Minerals for Wind Energy — Rare Earths, Copper, Steel & Offshore Wind Mineral Intensity

Wind Energy’s Mineral Footprint

Wind turbines are among the most mineral-intensive power generation technologies in the energy transition, requiring large quantities of steel, copper, rare earth elements, aluminium, zinc, and composite materials per megawatt of installed capacity. The mineral intensity of wind energy is approximately 10 tonnes per megawatt for onshore turbines and 15 tonnes per megawatt for offshore, compared to just 2.5 tonnes per megawatt for a conventional coal plant. This elevated mineral requirement, multiplied across the hundreds of gigawatts of wind capacity being installed annually, makes wind energy a significant and growing driver of global mineral demand.

Global wind power capacity additions reached approximately 120 GW in 2023 and are projected to grow to 200 to 350 GW annually by 2030 under various IEA scenarios. Offshore wind, which represents the fastest-growing segment, is projected to grow from approximately 10 GW of annual installations in 2023 to 40 to 80 GW by 2030. The shift toward larger turbines (individual ratings of 10 to 18 MW for offshore versus 3 to 6 MW for onshore) and longer blades increases both the absolute material content per turbine and the sophistication of the materials required.

The minerals most critical to wind energy—and most relevant to the Lobito Corridor—are the rare earth elements used in permanent magnet generators and the copper used throughout the electrical system. Both materials face supply concentration challenges that create strategic vulnerabilities for the global wind industry.

Rare Earths for Permanent Magnets

The most strategically sensitive mineral input for wind energy is the rare earth element content of permanent magnet generators. Direct-drive wind turbines, which eliminate the mechanical gearbox by using a large, slow-speed permanent magnet generator, are the preferred configuration for offshore wind and increasingly for large onshore turbines. The permanent magnets in these generators are composed of neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) alloy, the world's most powerful commercially available permanent magnet material.

A direct-drive offshore wind turbine with a rated capacity of 10 to 15 MW contains approximately 1,000 to 3,000 kilograms of permanent magnets, which in turn contain approximately 300 to 900 kilograms of rare earth elements—primarily neodymium (Nd) and praseodymium (Pr), with smaller quantities of dysprosium (Dy) and terbium (Tb) added to improve high-temperature performance. Onshore turbines using permanent magnet generators (typically 3 to 6 MW) contain 200 to 600 kilograms of rare earth elements per turbine.

Not all wind turbines use permanent magnets. Geared turbines with doubly-fed induction generators (DFIG) use no rare earths but are heavier, require more maintenance (due to the gearbox), and are less efficient at variable wind speeds. The industry trend toward direct-drive permanent magnet generators, particularly for offshore applications, is increasing the rare earth intensity of wind energy deployment.

China controls approximately 60 percent of global rare earth mining and over 87 percent of rare earth processing, including the separation, oxide production, metal reduction, and magnet manufacturing stages. This dominance gives Beijing effective control over a material that is essential for wind turbine generators, EV motors, and defence applications. The concentration has prompted urgent policy responses from Western governments, including the US Department of Energy's Rare Earth Element Recovery program and the EU's listing of rare earths as the highest-criticality material in its Critical Raw Materials assessment.

Copper in Wind Turbines

Copper is used extensively throughout wind turbine electrical systems: in generator windings (both permanent magnet and induction generators use copper stator coils), power cables running the length of the tower, step-up transformers at the tower base, switchgear and control systems, and the cable connection from the turbine to the collector substation and onward to the grid.

The offshore copper intensity is dramatically higher than onshore, primarily because of submarine power cables. A single offshore wind farm with 1 GW of capacity can require 5,000 to 15,000 tonnes of copper, with the majority consumed by the array cables connecting turbines to the offshore substation and the export cable connecting the substation to the onshore grid. These submarine cables are manufactured by a small number of specialist producers including Prysmian, Nexans, and NKT, and represent a supply chain bottleneck in their own right.

At projected global wind installations of 200 to 350 GW per year by 2030 (with 30 to 80 GW offshore), annual wind-related copper demand could reach 1.5 to 3.0 million tonnes. This represents 6 to 12 percent of current global copper consumption, making wind energy one of the largest individual contributors to the energy transition copper demand surge.

Steel & Structural Materials

Steel is the single largest material by mass in a wind turbine, used for the tower, nacelle frame, hub, foundation, and internal structural components. A typical onshore wind turbine requires approximately 100 to 150 tonnes of steel per megawatt. Offshore turbines, which are larger and require massive monopile or jacket foundations driven into the seabed, use 200 to 400 tonnes of steel per megawatt. The steel used in wind turbines must meet exacting metallurgical specifications for fatigue resistance, weldability, and corrosion protection (particularly for offshore applications).

Global steel production exceeds 1.8 billion tonnes annually, and wind energy consumes a very small fraction (less than 2 percent) of total steel output. Steel supply is not a meaningful constraint on wind deployment. However, the specialised steel grades and fabrication capabilities required for wind turbine towers and foundations—particularly for monopiles exceeding 10 metres in diameter for next-generation offshore turbines—are concentrated in a limited number of fabrication yards in Europe, China, and South Korea. Fabrication capacity, rather than raw steel supply, is the binding constraint.

Zinc is used in large quantities for galvanising steel components to protect against corrosion. A typical onshore turbine uses approximately 3 to 5 tonnes of zinc per megawatt for hot-dip galvanising of the tower sections, bolts, and other exposed steel surfaces. Offshore turbines use additional zinc-based cathodic protection systems to protect submerged steel foundations from seawater corrosion.

Balsa Wood & Composite Materials

Wind turbine blades are manufactured from composite materials—typically fibreglass or carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) with a structural core of balsa wood or PVC foam. Balsa wood has been the traditional core material due to its exceptional strength-to-weight ratio, but its supply has become a significant concern. Ecuador produces approximately 75 percent of the world's balsa wood, and the rapid expansion of wind blade manufacturing created a balsa supply crisis in 2020 to 2021, driving prices up dramatically and accelerating deforestation in Ecuador's coastal forests.

The industry is transitioning toward PVC and PET foam core materials as balsa substitutes, reducing the ecological impact but increasing the use of petroleum-derived polymers. Carbon fibre, which offers superior stiffness-to-weight performance for the longest blades (100+ metres), is used increasingly in spar caps and structural elements of offshore wind blades. Carbon fibre production is dominated by Toray (Japan), Teijin (Japan), and SGL Carbon (Germany), with total global capacity of approximately 170,000 tonnes per year.

Blade recyclability is an emerging concern. Current composite blades cannot be economically recycled using conventional methods, and several hundred thousand tonnes of blade waste are projected to accumulate annually by 2030. Research into thermoplastic resin systems, recyclable blade designs, and chemical recycling processes is advancing but has not yet produced a commercial-scale solution.

Offshore Wind Mineral Intensity

Offshore wind represents the highest mineral intensity of any power generation technology, driven by the massive scale of individual turbines, the corrosive marine environment, and the requirement for submarine cabling and offshore substations. A comprehensive mineral accounting for a 1 GW offshore wind farm illustrates the scale of material requirements.

A single 1 GW offshore wind farm can consume as much copper as a mid-sized copper mine produces in a year and as much rare earth material as a significant rare earth operation produces in several months. With global offshore wind capacity projected to grow from approximately 75 GW (cumulative installed capacity in 2023) to 300 to 500 GW by 2030, the cumulative mineral demand is substantial.

Demand Projections

The most supply-constrained materials are rare earths and copper. Rare earth demand from wind turbines is projected to roughly triple by 2030, adding to the demand from EV motors, consumer electronics, and defence applications. The total NdPr demand from all clean energy applications could reach 30,000 to 50,000 tonnes by 2030, compared to current global NdPr supply of approximately 45,000 tonnes. This implies that wind energy and EVs together could consume the entirety of current NdPr production, leaving no margin for other applications.

Supply Chain Risks & Corridor Links

Wind energy's mineral supply chain risks centre on two materials: rare earths and copper. Both face geographic concentration challenges that create strategic vulnerabilities for the global wind industry.

For rare earths, the Longonjo rare earth project in Angola represents one of the most strategically significant non-Chinese supply developments. Operated by Pensana, Longonjo is positioned to produce separated rare earth oxides—including the neodymium and praseodymium oxides critical for permanent magnets—for export to European and American magnet manufacturers. The project's location within the Lobito Corridor zone means that its production would be transported via the corridor's rail and port infrastructure, directly linking African rare earth supply to the global wind turbine manufacturing industry.

If Longonjo achieves commercial production alongside other non-Chinese rare earth projects (MP Materials in the US, Lynas in Australia, and emerging projects in Canada and Greenland), it would contribute to a meaningful reduction in China's rare earth market dominance. However, rare earth separation and magnet manufacturing capacity remains overwhelmingly Chinese, meaning that even non-Chinese rare earth ore must often be processed in China before entering the wind turbine supply chain. Building non-Chinese rare earth separation capacity—potentially in Angola alongside the mine, or in European facilities—is essential for true supply chain diversification.

For copper, the Lobito Corridor is directly relevant. Copperbelt copper from the DRC and Zambia serves the global copper market that supplies wind turbine manufacturers, submarine cable producers, and transformer fabricators. The copper in an offshore wind farm's submarine cables may originate from Kamoa-Kakula or Kansanshi, transported via the corridor to the port of Lobito and onward to European cable manufacturing facilities. The corridor's role in supplying copper to the wind industry is indirect but commercially significant.

The wind energy sector's mineral dependencies reinforce the broader strategic case for the Lobito Corridor. The corridor does not serve a single technology or a single mineral. It serves the entire mineral base of the energy transition—copper for wind, solar, EVs, and grids; cobalt for batteries; rare earths for turbines and motors; and potentially lithium for storage. This multi-mineral relevance makes the corridor an infrastructure asset whose strategic value scales with the pace and breadth of the energy transition itself.