Financial Tribune - Iran has taken baby steps in expanding renewable energy and its development requires changing the economic policies and creating a lively market so that it can compete with polluting fossil fuels, which produce the lion�s share of energy in Iran, head of the Energy Research Institute said Tuesday.

Speaking at the seventh International conference on Renewable Energy and Distributed Generation of Iran at Tehran�s Shahid Beheshti University, Mohammad Sadeq Qazizadeh said the world is moving rapidly towards reducing carbon emissions by embracing clean energy, IRNA reported.

He rued the lack of R&D in the renewables sector and said: �The R&D budget is negligible but an estimated 20 trillion rials ($150 million) is allocated annually for purchasing renewable electricity from local producers.�