The company building an electric-vehicle battery parts plant in Augusta has entered an $850 million joint venture that would make the plant the largest of its kind in North America.

Solvay, which has operated a specialty polymers plant off Tobacco Road since 2000, announced Thursday that its agreement with Mexico-based chemical manufacturing company Orbia would provide the continent’s largest capacity of polyvinylidene fluoride, or PVDF, which is used as a binder and separator coating for lithium-ion batteries used in EVs.

The total investment, valued at $850 million, includes the $178 million federal grant announced Oct. 19 that would fund construction of the new plant across Clanton Road from Solvay’s current facility.

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Construction on the new Augusta plant is expected to conclude 2026. It could create up to 500 construction jobs and up to 100 manufacturing jobs for the area.

Demand for both lithium-ion batteries and PVDF is expected to increase substantially over the next several years. By 2030, about half of U.S. automobile sales will be for electric vehicles, according to a September report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a strategic research firm that analyzes trends in low-carbon energy production.

The new Augusta plant would reduce or eliminate the need to import PVDF to produce U.S. batteries. To help meet global demand, Solvay announced in June that it had increased the capacity of its PVDF plant in China.

Orbia’s Fluorinated Solutions business Koura and Polymer Solutions business Vestolit will supply hydrofluoric acid, vinyl chloride monomer and chlorine for domestic PVDF production.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Augusta battery-parts plant would be biggest of its kind on continent