The most obvious improvement will be size: the project is likely to have at least twice the generation capacity of Gemasolar, allowing its designers to leverage economies of scale.

Beyond that, one idea for improvement is to control the heliostats wirelessly, eliminating the need for the oodles of cables linking Gemasolar’s 2,650 heliostats to the control room.

Most critically for a technology hoping to take root in the Middle East and other arid climates, ­future plants will use far less ­water.

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