U.S. industrial output increased 0.7% in February as cooler weather boosted utility production, the Federal Reserve said Friday. With auto production falling 0.8%, manufacturing output was flat, the slowest growth since September. High-tech output rose 2.3%. Utility output jumped 7.9% in February after plunging 11.5% in the previous month, the warmest January on record. Mining output fell 0.5%. Capacity utilization in industry - a key gauge of supply-side inflationary pressures - rose to 81.2%, matching the high for this expansion. Over the past 33 years, capacity utilization has averaged 81%. Capacity utilization in manufacturing declined to 80.4% from 80.5%. The Federal Reserve is expected to raise overnight interest rates by a quarter percentage point to 4.75% on March 28. Fed officials have cited potential inflationary pressures stemming from high rates of resource utilization, in industrial as well as in labor markets. Economists polled by MarketWatch were expecting output to rise 0.8% after a revised 0.3% decline in January. Capacity utilization was expected to rise to 81.4% from 80.8%. In the past 12 months, industrial production has risen 3.3%. Output in manufacturing is up 4.2%. Industrial capacity has grown 1.8%.