NextStar battery plant reaches construction milestone
Construction work on Windsor’s new electric vehicle battery plant is now about 30 percent complete.
Plant owners NextStar Energy held a topping off ceremony on December 19 with construction crews to celebrate the installation of the final structural beam at the plant.
The organization, which is a partnership between Stellantis and South Korean company LG Energy Solution, says the work was performed for a crew of 950 trades workers, all of whom were Canadian.
"People driving by the facility daily are witnessing this historic building take shape as we near the end of the construction process and prepare to enter the installation process," said NextStar Energy CEO Danies Lee. "We will have thousands of skilled experts at the site helping to build a world-class facility that will produce leading-edge lithium-ion battery cells and modules for the next generation of electric vehicles."
Construction of the nearly 4.23-million square foot building remains on schedule. Its first phase of operations is set to begin in the first half of 2024.
Construction started in August 2022. Since then, structural steel installation has been completed on the Module Building. It is fully enclosed, with equipment installation now taking place. A second building, the Cell Building, is about 40% enclosed.
As many as 3,200 tradespeople and equipment installers are working on the project. Of them, 2,300 are Canadians.
Construction is being managed by Alberici-Barton Malow (A-BM) JV, a joint venture of Alberici and Barton Malow.
Once complete, the facility will represent the first large-scale, domestic, electric-vehicle battery manufacturing facility in Canada. It will create more than 2,500 new jobs, with annual production capacity of 49.5 gigawatt hours.
Earlier this fall, NextStar Energy was at the centre of a storm when it said it intends to bring as many as 900 workers from South Korea to Windsor to help set up the electric vehicle battery plant. This sparked backlash because of the government subsidies the plant received.