The Pakri Wind farm, with eight wind generators, has an expected annual production capacity of 56 GWh (GigaWatt hours), meeting about one percent of Estonia's net electricity consumption, said Martin Kruus, head of the Pakri wind farm owner company Tuulepargid.

"By building the wind farm, we have made a significant investment in the future of generating electricity in Estonia," Kruus said in a statement.

Estonia has a target of providing 5.1 percent of its electricity needs from renewable sources by 2010.

Estonias main energy source is at present oil-shale, which causes considerable air pollution.

"While the production costs of the oil-shale-based energy continue to grow because of the stringent environmental requirements of the EU, there is no such danger with renewable energy sources," Kruus said.

The Pakri wind farm sits atop the Pakri peninsula, which juts into the Baltic Sea 60 kilometres (36 miles) west of the capital Tallinn, at a location that once hosted a training centre for Soviet border guards.

Seventy percent of the shares in the Pakri wind farm are owned by Norways Vardar and 30 percent by Nordic Environment Finance Corporation NEFCO.

All rights reserved. � 2004 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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