The company planning to power a proposed data centre in Lorneville pushed the New Brunswick government earlier this year to “fix” the industrial carbon taxes it would be paying.
Texas-based VoltaGrid said in early May it wanted a predictable, set rate for the next 15 years.
“No guessing,” CEO Nathan Ough insisted in one email.
Ough made the demand to officials at Opportunities New Brunswick, the provincial economic development agency that was looking at giving the company taxpayer-funded support.
The documents were obtained through a right-to-information request by Chris Watson, a Lorneville resident who opposes the data centre.
The province wasn’t able to guarantee VoltaGrid a set carbon tax rate for 15 years.
WATCH | ‘No guessing’: VoltaGrid said N.B. carbon tax estimates were ‘not very good’:
Data centre partner asked Holt government to ‘fix’ carbon tax
Texas-based VoltaGrid wanted a predictable price on its emissions for 15 years, but the company agreed to comply with the weaker price.
But the company eventually agreed to abide by the system — after the federal government allowed provinces including New Brunswick to adopt a weaker pricing standard.
If that decision helped win VoltaGrid’s consent to the carbon tax, it may also have come at the expense of New Brunswick’s greenhouse gas emissions goals.
“With estimated emissions impacts from the Spruce Lake Data Centre … New Brunswick will likely not achieve the 2030 GHG emissions target,” Jill Pelkey,
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