Building Strathcona Power — March 2026

This is a continuation of series of posts on building up Strathcona Power. (Read last month’s update here.)

To recap, I’m building a boutique energy retailer (Strathcona Power) to provide a human touch, and that reinvests back in to the community by being a part of it. Be a part of it!

Pricing Update

This section is general notes on electricity and natural gas pricing in Alberta. Normally I would speak to March prices, but I’ve just set my April (this afternoon) so those are probably more helpful.

The floating prices has been very low for both power and gas over the last month, so fixed power rates have started to come down (some as much as 1 ¢/kWh over the last two months), but fixed gas prices are bascically flat.

Personally, I’m still a fan of floating prices for both power and gas.

Our pricing for April:

Term	Electricity	Natural Gas
Floating¹	~4.5 ¢/kWh	~$2.58/GJ
1 year Fixed	7.39 ¢/kWh	$3.79/GJ
2 year Fixed	7.89 ¢/kWh	$3.89/GJ
3 year Fixed	8.49 ¢/kWh	$3.99/GJ
5 year Fixed	8.69 ¢/kWh	$3.99/GJ

New Solar Pricing

Once exciting change is that I was able to launch my new solar price, at 35 ¢/kWh!²

As well, your “low” solar rate (which is just one of our other prices) can now be our floating price, which tends to be lower than most of the fixed options I’ve been able to offer.

If you have a solar system, please move over!

Forward Pricing

Looking forward, the War in Iran is top of mind, and while oil prices are up, natural gas prices remain mostly unaffected as Alberta lacks any serious export options for gas.

Last month, I had posed the question of, Where is all the generation (~21,000 MW worth) for these data centers going to come from? Well, it seems that the answer is “Bring-Your-Own-Power” (BYOP??), as in the data centers will be required to build sufficient generation on-site to support their own needs. I expect much of this will be natural gas powered,³ which may drive up natural gas prices once these start going online. Their possible effect on electricity pricing is harder to read, as on one hand, below capacity data centers are likely to sell their “extra” power on to the grid (driving prices down), while because so much power generation is gas-fired, increasing gas prices would be expected to increase power prices. In any case, any effect is likely years out.

Retailing Progress

The retailing business is growing slowly, up six sites to a total of 92. I will repeat myself from last month: This is much slower than I’d like, but also probably faster than I have a right to do to how limited time I’ve been able to put towards it.

I’ve been working on rebuilding the website in advance of more involved marketing efforts, but I fear that it’s turning into an excuse rather than a stepping stone.

I’ve also been hoping that my generation projects will (indirectly) result in more retailing business, but the timelines are long.

One success I’ve seen is I’ve set up a Facebook and a LinkedIn page, and am cross-posting these updates there!

Generation Progress

A secondary line of the business I’ve been focused on is building my own generation capacity, to compliment the retail sales.

Most of this past month has been spent working on getting more generation online. But I’m discovering that many of those projects will have much poorer returns than I’d initially hoped for due to high (only now confirmed) installation costs.

For my first 10 kW of generation, the loan agreement has come through, but the installation costs are now projected to be ~5x what I’d initially planned for. I’m looking for ways to bring that down, but fear this site may be indefinitely shelved as non-economical.

For the second tranche (of ~70 kW of generation), the paperwork is moving along, but is still in process, and I expect will be for at least another two months. These sites also suffer from oversized installation costs, but the math may still pencil out here.

The third tranche of larger sites (hosting 50 to 150 kW of generation per site) is likely be my focus this coming month. These sites have much more managable installation costs relatively to the expected income. I’m considering both acquiring (buying) and leasing sites. I put in an offer to buy one site this last month (it wasn’t selected) and am working to put together a site visit for second (possible) site next week. The leased sites are an interesting option that I’m trying to figure out how to present to landlords. The downsite of these larger sites is I expect them to take a minimum of 6 months between picking the site and having it start to make money.

Current KPI’s

KPI	Status	Trend	Target Date
Site Count	92 / 420	6 / 33	end of January 2027
Generation Online	0 / 50 kW
ARR⁴	~$3.9k / $100k

In other circumstances, I’d feel very good about the site count growth, but the new Backend agreement has fairly demanding growth requirements that take away much of the celebration. But one good news is I’m close enough to my first site count target (of 120 sites by the end of July) that I’m comfortable shifting my focus to the next target (of 420 sites by the end of next January). This later target will required ~5x the previous monthly growth target (at 33 new sites per month, vs the previous 7), and I need to build some sort of advertising program to get there.

For generation, I’ve realized that my first sites may not pencil out, and so am considering other options.

ARR is particularly low at this point because on the generation side I’m paying interest on upfront installation costs, but it isn’t generated any income yet. But at least we’re positive this month!

Review of Last Month’s Plans

roll out of new logo. — complete
review of the Company’s online presence. — incomplete, although I’ve laid some groundwork for this.
complete funding and connection agreements for the second tranche (~70 kW) of generation sites. — progress, but incomplete. But mostly waiting for beaucratic processes to play out at this point.

Plans for the Coming Month

complete the relaunch of the website.
complete the funding and connection agreements for the second tranche, or at least have everything done on my side.
make a go-no go for the third tranche generation site I’m currently looking at. And take next steps: if a go, have a purchase offer presented, and if no-go, have the next candidate site picked out.

How You Can Help

I’m grateful for your help in growing the Strathcona Power. If you live in Alberta, please sign up for electricity and natural gas, or send me your bill (to William@StrathconaPower.ca) and I can run a bill comparison. If you’ve already signed up, tell a friend!

Till next month,
— William, El Presidente of Strathcona Power

This is approximate March retail pricing. Floating prices can and do change month to month, and vary slightly between wire areas. ↩
Previously, the solar rate was limited to 33.33 ¢/kWh. ↩
if nothing else, solar doesn’t work at night but the data centers want to… ↩
Annualized Recurring Revenue. Basically an assumption of annual revenue, based on last month’s topline income. This combines both the retailing and the generation arms of the Company. ↩