Moscow. 9 January 2007. According to recent updates, the power plants of RAO "UES of Russia" increased electricity generation by 4.4% in 2006 to 694.8 billion kWh from 665.4 billion kWh in 2005.

Of that amount, RAO UES thermal power plants generated 568.9 billion kWh, up 5.2% compared to 2005, while the hydroelectric power plants produced 125.9 billion kWh, which represents a 1% increase on 2005.

In 2006, the country's electricity consumption totalled 962.4 billion kWh, an increase of 4.2% compared to 2005, more than twice the growth rate projected for the entire 2006 as approved by the regulators. It is important to note that the dramatic increase in power use last year was observed not only in winter, during the period of extremely low temperatures, but also during the summer months.

In December 2006, the ambient temperature throughout Russia was 7.6?C lower than the climatic norm, which led to a 0.4% growth in the nation's electricity consumption compared to December 2005. In December, the output of RAO UES power plants fell by 0.9%.

Due to the favourable hydrological regime in the reservoirs of the HPPs located in the Angara-Yenisey and Volga-Kama basins, part of the load was shifted from TPPs to HPPs. As a result, in December, the HPP generation increased by 22.8% while the TPP generation declined by 4.5%.