This statement echoes the national energy strategy until 2020 that ranks nuclear power as one of the main guarantors of the country's energy security.
"Our objective is to ensure that within 10 to 15 years nuclear power plants account for at least 25% of overall electricity generated in the country," Mikhail Beskhmelnitsin, an Audit Chamber expert, said. "We have to build 40 to 50 energy units during that period."
Beskhmelnitsin said safety measures at nuclear power plants needed to be addressed and sources of funding for those measures and additional construction identified.
The expert said the federal budget and loans had been the main sources of financing for nuclear power plants and that a study had shown that safety had been continuously improving at nuclear facilities.
The Audit Chamber released the results of an inspection of the Federal Agency for Nuclear Power last week, saying it had failed to break even in 2002-2004. The chamber also said the domestic wholesale electric energy market's debt to the agency in the first nine months of 2005 totaled $353 million.
In 2004, nuclear power plants produced 15.6% of electricity in Russia.
