POINT TUPPER – The AI data centre planned by green energy company EverWind for the Point Tupper Industrial Park got a mixed reaction across the province, with some proponents touting the economic benefits while others are concerned about the possible risks of such a facility.
On Friday, EverWind announced an $8-billion investment in an artificial intelligence (AI) data centre campus at its site in the industrial park, as well as an additional $2 billion to advance EverWind’s onshore wind projects in Bear Lake, Windy Ridge, Kmtnuk and Upper Afton – the latter straddling Antigonish and Guysborough counties.
In a press release issued later on Friday, San Francisco-based AI company Anthropic revealed that it has signed a long-term lease with EverWind for use of the facility. The site will power Claude, Anthropic’s flagship AI chatbot. This is Anthropic’s first data centre agreement in Canada.
EverWind says it will proceed with the project in two phases. The first phase, with a 95-megawatt capacity, has been approved after undergoing a system impact study by the Independent Energy System Operator Nova Scotia (IESONS) as well as a Nova Scotia Power facilities study. The company expects this phase to be online by late 2027.
The second phase of the project will have a capacity of 420 MW but will require additional studies, interconnection work as well as new transmission and substation infrastructure. EverWind plans to have this phase online sometime in 2028.
Public opposition
The news of Nova Scotia’s first AI data centre shook the province over the weekend, with opposition to the coming project demonstrated in person and on social media.
An event in downtown Halifax on Saturday drew more than 100 people to protest against the data centre. Attendees cited many commonly expressed concerns with data centres, including excessive water and electricity usage, impacts on local environments as well as impacts on utility rates for residents.
A petition calling for a halt to the approval of the data centre, released on Friday after the announcement, already had 14,615 signatures by press time on Tuesday.
Nova Scotia NDP Leader Claudia Chender released a statement on Friday calling on Premier Tim Houston to protect Nova Scotia residents from power rate increases resulting from the data centre.
“People are worried. Bills keep rising, power is still unreliable, and the evidence shows that big data centres mean power rates go up even more. Nova Scotians can’t afford to pay even more for power, and without legislation, there’s nothing to protect families here from that same reality,” Chender said in the statement.
Lois Landry, warden of the Municipality of the County of Richmond, said residents have expressed concerns about the project, primarily regarding the project’s use of water and electricity, and whether the project would drive up rates.
Landrie Lake, where the facility will get its water, is also the main water source for the Town of Port Hawkesbury and is jointly owned and operated by the town and the Municipality of the County of Richmond.
EverWind plans to use a closed-loop system to cool the facility, recycling the same water via a cooling solution. The company intends to use 100,000 litres per day in the first phase of the project and up to 500,000 litres a day at full capacity. Over the 20-year life of the facility, usage could reach 3.65 billion litres using these projections.
“They’re closed loop, they’re like your refrigerator,” said EverWind CEO Trent Vichie at the announcement. “One of the strengths of Canada is that it’s a cool climate,” he added, remarking that the system requires less cooling with a cold winter.
Landry said while she understands the concerns, she pointed to assessments that have already been done. For example, the 500,000 litres of water a day the facility plans to use at maximum capacity represents less than one per cent of Landrie Lake’s safe daily yield.
“Most Richmond County residents are very aware that Point Tupper is a heavy industrial site. So I think residents in Richmond are very aware that heavy industrial things happen there and that there are regulations for those kinds of things,” she said.
As for the cost increases for ratepayers, EverWind said it has committed to “protecting existing electricity ratepayers [and] safeguarding local resources.” The company says it will fund the electricity infrastructure for the project, and has committed to not increasing industrial water rates for existing customers. It has also said it will comply with requirements for noise and emissions.
Economic benefits
EverWind expects the data centre to generate around $2 billion in provincial GDP during construction, and at full operation around $137 million in provincial GDP annually. It projects a corporate tax income of $75 million per year over the first 20-year term, as well as $400 million in municipal tax revenues over the lifetime of the projects.
The company said the facility will create approximately 2,000 construction positions across the build-out, as well as 215 permanent operating positions at the data centre campus and the wind portfolio.
Warden Landry, a former principal at Richmond Academy, told The Journal that the project will bring jobs to an area from where many former students had to move to find employment in their field.
“I think about the students who’ve left here who had an interest in that highly technical, data-driven field, they haven’t stayed here. Many of them would come back, I firmly believe that,” she said, adding that other jobs such as HVAC technicians and electricians could be filled by local residents as well.
A report from Stanford University earlier this year identified 1,427 data centres in the United States and 337 in Canada, though not all of these are specifically AI data centres.
When asked her feelings toward a relatively young industry opening a facility in her community, Landry said Richmond council is very mindful of unkept promises in the past when it comes to industrial development.
“We are very mindful that announcements do not equal signed agreements,” she said. “If somebody wants to kick the tires about potential opportunity in Richmond County, we are absolutely happy to have those conversations. But we’re not paying for anything up front to bring you here.”
Setting the stage
In June, Premier Tim Houston told reporters that the discussion of bringing AI data centres to Nova Scotia was “far into the future,” adding that the government would not “put Nova Scotians’ grid at risk and we wouldn’t put their health at risk.”
In late September, Houston said a new federal framework for how data centres should operate in Canada had impacted his stance on bringing them to Nova Scotia. He had previously said discussions about data centres would have to wait until the province had completed major energy-generation projects.
Houston said Nova Scotia will have five starting conditions for companies wanting to build AI data centres in the province, including: meeting or exceeding federal standards; protecting the water and environment; protecting ratepayers by not raising utility costs; delivering lasting benefits for residents such as jobs and business opportunities; and providing a financial return to residents, beyond normal taxes.
One of the projects Houston was referencing was the Wind West offshore wind farms, which, according to provincial officials, could generate 60 gigawatts of electricity if all phases are built.
Last week, the federal government committed $100 million toward the project, which would have the potential to power homes and businesses in Quebec, Ontario and New England.
At the announcement on Friday, Vichie said the proposed data centre could provide a local customer for Nova Scotia’s offshore wind energy. EverWind has also said its own wind energy will supply a substantial share of demand at the Point Tupper site.
At Friday’s announcement, Houston thanked Vichie and his EverWind team for their “vote of confidence” in Nova Scotia and the Strait area, telling Vichie: “please don’t stop.”
Community benefits
EverWind said it has been negotiating a community benefits package valued in the tens of millions of dollars for the first phase of the project, with additional benefits expected as the project advances.
The fund and its priorities will be developed in collaboration with local communities and Anthropic, with proposed priorities including infrastructure, health and housing initiatives, workforce development and economic growth.
Landry said her council has already been in discussion with EverWind for over a year regarding benefits packages connected to the company’s proposal for a green hydrogen and green ammonia production facility at the Point Tupper site.
“We have been in discussions about this long before data centres were on the agenda,” she said. “We’ve been talking about what is good accountability? Would the money just be thrown in our coffers? What would the auditing look like? The real technical accountability and transparency about where that money would go.”
She said an agreement could help her municipality move ahead with key infrastructure projects, including a proposed multi-use recreation facility to replace the Richmond Arena in Louisdale. A feasibility study had a price tag of $43 million, more than twice the municipality’s 2026-27 budget of $19 million.
“We do not have the money. And that conversation came to a screeching halt. So a community benefit agreement is something that could potentially bring that back to this point of discussion,” Landry said.
EverWind said negotiations are also underway with a First Nations consortium led by Membertou Development Corporation for an ownership stake in the company.
Landry noted that as of 1 p.m. on Friday, no application for a building permit had been received by the Municipality of the County of Richmond.
