The increasingly ambitious wind energy targets being set to reduce reliance on traditional energy sources – both in terms of geographical and material dependence – present a challenge from a supply chain perspective. This is particularly true for rare earth elements (REEs), with top policymakers increasingly calling for de-risked supply chains.
Wind energy uses large amounts of rare earth permanent magnets (REPMs), contributing significantly to global demand. Wind energy OEMs have faced challenges in obtaining the quantities of REPMs they need, despite supply growing at record speed and demand softening thanks to ‘hybrid’ wind energy technologies increasingly replacing standard direct drive (DD) turbines over the past five years. Hybrid systems (medium-speed drivetrains) use just one-tenth of the REPMs needed in a DD drivetrain.
Pensana plc (LON:PRE) explores and mines neodymium, praseodymium, and rare earth minerals. The Company’s flagship assets are the Saltend rare earth refinery project in the United Kingdom and Longonjo neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr) Project in Angola.
