Material Intensity data for Renewable Energy Technologies

The file contains detailed data on material intensities (measured in tons per gigawatt) collected from various literature sources. This data encompasses the material intensity of 30 metals through a range of technologies, including offshore and onshore wind power, solar energy, nuclear power, heat pumps, hydroelectric power, hydrogen production via electrolyzers, biomass energy, and biomass with carbon capture and storage (CCS).

The variables are:

tech: Technology (offshore_wind, onshore_wind, Solar, heat_pumps, hydrogen, biomass, biomassccs, hydroelectric, nuclear).

material: Metal the material intensity refers to (Aluminium, Arsenic, Bismuth, Boron, Cadmium, Chromium, Copper, Gallium, Germanium, Indium, Iron, Lead, Molybdenum, Nickel, Selenium, Silicon, Silver, Tellurium, Tin, Vanadium, Zinc, Dysprosium, Manganese, Neodymium, Niobium, Praseodymium, Terbium, Titanium, Iridium, Platinum).

type: for Solar defines whether it is roof_mounted or open_field.

m_int: The value of material intensity for the corresponding metal in the corresponding technology.

classification: specific classification for Solar, Wind and Heat pumps' technologies: e.g. for solar, defines the type of photovoltaic cell.

year: year in which it is assumed the data was collected, usually defined as the year of publication of the source paper.

This dataset is part of the Master Thesis Mining Industry and Energy Transition Scenarios for Europe: Promoting a Pluriversal Approach, developed in the TISE (Transition, Innovation, and Sustainability Environments) program with collaboration with the Complexity Science Hub.