Sweden’s Northvolt will break ground on a Montreal electric-vehicle battery gigafactory in coming days, CTV reported.

The plant project is Northvolt’s first outside of Europe. It will be located on 170 acres of land in Saint-Basile-le-Grand and McMasterville, Que., about 30 kilometres east of Montreal. The first phase of the plant will produce lithium-ion batteries with 30 gigawatt hours of capacity, is valued at $7 billion and will create 3,000 jobs, said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during an October news conference.

That initial phase is slated to include adjacent cathode-materials production facilities, marking the first fully integrated EV battery production facility in Canada and one of few in the world, according to Trudeau.

Ottawa and the Quebec government have agreed to provide Northvolt with operation support that matches the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act’s advanced manufacturing credit of US$35 per kilowatt hour.

The feds and Quebec will also provide the Quebec plant with C$4.6 billion of additional production incentives. with the province paying one-third of that total. The two governments will also furnish C$1.34 billion and $1.37 billion, respectively, in capital commitments.

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