European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs called Friday for the use of more renewable energy in the European Union (EU) as the first European Wind Day was marked across the continent.

Piebalgs inaugurated the Wind Day by breaking a bottle of champagne against a wind generator installed on the occasion in the center of the European quarter in Brussels.

"If we want to reach the ambitious European target for Renewable Sources of Energy we need to develop state-of-the-art technology. The wind generator installed today in Rond Point Schuman is a good example of this: it shows citizens that wind energy is not dangerous and can produce clean energy in a safe and sustainable way," he said.

European Wind Day is a pan-European awareness campaign promoting wind energy, with the main aim of celebrating the power, popularity and effectiveness of wind energy in the EU.

The campaign, coordinated by the European Wind Energy Association, will include events taking place simultaneously in Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Athens, Vienna and other major European cities.

National associations, manufacturers and wind-power developers will all organize "wind events" in their respective towns and cities and also at wind farms.

The European Commission hopes that wind energy will play a key role in realizing the binding target set by the EU summit in March to achieve 20 percent of Europe's energy consumption from renewable energy sources (RES).

The European Commission will present a framework directive for RES by the end of 2007 in which it will unveil the ways to achieve this objective.

Source: Xinhua