Volta Energy Solutions Copper Foil Plant — Granby, Quebec

Ottawa put up to C$70 million behind a copper foil plant in Granby on July 30, valuing the project at C$760.9 million. It’s the piece of the EV supply chain nobody photographs: the paper-thin copper sheet that carries current off the anode in a lithium-ion cell.

Project Scope

Volta Energy Solutions Canada, a subsidiary of South Korea’s Solus Advanced Materials, is converting the former Circuit Foil America plant it bought for C$81 million in 2022 into a facility roughly double the original footprint. Pomerleau leads the design-build team. NEUF architect(e)s works in consortium with NFOE on architecture, and EXP covers process mechanical, building mechanical and electrical, civil and fire protection. Samsung Canada engineering teams handle process controls; Volta’s Luxembourg subsidiary supplies the process engineering.

Capacity starts at 25,000 tonnes a year in 2027 and scales to 63,000 tonnes — enough, the company says, for about 2.5 million EVs. The federal money comes from the Strategic Response Fund and is tied to 260 new jobs. Quebec had earlier committed a C$150 million partially forgivable loan.

Fast-track construction started in 2024. The schedule has slipped: first production tests were originally set for late 2025, then 2026, and now 2027.

Why It Matters

This is Canada’s first battery-grade copper foil plant and Volta’s third worldwide, after Luxembourg and Hungary. It anchors a stage of the battery value chain that has almost entirely sat in Asia.

“Volta’s new battery foil plant will strengthen Quebec’s central role in our auto strategy and ensure that more of the EV value chain is anchored here at home,” said Mélanie Joly, Canada’s minister of industry.

The hedge against EV demand softness is built into the product. Éric Tessier, director of industrial development at Granby Industriel, points out the same foil serves microelectronic components, so the plant isn’t a pure bet on vehicle sales.

EXP’s Sylvain Alary described the delivery approach: the team can “work simultaneously, detect technical conflicts between disciplines easily and automatically, and take corrective action right at the design stage.” On a brownfield process plant with imported equipment, that clash-detection discipline is where the schedule is won or lost.

Project Team & Details