OTTAWA — A unit of South Korea's Solus Advanced Materials will build a $750-million copper foil facility in Quebec, producing technology for electric-vehicle (EV) batteries.
The Volta Energy Solutions project in the town of Granby should be at full production capacity in 2026, a spokesperson for federal Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said in a statement.
Copper foil, needed to manufacture lithium-ion batteries for EVs, is used as an anode collector.
The company currently produces copper foil in Luxembourg and battery copper foil in Hungary. The Granby plant will be the third factory and “respond to the increasingly growing demand of the North American market,” the company said in a statement.
This initial launch will produce 25,000 tons of copper foil per year and will increase to 63,000 tons per year with Phase 2, which the company says is enough to supply copper foils for as many as 2.5 million cars in North America.
Canada, home to a large mining sector for minerals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt, wants to woo firms involved in all levels of the EV supply chain via a multibillion-dollar green technology fund as the world seeks to cut carbon emissions.
"Canada is a partner of choice when it comes to the future of the automotive sector," Champagne said in a statement.
The Volta plant is expected to employ 260 people. Granby is close to Becancour, a small town to the east of Montreal seeking to become an EV supply chain hub.
The provincial government will provide Volta Energy Solutions a $150 million loan, to be partly forgiven if the firm meets conditions such as maintaining 260 jobs at the plant.
"More projects of the sort are also coming up, solidifying our position as a green economy leader in North America," Quebec Premier François Legault said in a statement.
The Canadian government didn’t disclose how much it’s willing to contribute. Negotiations are still ongoing.
South Korean firms have been investing heavily in Canada amid the global push to refashion the vehicle supply chain around electric vehicles. LG Energy Solutions Ltd. partnered with Stellantis NV to build a battery plant in Windsor, Ont., getting as much as $16 billion in incentives to offset capital and operating costs over a decade.
In August, a consortium of Ford Motor Co and South Korean companies said they would build a $1.2-billion plant to produce EV battery materials in Becancour.
General Motors has also signed an agreement with a South Korean firm and plans battery materials plant in Quebec.
