The climate of Turkey is very suitable for solar energy as solar potential is very high, especially in the South Eastern Anatolia and Mediterranean regions. Solar is a growing part of renewable energy in the country, with 8 gigawatts (GW) of solar panels generating 4% of the country's electricity. Although similarly sunny, by 2021 Turkey had installed far less solar power than Spain. Production could increase far more quickly if subsidies for coal were abolished and the auction system was improved. Every gigawatt of solar power installed would save over US$100 million on gas import costs, and more of the country's electricity might be exported. Solar thermal is also important. Tenders for new solar power are mostly part of hybrid power plants. Building new solar power plants is cheaper than running those existing coal plants which depend on imports. However, think tank Ember has listed several obstacles to building utility-scale solar plants; such as a lack of new capacity for solar power at transformers, a 50 MW cap for any single solar power plant's installed capacity, and large consumers not allowed to sign long-term power purchase agreements for new solar installations. Background Turkey has a sunny climate, ideal for producing solar power. There are about 2600 hours of sunshine each year (about 7 hours a day), almost twice that of Germany, yet Germany has five times as much solar capacity. Turkey's average annual solar irradiance is over 1 million terrawatt-hours, that is about 1500 kW·h/(m2·yr) or over 4 kW·h/(m2·d). Covering less than 5% of the country's land area with solar panels would provide all the energy needed. Solar power may also be preferable to other renewable energy sources such as wind power and hydroelectricity because wind speed and rainfall can be low in summer, which is when demand peaks due to air conditioning. Solar water heating has been commonplace in Turkey since the 1970s, but the first licences for solar electricity generation were not granted until 2014. Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said that in 2021 less than 3% of solar potential was being used. Policies and laws The country plans to increase capacity to almost 53 GW by 2035. Systems producing over 5 megawatts (MW) of power must be licensed by the if they feed into the grid. Since 2021 feed-in tariffs for new installations have been in lira (but are maximum about US$0.05