Under the background of carbon neutrality, the solar PV will usher in a rapid development stage. The international co-opetition for solar PV critical mineral resources is getting unprecedentedly intense especially among the world's major powers. Based on the niche theory and a panel dataset of chromium, gallium, copper and platinum in 2008–2020, th. ••Investigated co-opetition relationships for solar PV critical mineral resources.••Constructed an evaluation index system for the ecological co-opetition relationships.••Built a tech-innovation index, and verified its impact on the ecological niche.••Competition between the four major powers has intensified since 2017.Solar PVCritical mineralsTechnological innovationEcological nicheco-opetitioncooperation and competitionEUthe European Unionsolar PVsolar photovoltaicCrchromiumGagalliumCuUnder the background of carbon neutrality, as one of the most important clean energies, the solar photovoltaic will usher in a rapid growth. Despite the huge resource potential of renewable energy especially solar energy, the critical mineral resources supporting the development of low-carbon industries such as solar PV face a realistic challenge of extremely uneven global distribution (Wang et al., 2021a). Critical minerals are crucial raw materials for the growth of the emerging industries, and their sustainable supply is the material foundation and premise for the development of the new energy industry. However, no country has all the resources needed domestically. Mineral products play an important role in the industrial production and daily life of various countries, so the market demand is very high, which promotes the trade of mineral resources between countries. Nations achieve effective utilization and distribution of resources through the import and export of mineral products, and price fluctuations, environmental pressure, political risks, and other challenges are all faced by international trade in minerals (Davis et al., 2010). Renewable energy development is also affected by critical mineral trade pattern. A study is done on how the critical mineral trade patterns affect renewable energy development by adopting a complex network approach by using 2000 to 2019 database, and finds that China has strong trade strength and central influence as an important critical mineral trading country (Zhu et al., 2022). If the supply of critical miner.
