Solar thermal projects deploy fields of mirrors called heliostats that focus the sun on liquid-filled boilers to create steam that drives an electricity-generating industrial turbine.
As solar panel prices have plunged, developers like Solar Millennium have abandoned solar thermal technology, which uses huge mirror arrays to heat water to create steam that drives an electricity-generating turbine.
While its drives were a boon in 1995 and 1996, when the internal hard drives of most PCs were much smaller, ever-bigger hard drives have taken a lot of steam out of demand.