Concentrating solar power (CSP) capacity has expanded slower than other renewable technologies and its costs are still high. Until now, there have been too few CSP projects to derive robust conclusions about its cost development. Here we present an empirical study of the cost development of all operating CSP stations and those under construction, examining the roles of capacity growth, industry continuity, and policy support design. We identify distinct CSP expansion phases, each characterized by different cost pressure in the policy regime and different industry continuity. In 2008–2011, with low cost pressure and following industry discontinuity, costs increased. In the current phase, with high cost pressure and continuous industry development, costs decreased rapidly, with learning rates exceeding 20%. Data for projects under construction suggest that this trend is continuing and accelerating. If support policies and industrial structure are sustained, we see no near-term factors that would hinder further cost decreases.

集中式太阳能（CSP）容量的增长速度比其他可再生技术要慢，而且其成本仍然很高。到目前为止，CSP项目太少，无法得出有关其成本发展的可靠结论。在这里，我们对所有运营中的CSP站点和正在建设的CSP站点的成本发展进行了实证研究，考察了容量增长，行业连续性和政策支持设计的作用。我们确定了不同的CSP扩张阶段，每个阶段的特点是政策体制中的成本压力不同，行业连续性也不同。在2008-2011年，由于成本压力较低，并且随着行业中断，成本增加了。在当前阶段，由于高成本压力和持续的行业发展，成本迅速下降，学习率超过20％。在建项目的数据表明，这种趋势正在持续和加速发展。如果支持政策和产业结构得以维持，我们看不到会阻碍成本进一步下降的近期因素。