Ongoing Project

Strategies to address India’s Critical Minerals Vulnerability through Resource Efficiency

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Strategies to address India’s Critical Minerals Vulnerability through Resource Efficiency

India is at a pivotal point in its transition to a sustainable, low-emission future. The Ministry of Mines has identified 30 critical minerals vital for national security, economic growth, and clean technologies such as renewable energy systems. However, limited domestic reserves, inadequate processing and refining capacity, and rapidly rising demand driven by clean energy deployment have made India heavily import-dependent for most critical minerals. Bridging this resource gap is essential to support renewable energy ambitions, reduce strategic vulnerabilities, and achieve India’s Net Zero and long-term sustainable development goals.

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Objectives

To develop an integrated critical mineral strategy for India that aligns clean energy expansion with resource-efficient technology choices, domestic and secondary mineral recovery, and diversified low-risk import sourcing to support the Net Zero transition.

Identifying and evaluating emerging clean energy technologies critical to India’s Net Zero transition, with focus on their mineral demand implications.

Assessing the requirement for critical minerals in view of increased demand for clean energy technologies and developing techno-economic viability scenarios for critical minerals.

Conduct a resource efficiency pathway analysis to identify optimal resource-efficient technologies and waste recovery strategies.

Formulate policy recommendations for critical mineral management in India, considering three distinct policy scenarios.

Evaluate virgin mineral resources and projected requirements for critical minerals to support the clean energy transition.

Identify trade measures and strategies to build strategic reserves and mitigate geopolitical risks.

Methodology

The project employs rigorous secondary research to project the year-on-year and cumulative demand for critical minerals in India across key clean energy technologies, while simultaneously assessing supply-side dimensions including domestic resource availability, processing and refining gaps, circular economy pathways, and geopolitical supply chain risks.

Our approach includes:

(1) Technological Assessment Framework:
In this study, 8 clean energy technologies (CETs) in Solar PV, 2 CETs in Solar CSP, 5 CETs in onshore Wind, 4 CETs in offshore Wind, 17 CETs in BESS, and 3 electrolysers for Green Hydrogen production, were considered for the exercise, based on the Technology Readiness Level (TRL), Efficiency , and End of Life (EOL) of technology, determined from systemic literature review.

(2) Assessment of the requirement of critical minerals in RE technologies for all the RE segments:
This exercise considered RE segment-specific Year-on-Year (YoY) capacities provided in India Energy Security Scenarios (IESS). To begin with, the annual requirement of each CM was estimated for every CET under all RE segments, under BAU and NZ scenarios, over the period 2025–2070. This was based on YoY capacity additions from IESS of each RE segment, the market share of each CET under each RE segment, and the mineral intensity of each CM in each CET. Subsequently, the annual CM requirements were summed across all CETs within each RE segment to determine the total demand of each CM per RE segment per year. Further, these values were added across all RE segments to obtain the total annual demand for each CM. Finally, the total annual demand values were aggregated across the entire period to calculate the cumulative demand for every CM from 2030 to 2070. Systemic literature review was used to identify data on mineral intensity and market share. Meta Analysis was used to project the market share till 2070 based on efficiency, EOL, & TRL of the CETs. This was an Excel based projection exercise.