Brookfield and CPP Investments lift the Keephills build 60% above the February 2026 plan
CPP Investments and Brookfield have raised the ceiling on their Alberta data centre development to 1,600 megawatts at full build out, 60 percent above the 1,000 megawatts set out in the memorandum of understanding the two signed with TransAlta Corp. on February 26.
TransAlta confirmed the revised scale in its third-quarter update on Tuesday, and the project now carries the name Boreal Technology Hub, DataCentre.ca reported.
First-phase investment runs to more than $5bn, according to Connect CRE Canada, citing the project’s website, with more than 1,000 construction jobs and 150 permanent positions.
The site sits directly south of TransAlta’s gas-fired Keephills Generating Station in Parkland County, roughly 60 kilometres west of Edmonton, and holds a 230-megawatt allocation through the Alberta Electric System Operator’s large-load integration process.
TransAlta is the exclusive site and power provider; BGRE, formerly Brookfield Properties, leads development for Brookfield and CPP Investments.
CPP Investments closed fiscal 2026 at $793.3bn in net assets on March 31, and its data centre holdings include a A$14bn European development partnership with Goodman Group, a $1.6bn deal for a 60 percent controlling interest in Nordic operator atNorth, and a commitment of up to $1bn with CtrlS Datacenters Ltd. in India.
The fund posted a net return of 7.8 percent for the year, against a benchmark return of 13.2 percent.
An October open house ran four hours and drew about 180 attendees, Joel Hunter, president and chief executive officer of Calgary-based TransAlta, told analysts, as reported by The Canadian Press.
Hunter said the takeaway was that residents “want to understand more around data centres.”
He said the facilities remain relatively new to people despite the volume of discussion, with questions coming in about noise levels and water use, and that there were no protests.
Hunter tied the increase to 1.6 GW to data centre regulations Alberta introduced in June 2026 that treat underutilized generation as eligible supply for data centre load, according to the earnings call transcript published by Benzinga.
TransAlta said in its third-quarter news release filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it continues to progress a solution to deploy that generation.
TransAlta reported profit attributable to common shareholders of $63m, or 20 cents per diluted share, for the quarter ended September 30, against a loss of $62m a year earlier.
Revenue fell to $536m from $615m, while adjusted EBITDA rose to $264m from $238m.
Alberta spot power prices averaged about $36 per megawatt hour, down from $51 in the third quarter of 2025, per the company’s Q3 2026 presentation reported by Investing.com.
The company reaffirmed 2026 guidance of $950m to $1.05bn in adjusted EBITDA.
Technical information sessions run at Keephills Community Hall on November 12.
Parkland County expects BGRE to file a development application in the coming months and will require a “What We Heard” report documenting public feedback.
