Volkswagen Group is celebrating the completion of the first phase of developing PowerCo’s battery cell production facility in southwestern Ontario.

PowerCo is owned by Volkswagen Group, and this is the company’s first cell manufacturing facility outside of Europe.

Gigafactory St. Thomas, as the facility is being called, will be located in St. Thomas, Ont., a small city south of London, Ont.

Phase 1 of the project included site preparation work, which has been completed.

“We are fully on track,” said Sebastian Wolf, chief operations officer of PowerCo SE, in a Dec. 12 news release. “We are now ready for the next stage on our path to the sustainable and responsible production of battery cells. PowerCo will be a reliable partner for the people in St. Thomas and Ontario.”

The St. Thomas facility will be PowerCo’s largest power cell factory to date, capable of producing up to 90 Gigawatt hours in the final expansion phase.

The company plans to invest $7 billion (Canadian) in the facility by 2030 and says the plant has the potential of creating 3,000 highly skilled jobs along with thousands of indirect jobs in the region.

The factory will be supplied with CO2-free energy, the company says.

PowerCo will also work with the Province of Ontario, the City of St. Thomas and local colleges to prepare Canada’s labour force for the new industry.

“This important step forward is a sign of the continued progress being made by PowerCo Canada Inc., working in tandem with support from the government of Ontario,” said Vic Fedeli, Ontario’s minister of economic development, job creation and trade, in the news release. “When completed, this gigafactory will represent a significant milestone in the end-to-end auto and EV battery supply chain growing across the province.”

“This investment by PowerCo is not only a game changer for Ontario’s EV vision, but also a huge boost to our community and the hardworking families that call St. Thomas and Elgin County home,” said St. Thomas Mayor Joe Preston in the release. “Our region will surely prosper from this for decades to come.”

Volkswagen anticipates to complete the facility and begin production in 2027. The facility is built over an area of approximately 370 acres, larger than 210 soccer fields.

PowerCo is also setting up a local office in downtown St. Thomas.