Spain, one of Europe's sunniest lands, is behind Germany when it comes to using solar panels.

With the price of oil pushing 50 dollars a barrel, solar energy could produce savings of at least 80 euros (103 dollars) a year on fuel to heat domestic water supplies per household, and reduce greenhouse gases, the newspaper said.

But critics of government plans for solar panels from next year say that installing them would increase by somewhere between 1,100 and 1,400 euros the cost of dwellings, whose prices have doubled since 1999 as part of an unprecedented housing boom in Spain.

The Socialist government led by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero plans to increase the area of solar panels tenfold by the year 2010, and will introduce subsidies to cover this, the newspaper reported without further details.

According to official estimates, installation of solar panels in 3.5 million dwellings built in the last five years in Spain would have yielded a fuel cost saving of 245 million euros.

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