The rules don't apply: a B.C. town's fight over an AI data centre the province can't touch

When British Columbia moved this year to ration grid access for power-hungry data centres, it built the new gate around one utility. Under B.C. Reg 8/2026, large new loads served by BC Hydro must now compete for connection rights through a competitive bid process. The province set the threshold, wrote the bid rules, and pointed them at the utility that supplies most of B.C. The neighbouring grid that runs through the Kootenays and into the Southern Interior is not run by BC Hydro. It is run by FortisBC. That distinction is now shaping a fight in Christina Lake.

DMG Blockchain Solutions is rebuilding a former cryptocurrency mine near the U.S. border into an AI data centre. The plan raises the site's draw from 15 megawatts to 65 megawatts and adds a dedicated substation capable of up to 85 megawatts, more than ten per cent of total capacity on the FortisBC grid feeding that area (Williams Lake Tribune, 6 Jul 2026). Construction is visible at the parcel today, with shipping containers (locally called "sea cans") staged next to a building that has been opened up to take new equipment. The Regional District of Kootenay Boundary learned of the project through a news release. "I'm not against data centres," said Grace McGregor, RDKB's Area C director. "What I am against is that nobody lets you know what's going on" (Williams Lake Tribune, 6 Jul 2026).

The new provincial regime came in response to pressure on BC Hydro from large industrial loads, primarily data centres, that had begun outbidding other demand for scarce supply. VicNews reporting on the move noted that B.C. wanted more control over who plugs into its grid and chose the bid regime as the mechanism (VicNews, 24 Oct 2025). The bid regime is jurisdictional. It applies where BC Hydro is the wire owner. FortisBC territory, defined on the British Columbia Utilities Commission service-area map, sits outside it. The project at Christina Lake is not within the rules, because the rules were written for a different utility.

DMG began operations there about eight years ago, renovating a defunct finger-joint plant into a cryptocurrency mine. A 2022 public hearing created a zoning definition called "data warehousing" that covered both crypto mining and AI data centres, and approved the use on this parcel (Williams Lake Tribune, 6 Jul 2026). Most of the rest of the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary has zoning that excludes data centres, and the regional district has used its process authority to flag the project. DMG's June 2026 letter of intent announced a 50-megawatt AI data centre (GlobeNewswire, 1 Jun 2026), while local and trade-press reporting cites a 65-megawatt operating plan and an 85-megawatt substation cap as the buildout envelope (CBC, 2026; InvestorNews). Collapsing the 50 MW figure and the 85 MW figure into a single number would erase the gap between what the company has publicly announced and the infrastructure the substation is being wired up to deliver.

McGregor says her office has been fielding calls from residents worried about power demand and water use. She does not know the terms of the agreement between DMG and FortisBC, and wants the province to step in to give her community real notice of the deal (Williams Lake Tribune, 6 Jul 2026). The regional district's zoning was written for a different era of the industry. Source coverage does not show that FortisBC has a gate of its own for large new loads analogous to the BC Hydro bid regime; the BCUC service-area map defines the geographic boundary, but it does not amount to a demand-management policy.

The Christina Lake retrofit is being built under a utility that sits outside the province's new demand-management rules, on a site whose 2022 zoning already covers AI data centres. Other B.C. communities served by municipal or co-operative utilities face the same gap. The two natural levers are demand-management rules that reach FortisBC and other private-utility territory, and a notice requirement that puts regional districts in the loop before substation upgrades of this size are approved. Whether the province moves on either is a question it has not yet answered.