Canada is ‘closely monitoring’ new warning over AI electricity grid strain

Canada is “closely monitoring” a new warning about the strain on North American electricity grids driven by artificial intelligence data centres, Natural Resources Canada says.

This comes after the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) – an electricity watchdog for Canada, the U.S. and Mexico – issued an alert warning this week that data centres are causing strain on North America’s electricity grids.

NERC issued a Level 3 alert, which is the agency’s highest alert rating, on Monday, warning that electricity grids “did not have sufficient processes, procedures, or methods to address risks associated with computational loads.”

“Examples of this load include artificial intelligence training, cryptocurrency mining, and traditional data center uses,” the alert said.

Get daily National news

Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you’ll never miss the day’s top stories.

A spokesperson for Natural Resources Canada told Global News the country’s electricity grids were also facing pressure from data centres.

“Canada is closely monitoring the recent alert from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). Canada is also seeing rising electricity demand driven by data centres, electrification, and economic growth in certain regions,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Canada’s electricity grid “remains reliable overall,” the spokesperson said, but added, “these pressures are real and are being managed through planning and investment by provinces, utilities, and system operators.”

“Challenges are not uniform across the country – they tend to be regional and tied to where demand is growing fastest,” the statement said.

NRCAN added that Canada’s diversity of power supply, coming from hydroelectricity, nuclear, natural gas and renewables, makes Canada “well positioned to respond” to the pressures, the spokesperson said.

The federal government will soon release a discussion paper “seeking input on how it can work with provinces and territories, Indigenous partners, and other stakeholders to strengthen efforts to connect, modernise and expand the grid.”