India’s push for 500 GW of renewables by 2030 hinges on more than just nuclear reactors, solar panels, and wind turbines. It demands substantial copper to build and connect the supporting grid infrastructure. The Economic Survey 2025-26 notes that copper prices rose nearly 20% in 2025, reaching USD 12,000 per tonne, due to supply disruptions in countries like Indonesia, Congo, and Chile, lower ore grades (i.e. concentration), and growing demand from AI data centres and renewable projects.
Compared to non-renewable sources of energy like coal, renewable energy uses a lot more copper. For example, 1 GW of wind capacity needs about 2,866 tonnes of copper (around 1,194 truckloads) for cabling, turbines, and connections. Solar installations, grid upgrades, and transformers add to this. Growth in India’s data centre ecosystem also increases copper needs for power upgrades in substations and distribution. In FY25, ~75% of India’s total copper demand went to power uses like cables, switchgear, and transformers.
This heavy reliance exposes vulnerabilities since India’s power sector relies on imports for ~90% of its copper, making it sensitive to global price changes. This affects costs for renewable projects, transmission lines, and energy-efficient equipment. Higher costs now impact India’s power sector in three key ways as renewable project capex rises due to increased material expenses, transmission lines face higher prices for copper components, and discoms must also manage pricier low-loss equipment to meet efficiency mandates.
Lower ore grades worsen this challenge. Miners must process far more rock to extract the same amount of copper. This drives up production costs and slows overall supply growth.
But does this imply that we will run out of copper soon? Looking back at the 1980 Simon-Ehrlich wager, economist Julian Simon bet ecologist Paul Ehrlich that five metals, including copper, would get cheaper despite population growth. While Ehrlich had predicted scarcity-driven price increase, Simon wagered that innovation would expand supply.
The result? Simon won decisively. By 1990, copper prices fell and Ehrlich paid Simon $576.
Today’s copper price surge echoes a similar short-term scarcity. Yet, historically, Simon’s thesis has endured in the long-term. Global Tellurium and Indium production across decades have also seen alternating periods of increased prices in the short-term, leading to innovation that brought prices back down and led to increased production. Copper output too has historically surged with demand after shortages, and we may expect the same in the future.