Demand for minerals critical to solar, battery and other clean energy technologies has doubled in the past five years to reach a value of $320 billion, the International Energy Agency reports.

And the mineral development industry is expanding to meet the increased demand, with a 50% increase in investment in lithium in 2022 alone and large increases in cobalt, copper and nickel mining.

The IEA on Tuesday issued the first of what it plans to be an annual review of the energy transition minerals sector — “Critical Minerals Market Report 2023” — and said the developments behind the data are an important factor in the speed and affordability of clean energy transitions underway around the world.

“We are encouraged by the rapid growth in the market for critical minerals, which are crucial for the world to achieve its energy and climate goals,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a news release. “Even so, major challenges remain. Much more needs to be done to ensure supply chains for critical minerals are secure and sustainable.”

IEA analysis indicates that if all critical mineral projects are carried out as planned, supply could meet the demand projected under the myriad climate pledges announced by governments worldwide.

But the risk of project delays and technology-specific shortfalls persists, IEA said, and the demand for materials would increase under certain climate-protection scenarios.

Other supply-side challenges include matching supply to demand, diversifying supply sources and maintaining supply in a clean and responsible manner.

Beyond exploration and production capacity, other metrics are a mixed bag in the report:

• • Supplier diversity is not improving — the market share held in 2022 by the top three critical mineral producers is unchanged or even larger than three years earlier.
  • There is uneven progress on ESG practices.
  • Community investment, worker safety and gender balance are improving.
  • Greenhouse gas emissions during production are high and not decreasing.
  • Water use nearly doubled from 2018 to 2021.
  • Delays and cost overruns have been common on past projects.
  • Thin inventory levels limit the ability to cushion supply-chain disruptions.
  • Recent commodity price decreases could cool investment interest in new projects, with strong medium-term implications for the sector.

Also new on the IEA website is an interactive data explorer for 37 critical minerals from arsenic to zirconium that shows the projected demand for them through 2050 under multiple clean energy transition models.

The agency said it would continue to work to drive progress in the critical minerals space, including by bringing stakeholders together at its Critical Minerals and Clean Energy Summit in September.