Moscow. 24 November 2004. Tomorrow, 25 November 2004, is the 80^th anniversary of the launch of industrial heating in Russia.

On 25 November 1924, the first public heating main was put into operation. The pipeline linked Leningrad Power Plant 3 (now called Power Plant-3 of the Central CHPP owned by OAO "Lenenergo") and one of the residential buildings on the Fontanka river embankment. In 1929, the length of Leningrad's heating mains reached 8.6 km. In Moscow, the first heating pipeline was laid in 1928.

Industrial heating made it possible to replace the costly and inefficient boiler houses with large sources of cheap heat, CHPPs. Thermal power plants no longer need to discharge the heat energy produced in the process of electricity generation, thus helping avoid the so-called "heat pollution" of the atmosphere.

In 2003, Russian Federation generated 1.4 billion Gcal of heat energy. The enterprises of RAO "UES of Russia" Holding Company generated 468.8 million Gcal of heat in 2003, or 32% of all heat supplied to Russian consumers during the year. In the ten months of 2004, the Holding Company's entities produced 390.6 million Gcal of heat.