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.”