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Rural Alberta is experiencing something remarkable — a steady, reliable stream of revenue that doesn’t depend on oil prices, doesn’t require new taxes and keeps flowing year after year. In 2025, wind and solar projects generated $70 million in tax revenue for 26 Alberta counties, money that’s paying for roads, emergency services, recreation facilities and all the things that keep rural communities strong.

That’s a 30 per cent increase from last year’s $54 million, and a 151 per cent jump from the $28 million collected just two years ago.

But every project contributing to this year’s revenue was approved before August 2023, when the provincial government announced its moratorium on renewable energy. The pipeline of future projects, the ones that would have kept this revenue growing, has largely dried up.

Since the moratorium, 53 renewable energy projects have been cancelled. Using conservative estimates, these projects would have generated approximately $84 million annually for Alberta municipalities once operational. That’s more than the entire growth we saw this year.

Let that sink in — we’re losing more in cancelled projects than we’re gaining from new ones.

Some counties are feeling this particularly hard. Paintearth County is currently receiving $5.3 million annually from renewable projects. But cancelled projects in the area represent $14.2 million in lost potential revenue, nearly three times what it is getting now. Medicine Hat has lost $4.4 million to cancellations while currently receiving just $100,000. Taber has lost $4.8 million, more than it currently receives.

These aren’t just numbers on a spreadsheet. They are new fire trucks that won’t be purchased, roads that won’t be paved and recreation programs that won’t be funded.

The revenue from projects that came online in 2023 is still flowing today, and will continue for decades. That’s the beauty of this model — existing projects provide a stable foundation, while new projects build on it. At least, they would if new projects were moving forward.

Corporate renewable energy procurement — in which companies such as banks, retailers and tech firms buy clean power to meet their sustainability goals — has virtually collapsed in Alberta. Only 58 megawatts of new deals were announced in 2024 and 2025 combined. That’s a 96 per cent drop from the two previous years.

These corporate deals matter because they provide the revenue certainty that helps developers secure project financing. Between 2019 and October 2025, corporate power purchase agreements enabled 4.1 gigawatts of renewable projects in Alberta, leading to $6.4 billion in capital investment, 6,200 jobs and enough energy to power 1.7 million homes.

Meanwhile, other provinces are moving in. Developers and corporate buyers who were looking at Alberta are now looking elsewhere. And once that capital and expertise move, it doesn’t come back easily.

Our analysis of the AESO project queue shows that 21 counties could potentially gain more than $76 million annually from projects currently in development — if they proceed. Seven of those counties would host renewable projects for the first time, opening entirely new revenue streams for them.

The $70 million that municipalities are collecting this year? That represents decisions made five, six and seven years ago. The decisions being made today — or, more accurately, not being made — will determine whether rural Alberta municipalities collect $70 million five years from now or $150 million.

We’re asking for clear, consistent rules that don’t change overnight. We’re asking for a regulatory environment that allows the market to work, that lets landowners make their own choices about their property and that gives municipalities the ability to plan for their financial futures.

Because right now, rural Alberta is sitting on a $70-million success story that could easily turn into a cautionary tale about missed opportunities and what might have been.

Our analysis shows what is possible.

The question is whether Alberta will choose to seize that opportunity or watch it move to other provinces, along with the jobs, investment and municipal revenue that comes with it.

Jorden Dye is the director of the Business Renewables Centre-Canada, an initiative of the Pembina Institute that helps businesses, institutions and communities access renewable energy across Canada.