Learning curves and technology assessment

This paper uses the formal concept of teaming curves to analyse regular behaviour of performance improvements in various energy technologies. The concept allows the estimation of a single indicator of technological progress, the teaming rate. which expresses the constant percentage improvement (usually in terms of cost reductions) in a technology for each doubling of the technology's cumulative installed capacity. We present 42 energy-related teaming rates, either calculated directly from available data or assembled from the literature. We elaborate briefly on eight of these to illustrate issues addressed by technology assessments to convert these raw historical teaming rates into prospective teaming rate distributions for use in long-term energy models. The paper includes a sensitivity analysis of policy-relevant variables with respect to teaming rates, a discussion of possible extensions and limitations of the approach and an outlook on future work in the field.