AO MOSENERGO's Open Research Contest named 15 winners from leading Moscow technical education institutions – Moscow Energy Institute and the Moscow State Technical University named after Bauman. For the first time junior students took part in this contest. This innovation produced fruit – the top prize went to the second year student of the Moscow State Technical University (MSTU). In total, AO MOSENERGO set five award categories for student thesis work, with three winners in each. The award ceremony took place on April 23 at AO MOSENERGO's main office, right after students delivered their thesis works at the Moscow Energy Institute (MEI) and the jury summed up the results. Top winners received laptop notebooks. Second- and third-place winners received palm PCs and electronic dictionaries.

AO MOSENERGO organizes these contests for the third year running. This year, the contest was conducted among 20 students – graduates from MEI, MSTU, Moscow State Engineering and Physics Institute and Moscow State Open University. The jury headed by the first deputy general director of AO MOSENERGO Igor Goryunov evaluated all entries.

The main purpose of the contest was to support young and talented specialists and to pick new interesting research ideas. One of the main pre-conditions of the contest was the practical applicability of contest works at AO MOSENERGO. In addition, the contest allowed AO MOSENERGO to maintain ties with higher education institutions and attract qualified specialists.

The jury nominated the following winners:

The nomination: "Improvement of power equipment wear resistance and operation life"

1^st place – M. V. Uchuvatkin (2^nd year student, MSTU)

2^nd place – Y.M. Polushkina

3^rd place – A. L. Goncharov

The nomination: "Development of automated control systems for power stations based on modern soft- and hardware"

1^st place – E. Y. Shnyrov

2^nd place – A. V. Tsypin

3^rd place – A. I. Repin

The nomination: "Environment protection"

1^st place – D. A. Vorobyev

2^nd place – D. V. Pashinkin

3^rd place – A. S. Rodionov

The nomination: "Power saving"

1^st place – M. Y. Pomortsev

2^nd place – A. A. Komov

3^rd place – Y. Y. Sigidov

The nomination: "Improvement of power consumption reliability"

1^st place – G. V. Shvedov

2^nd place – A. A. Novikov

3^rd place – I. V. Naumov