A new foresight report shows that the UK’s clean energy future will depend not only on securing critical minerals but also on turning tomorrow’s retired EVs, batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels into a resilient domestic resource stream.
Report: Future material demand and secondary supply potential for UK net zero technologies. Image Credit: William Potter / Shutterstock
In a recent British Geological Survey Open Report for the UK Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre, researchers conducted an integrated assessment of the UK's future demand for critical technology metals and the potential for secondary supply from end-of-life materials to support the nation's net zero technologies.
UK Critical Minerals Context
The UK’s commitment to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 requires the large-scale deployment of a range of decarbonization technologies. These technologies depend on a secure and sustainable supply of critical metals, essential for manufacturing components such as electric vehicle (EV) traction motors, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), wind turbines, and solar photovoltaics (PVs).
A growing body of work has mapped the increasing material requirements associated with the transition to low-carbon technologies. Demand for technology metals such as copper (Cu), lithium (Li), cobalt (Co), nickel (Ni), manganese (Mn), graphite (C), and rare earth elements (REEs), including neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), dysprosium (Dy), and terbium (Tb), is expected to rise steeply over the coming decades.
These materials are critical inputs for batteries, permanent magnets in EV motors and wind turbines, and components of solar PV systems. The UK’s target to satisfy 20% of critical mineral demand through recycling by 2035 sets an ambitious policy challenge, although the report notes uncertainty over whether this target applies to each material or in aggregate, and whether it should be measured by mass, value, or criticality. Yet, existing recovery technologies and infrastructure are unevenly developed, with some collection and basic sorting systems in place, while advanced separation, metallurgical refining, REE separation, and magnet-to-magnet recycling remain limited or at pilot scale, and end-of-life (EoL) material volumes remain limited until the 2040s.
Integrated Material Flow Modeling
The study employs a material flow analysis approach, integrating demand forecasts with projections of in-use stocks and EoL material availability from the UK’s fleet of relevant technologies. Future energy scenarios from National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios (FES) 2025 underpin the deployment pathways considered for four technology types: EV batteries, EV traction motors, wind turbines, and solar PV modules.
Two transition pathways, high transition (HT) and low transition (LT), are modeled for each technology to capture variability in decarbonization progress. Material intensities, technology lifetimes, and future deployment assumptions were carefully compiled to estimate cumulative demand between 2030 and 2050 and analyze when significant secondary flows may materialize. The assessment focuses on EoL products after use and excludes UK manufacturing demand and associated manufacturing waste streams.
Furthermore, the report assesses the secondary supply potential by quantifying theoretical EoL material availability before recovery losses, and highlights key elements suitable for domestic recycling or processing.
Future Material Demand & Supply
Copper and graphite represent the highest cumulative material demand, each exceeding multiple million tonnes over the period, with copper integral across all technologies and graphite mainly tied to battery anodes. Battery raw materials including nickel (~900 kt), cobalt (~130 kt), lithium (~220 kt), and manganese (~320 kt) will also see significant demand.
Permanent magnet REEs required for EV motors and offshore wind turbines cumulatively amount to approximately 25 kt. Meanwhile, solar PV demand is initially dominated by silicon (Si), tin (Sn), and silver (Ag), with emerging tandem-cell PV materials such as indium (In), gallium (Ga), and bismuth (Bi) becoming more relevant post-2040.
By 2050, modeled EoL material availability before recovery losses could substantially offset demand for several critical materials: estimates suggest that 60 to 75% of battery metals, 85 to 97% of REEs, Nd, Pr, Dy, from traction motors and wind turbines, and large shares of Ag and Sn from PV modules could theoretically be met from domestic secondary sources. However, for most other PV metals, EoL availability is expected to remain low because of limited physical availability or quantities too small to support economically viable recovery.
The UK’s current secondary materials infrastructure exhibits notable gaps. While collection and basic sorting systems exist for EoL EVs and PV modules, advanced separation, metallurgical refining, and recovery facilities for key elements such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, and REEs are either limited or confined to pilot-scale operations.
Significant volumes of valuable scrap, such as REE magnets and battery black mass, are exported overseas or lost through low-grade processes. Establishing domestic capabilities for refining and magnet-to-magnet recycling is crucial to capture maximum resource value and reduce import dependence.
Primary supply will remain indispensable during the transition, particularly through the 2020s and 2030s, to satisfy rapidly increasing demand that outpaces early secondary material availability. Post-2040, secondary supply could progressively offset primary imports and improve supply chain resilience, provided sufficient investments in infrastructure, policy support, and skilled labor are secured.
Implications and Strategic Priorities
This report demonstrates that the UK’s transition to net zero will drive surging demand for key technology metals required for EVs, batteries, wind turbines, and solar PV systems.
While secondary supply sources from EoL technologies could meet a substantial portion of domestic demand by mid-century, notably for battery metals, REEs, copper, silver, and tin, this will only materialize if strategic investments and reforms are enacted. Until the 2040s, the UK will rely predominantly on primary imports due to limited volumes of recoverable secondary material and nascent recycling capacities.
Achieving these ambitions aligns with broader goals of supply chain resilience and reducing import dependence amid increasing global material supply risks. Early and coordinated action is essential to bridge current capability gaps and capitalize on the potential of secondary materials to enhance the UK’s critical mineral security, ultimately supporting the UK’s 2050 net-zero targets.
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