IEA: There is a risk of supply shortage for key minerals such as lithium for electric vehicles in the future

According to the report, due to overcapacity, the prices of key minerals used in manufacturing clean energy technology products such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels have fallen back to pre-COVID-19 levels, with battery-related minerals experiencing the most significant fluctuations.

IEA believes that while the price drop is a good thing for consumers, it may discourage investors. In 2023, the investment in related mining projects increased by 10% and exploration project expenses increased by 15%, showing a "healthy" growth rate but lower than that of 2022. According to IEA's estimates, based on the emission reduction targets set by various countries, the production capacity of currently announced mining projects will only meet 70% of copper demand and 50% of lithium demand by 2035. These two minerals are essential raw materials for manufacturing electric vehicles. IEA predicts that by 2040, the total market value of key minerals for energy transition, such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and rare earths, will more than double to over $770 billion.

In addition, on April 25th, IEA released a report titled "Battery and Energy Security Transition," stating that battery costs have dropped by more than 90% in less than 15 years. The most common battery type is lithium-ion batteries, which are usually associated with consumer electronics. Nowadays, however, demand from the energy industry accounts for more than 90% of the total battery demand. In 2023, the deployment of batteries in the power industry increased by more than 130% year-on-year, adding 42 gigawatts of power to the global power system. In the transportation sector, battery technology has driven a surge in electric vehicle sales from 3 million in 2020 to nearly 14 million last year, and further strong growth is expected in the coming years.

IEA predicts that the scale of battery deployment needs to be significantly expanded from now to 2030 to enable the world to embark on the right track to achieve energy and climate targets. Under this scenario, global total energy storage capacity will increase sixfold by 2030, and 90% of the increment will come from battery energy storage capacity.

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