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Alberta

Province announces a new High School for Blackfalds and plans for a new Middle School in Red Deer

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Minister LaGrange, Minister Panda and Minister Sawhney announce provincial school capital funding at Nose Creek School in Calgary.

From the Province of Alberta

Building schools for the future

Following through on its commitment to continue building new schools, the province has announced 25 new school projects.

The Budget 2019 capital plan supports 15 new schools, including brand new high schools in Calgary, Edmonton, Leduc, Blackfalds and Langdon. Six schools are slated for replacement and four will receive modernization or additions. Together, the 25 projects will receive $397 million.

“We made a promise to Albertans that our government will continue to build new schools, and we are doing exactly that. Through our significant investment in new schools, replacements, modernizations and infrastructure upkeep, our children will continue to learn in up-to-date and safe spaces. This will result in better success in our classrooms. The future is bright for Alberta students.”

Adriana LaGrange, Minister of Education

“These 25 projects confirm our government’s commitment to continue to build schools across the province. Alberta Infrastructure will continue to deliver key infrastructure projects to build prosperity for Albertans.”

Prasad Panda, Minister of Infrastructure

Budget 2019 also includes $1.4 billion over four years to continue work on previously announced school projects across Alberta, which includes $123 million for about 250 new modular classrooms to address the most urgent needs for additional space across the province. There are more than 60 projects underway in the province. Twenty-seven are expected to be open for the 2020-21 school year, and the remaining projects are in various stages of planning and construction.

The province will also provide $527 million to school divisions for plant operations and maintenance to support the day-to-day upkeep of school facilities. Additionally, $194 million will support the capital maintenance and renewal of existing school buildings through the Infrastructure Maintenance and Renewal Program.

“I am pleased that the government chose to make this announcement here in Calgary-North East. Students and families in my community will be relieved to hear that they will be getting the new high school we have needed for a long time. I’m proud that this critical funding was included in Budget 2019, as this was one of my first and most important motivations for why I wanted to represent Calgary-North East at the legislature.”

Rajan Sawhney, Minister of Community and Social Services and MLA for Calgary-North East

“On behalf of our students and the Calgary Board of Education, we would like to thank Minister LaGrange and Minister Panda for this important investment in school capital. We are pleased they chose to come to Calgary to make this provincial announcement and look forward to new CBE schools that will benefit students in north Calgary and in the growing community of Auburn Bay.”

Marilyn Dennis, chair, Calgary Board of Education

The 25 capital projects are:

Community School Authority Project Type/Name
*Beaumont Conseil scolaire Centre Nord (Greater North Central Francophone Education Region) new school (K-12)
*Blackfalds Wolf Creek Public Schools new high school (9-12)
Buffalo Head Prairie Fort Vermilion School Division Blue Hills Community School addition & modernization
Calgary – Auburn Bay Calgary Board of Education new elementary school (K-4)
Calgary – Auburn Bay Calgary Board of Education new middle school (5-9)
Calgary – north Calgary Board of Education new high school (10-12)
Carstairs Chinook’s Edge School Division Carstairs Elementary School addition
Cochrane Calgary Catholic School District new elementary/junior high school (K-9)
Condor & Leslieville Wild Rose School Division David Thompson solution modernization/replacement
*Edmonton – south east Edmonton Public Schools new high school (10-12)
Edmonton – Windermere-Keswick Edmonton Public Schools new elementary/junior high (K-9)
*Edmonton – Heritage Valley Town Centre Edmonton Catholic Schools new high school (10-12)
Edmonton – Windermere/Keswick Edmonton Catholic Schools new elementary/junior high (K-9)
*Fort Chipewyan Northland School Division Athabasca Delta School modernization/replacement
*Grande Prairie Peace Wapiti School Division Harry Balfour School replacement
*Langdon Rocky View Schools new junior/senior high school (7-12)
*Leduc Black Gold School Division new high school (10-12)
Legal Conseil scolaire Centre Nord(Greater North Central Francophone Education Region) new elementary/junior high school (K-9)
Morinville Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools Morinville Community High School CTS modernization
Morrin Prairie Land School Division Morrin School replacement
Peace River Conseil Scolaire du Nord-Ouest(Northwest Francophone Education Region) École des Quatre-Vents replacement
*Red Deer Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools new middle school (6-9)
Smoky Lake Aspen View Public Schools H.A. Kostash replacement
*St. Albert St. Albert Public Schools Bellerose Composite High School addition & modernization
Whitecourt Living Waters Catholic Schools new elementary school (K-3)

*Design funding

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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Alberta

Temporary Alberta grid limit unlikely to dampen data centre investment, analyst says

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From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Cody Ciona

‘Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests’

Billions of investment in new data centres is still expected in Alberta despite the province’s electric system operator placing a temporary limit on new large-load grid connections, said Carson Kearl, lead data centre analyst for Enverus Intelligence Research.

Kearl cited NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s estimate from earlier this year that building a one-gigawatt data centre costs between US$60 billion and US$80 billion.

That implies the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO)’s 1.2 gigawatt temporary limit would still allow for up to C$130 billion of investment.

“It’s got the potential to be extremely impactful to the Alberta power sector and economy,” Kearl said.

Importantly, data centre operators can potentially get around the temporary limit by ‘bringing their own power’ rather than drawing electricity from the existing grid.

In Alberta’s deregulated electricity market – the only one in Canada – large energy consumers like data centres can build the power supply they need by entering project agreements directly with electricity producers.

According to the AESO, there are 30 proposed data centre projects across the province.

The total requested power load for these projects is more than 16 gigawatts, roughly four gigawatts more than Alberta’s demand record in January 2024 during a severe cold snap.

For comparison, Edmonton’s load is around 1.4 gigawatts, the AESO said.

“Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests,” CEO Aaron Engen said in a statement.

“Because connecting all large loads seeking access would impair grid reliability, we established a limit that preserves system integrity while enabling timely data centre development in Alberta.”

As data centre projects come to the province, so do jobs and other economic benefits.

“You have all of the construction staff associated; electricians, engineers, plumbers, and HVAC people for all the cooling tech that are continuously working on a multi-year time horizon. In the construction phase there’s a lot of spend, and that is just generally good for the ecosystem,” said Kearl.

Investment in local power infrastructure also has long-term job implications for maintenance and upgrades, he said.

“Alberta is a really exciting place when it comes to building data centers,” said Beacon AI CEO Josh Schertzer on a recent ARC Energy Ideas podcast.

“It has really great access to natural gas, it does have some excess grid capacity that can be used in the short term, it’s got a great workforce, and it’s very business-friendly.”

The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to the Canadian Energy Centre.

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Alberta

Alberta Next: Taxation

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A new video from the Alberta Next panel looks at whether Alberta should stop relying on Ottawa to collect our provincial income taxes. Quebec already does it, and Alberta already collects corporate taxes directly. Doing the same for personal income taxes could mean better tax policy, thousands of new jobs, and less federal interference. But it would take time, cost money, and require building new systems from the ground up.

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