The Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) has rejected Synapse Real Estate Corp.’s application to construct a 1.4-gigawatt natural gas-fired power plant in the town of Olds, Alta., saying the application contained “significant deficiencies.”

The proposed plant — which would have generated roughly enough energy to power Edmonton — was intended to supply a massive future data centre campus in the southern Alberta town billed by Synapse as “Canada’s largest” project of its kind.

“The deficiencies include, but are not limited to, errors, insufficient or incomplete information, and internal inconsistency among the application documents. Collectively, the deficiencies create a significant lack of clarity as to whether application requirements have been met,” AUC’s Mar. 6 decision said.

Rachel Sorenson, an Olds resident who opposed the proposal, said she’s “elated” at the news of AUC’s decision.

“I feel like I’ll be able to sleep again. I’m looking forward to the summer when we can have our windows open … without two years of construction and knowing that for now, we can rest easy,” she said.

Synapse’s campus was proposed to be built on 121 hectares of land in the town’s northeast at the corner of Highway 2A and Highway 27, close to residents. According to an information package provided to residents, the company had intended to put shovels in the ground for the data centre this month, had it received all regulatory approvals.

Despite the setback, Synapse is permitted to apply again to the AUC with an application that complies with legislative and regulatory requirements applicable to power plants.

In an emailed statement to CBC News, Synapse CEO and founder Jason van Gaal said, “The Synapse data centre project is designed to be a 100-year fixture in the Olds community. It is critical that we work closely with both regulators and our neighbours to ensure the project’s foundation is built on transparency and trust. 

“We have taken the AUC’s guidance and our community’s feedback to heart, and we are pleased to launch synapsedatacenter.com/we-are-listening/ as a first step in facilitating our long-term dialogue.”

At a February open house for the proposed development, several Olds residents voiced their concerns over potential environmental impacts, including excessive noise and water use, as well as a lack of transparency in Synapse’s and the town’s communications to residents.

Sorenson said she first heard about the data centre proposal over the radio, after Premier Danielle Smith had shared news about it. 

“We were caught completely off guard and in a complete panic state wondering how could this possibly be without us knowing and the Alberta government is announcing this,” she said.

“All of us were feeling betrayed as residents.”

Errors and incomplete information

The regulator’s decision noted that the public consultation process with over 700 residences within an 800-metre radius from the property boundary began just 14 days before the application was filed.

The decision added that the participant involvement program (PIP) information package provided by Synapse lacked detail and did not address all the information requirements.

“For example, the proposed 600 units of backup diesel generators, each rated at 2.6 megawatts, do not appear to be discussed in the project information package, dated January 27, 2026,” the decision reads.

AUC’s decision also stated Synapse’s environmental evaluation was a draft document with missing information including “incomplete citations, missing figures and document mark-ups including highlighted text,” and that the evaluation was developed based on conclusions relating to wildlife and wetlands made from “incomplete field studies conducted during the winter.”

Additionally, a noise impact assessment provided by Synapse did not model worst-case scenarios, among other concerns, the decision said.

Residents prepare for a longer fight

Bek MacIntosh, an Olds resident who lives down the street from the proposed development site, said the news of the regulator’s decision isn’t a celebration. 

“There’s no foot off the gas on this end,” MacIntosh said. “There was a momentary sigh of collective relief from the local residents who feel most passionately about this, given that it’s our specific homes and families that will be impacted. 

“But it was an almost dawning awareness that this is so far down the road and such a large scale.”

MacIntosh said since learning about the proposed development, she and other community members have gone through a “shockingly stressful” experience trying to get answers about how they’d be impacted by the data centre complex and power plant.