Corp. says its recently retooled Genesee Generating Station positions the company well to seize data centre opportunities in Alberta.
The power plant southwest of Edmonton now runs entirely on natural gas instead of coal after a $1.6-billion multi-year project, allowing it to boost its capacity by around 60 per cent while cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent.
Chief executive Avik Dey urged analysts on a quarterly earnings conference call to be patient as they await details on a potential data centre project drawing power from Genesee, saying such undertakings are complicated and take time.
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Alberta’s technology minister has said the province hopes to see $100 billion worth of artificial intelligence data centres under construction in the next five years – massive operations that require an immense amount of electricity to run and cool off computer servers.
For the last three months of 2024, Edmonton-based Capital Power brought in $240 million in net income attributable to shareholders, or $1.75 per diluted share, up from $97 million, or 74 cents per diluted share in the same period a year earlier.
Revenues and other income for the quarter decreased to $853 million from $984 million during the fourth quarter of 2023.
For all of 2024, Capital Power had net income attributable to company shareholders of $699 million, or $5.15 per diluted share, down from $744 million, or $6.04 per share in 2023.
Annual revenues in 2024 were $3.78 billion, down from $4.28 billion.