Glasgow City Council is hoping to harness the rare rays of sunshine the city receives to help turn it into one of the world's greenest.

The local authority aims to identify sites for solar farms on 400 patches of wasteland scattered across the city. Solar panels will be installed to generate clean electricity on vacant or derelict sites owned by the council.

Councillor Alastair Watson, executive member for sustainability, said: "Glasgow may not be the sunniest city in the world but there are already hundreds of solar arrays on buildings around the city which can harness diffused sunlight to generate electricity even when it's cloudy."

Edinburgh is looking at putting solar farms in disused quarries and on pit bings or slag heaps, and 16 major solar electricity projects have won planning approval elsewhere in Scotland in the last two years.

Scotland has 116 megawatts of solar capacity from more than 31,000 installations, mostly panels on the roofs of people's homes. But this is seen as just the start.

Glasgow City Council has teamed up with Strathclyde University to conduct a survey of 550 hectares of city land that is not being used.

Sites will be assessed to see which ones could accommodate mini solar farms. It has been welcomed by the renewables industry.