British Columbia caps how much power new data centers can get and makes them compete for it. BC Hydro's first round, the 2026 Call for Demand, drew 15 applications asking for close to 800 megawatts, against about 400 megawatts on offer over two years, and the utility expects to tell applicants who won by the end of September 2026. No single project can get more than 145 megawatts.
The rules came from Bill 31, passed in November 2025, which ended BC Hydro's first-come, first-served connections and made permanent the ban on new crypto mining hookups. Since February 1, 2026, conventional data centers can share 100 megawatts and AI data centers 300 megawatts; both limits halve from February 2028. "We won't make that mistake," Energy Minister Adrian Dix said, pointing to places where power bills rose because growth outpaced the grid. Kate Harland of the Canadian Climate Institute said the old system gave BC Hydro "very little ability" to say no.
The biggest sites now running belong to IREN, the Australian company that began as a bitcoin miner, in Prince George, Mackenzie and Canal Flats. It is converting all three to AI, starting with the 50-megawatt Prince George site; it plans to triple its 60 permanent jobs there. Bell Canada opened a 7-megawatt AI data center in Kamloops in June 2025 as the first piece of a planned "supercluster" of up to 500 megawatts, with a second site planned in Merritt. Telus has announced a data center in Kamloops.
Projects not tied to an area
Sites whose records name no county. Everything else is on the pages listed above.
British Columbia3
| Project | Company | Status | Power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IREN Prince George (BC) | IREN | 50 MW | ||
| IREN Canal Flats (BC) | IREN | Not reported | ||
| IREN Mackenzie (BC) | IREN | Not reported |
Where this comes from
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Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.