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Concentrating solar power: Still small but learning fast

Concentrating solar power had a difficult market start compared to other renewable technologies, leading to a total global capacity of only 5 GW today after more than a decade of deployment. A comprehensive global empirical study identifies distinct deployment phases, with high learning rates exceeding 25% over the past 5 years.

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Figure 1: The parabolic trough concentrating solar power plant.

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Correspondence to Robert Pitz-Paal.

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Pitz-Paal, R. Concentrating solar power: Still small but learning fast. Nat Energy 2, 17095 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2017.95

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