Why is it important to address the vulnerabilities in the supply chain of critical minerals for solar manufacturing in India?

Mr. Ravi Shekhar, Director & Head, of Eninrac Consulting says “For India to transition to global manufacturing hub in clean energies specially for solar sector it would be key for it generate self sustainability in terms of raw materials which are critical in nature. The global transition to low-carbon energy is leading the growing demand of critical minerals across the globe. For solar sector, the focus shift of USA and EU to cut upon imports from China and generate their sustainable supply chain towards strategic collaborations in Africa, Asia and Pacific is noteworthy.

For India it will not be different either if it needs to build robust supply chain to support solar manufacturing segment and rise to the global competition. It is a well know fact that global capacity for extraction and processing of critical minerals are concentrated in a small number of markets, with China being the leading one. This clearly, creates vulnerability in the critical minerals supply chains and specially for a country like India it becomes crucial to better manage supply of minerals and their processing, refining and manufacturing metals, chemicals & intermediates etc. This has led the way for countries to ink strategic partnerships to deal with China’s dominance and secure their supply chains in order to boost local manufacturing. For instance, the strategic Supply Chain Resilience Initiative between Australia, India and Japan can ably support the supply chain of certain critical minerals involving these countries. Apart from having critical minerals reserves crucial for battery manufacturing Australia boasts of significant reserves for minerals like titanium, niobium, rare earths, tantalum, vanadium etc. which would remain vital for India’s domestic solar manufacturing prospects as the country is import dependent for tellurium, gallium, indium and copper as well.”