Solar power suits Turkey's sunny climate, especially in the South Eastern Anatolia and Mediterranean regions. Solar power is a growing part of renewable energy in the country, with over 20 gigawatts (GW) of solar panels generating 6% of the country's electricity. Solar thermal is also important.

Although similarly sunny, Turkey has installed far less solar power than Spain. Solar power is the cheapest source of power and subsidizes coal and fossil gas power. 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.

Most new solar power is tendered as part of hybrid power plants. Building new solar power plants would be cheaper than running existing import-dependent coal plants if they were not subsidized. However, think tank Ember has listed several obstacles to building utility-scale solar plants, such as insufficient new grid 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. Ember says there is technical potential for 120 GW of rooftop solar, almost 10 times 2023 capacity, which they say could generate 45% of the country's 2022 demand.

Turkey has a sunny climate, ideal for producing solar power. Solar potential is highest in the south-east of the country, and high-voltage DC transmission from that region to Istanbul has been suggested. 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.

Turkey has a significant potential for generating energy from solar power compared to nearby countries in Europe; however, in terms of solar capacity per capita, it lags behind European leaders such as Spain and Italy, as well as countries with far inferior solar potential, such as Germany and the Netherlands. Turkey's total generation ranks it thirteenth globally in solar power by country, but its per capita solar capacity is thirty-ninth.

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.

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 Energy Market Regulatory Authority 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 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. As of 2022^[update] 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. Another state aid model in support of solar power is the so-called "YEKA" (abbreviation for "Yenilenebilir Enerji Kaynak Alanları", Renewable Energy Source Areas) model, prioritizing local content manufacturing or use. A successful application of the YEKA was the "Karapınar Solar Energy Plant" in Konya, with 1.000 MWe installed capacity.