per kWh) and set by the president, but the 10-year period has been criticised as too short. In 2022 there are many applications for hybrid solar and wind licences. there are 9 renewable energy cooperatives; it has been suggested that agricultural energy cooperatives would be profitable if farmers had more loans and technical help to establish them. According to think tank Ember, building new wind and solar power is cheaper than running existing coal plants which depend on imported coal. But they say that there are obstacles to building utility-scale solar, such as lack of new capacity allocated for solar power at transformers, a 50 MW cap for any single solar power plant's installed capacity, and large consumers being unable to sign long-term power purchase agreements for new unlicensed solar installations. Owners of these small unlicensed installations can sell to the grid at the same price as they buy. Economics As in many countries for many types of variable renewable energy, from time to time the government invites companies to tender sealed bids to construct a certain capacity of solar power to connect to certain electricity substations. By accepting the lowest bid the government commits to buy at that price per kWh for a fixed number of years, or up to a certain total amount of power. This provides certainty for investors against highly volatile wholesale electricity prices. However they may still risk exchange rate volatility if they borrowed in foreign currency. For example as Turkey does not have enough solar cell manufacturing capacity they would likely be bought from China and so would have to be paid for in foreign currency. In 2021 prices at these "solar auctions" were similar to or lower than average wholesale electricity prices, and large-scale solar for companies own use is also competitive; but macroeconomic challenges and exchange rate volatility are causing uncertainty. Installation costs are low and according to the Turkish Solar Energy Industry Association the industry provides jobs for 100,000 people. As part of the fourth round of solar auctions which are planned to total 1000 MW in lots of 50 MW and 100 MW, in April 2022 three lots of 100 MW were auctioned at prices around 400 lira per MWh, around 25 euros at the exchange rate at that time. The tender included a 60% foreign exchange weight clause, which partly protects against currency volatility, and selling on the open