Tracing metal footprints through global renewable power value chains

The globally booming renewable power industry has stimulated an unprecedented interest in metals as key infrastructure components. Many economies with different endowments and levels of technology participate in various production stages and cultivate value in global renewable power industry production networks, known as global renewable power value chains (RPVCs), complicating the identification of metal supply for the subsequent low-carbon power generation. Here, we use a value chain decomposition model to trace the metal footprints (MFs) and value-added of major global economies’ renewable power sectors. We found that the MFs of the global renewable power sector increased by 47% during 2005—2015. Developed economies occupy the high-end segments of RPVCs while allocating metal-intensive (but low value-added) production activities to less developed economies. The fast-growing demand for renewable power in developed economies is a major contributor to the embodied metal transfer increment within RPVCs, which is partly offset by the declining metal intensities in less developed economies. Therefore, it is urgent to establish a metal-efficient and green supply chain for upstream suppliers as well as downstream renewable power installers for transition in the power sector across the globe.