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CALGARY — Pipeline and power company TC Energy Corp. is looking to capitalize on the insatiable electricity demand from U.S. data centres, but it’s focused on tweaking its existing system to meet those needs instead of building from scratch.
“Our strategy has been very intentional to capture this growth without increasing our risk exposure,” CEO François Poirier told analysts on a conference call Friday.
“Our primary focus is on brownfield in-corridor expansions that leverage our existing footprint to primarily serve investment-grade utility customers, particularly in regions where we hold long-standing incumbent positions.”
TC’s infrastructure is located near 60 per cent of projected U.S. data centre growth, Poirier said.
TC has pitched an expansion to its Columbia Gas Transmission system to serve an area of Ohio that’s seeing significant development of data centres — the enormous facilities that house the computing firepower for artificial intelligence and other applications. Such operations require massive amounts of energy to run the machinery and keep them cool.
The Calgary-based company offered customers a total of 500,000 mmbtu per day of capacity during an open season that wrapped up last month. It garnered bids representing triple that amount.
TC is also looking to expand its Crossroads Pipeline system by up to 1.5 million mmbtu a day, serving markets in northern Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and South Dakota where there is also significant anticipated data centre growth.
For potential power generation investments, TC is more interested in plants that would serve the overall grid instead of linking up exclusively with a data centre customer.
“We really are focusing in front of the meter with our utility customers,” Poirier said.
“To the extent a data centre wants to get service directly for gas and is willing to provide a long-term contract that is consistent with what we get from the utility customers, we will, of course, contemplate those. We’re not looking at any power project development and ownership behind the meter at this time.”
Fellow Canadian pipeline and utility giant Enbridge Inc. also sees growth in the data centre space. It aims to continue investing $3 billion a year on its natural gas utility business to meet surging demand.
“Currently we’re advancing over 50 potential data centre opportunities that could require up to (10 million mmbtu) per day of natural gas and we expect to begin sanctioning these additional projects throughout 2026 and more in 2027,” CEO Greg Ebel told his company’s fourth-quarter conference call Friday.
