"The program has been coordinated, and we hope that it will be approved in early April," Sergei Kiriyenko said, adding it is worth 131 billion rubles ($5 billion).
The Russian government said earlier it will review its energy strategy in April to increase the share of nuclear, hydroelectric and coal power in energy generation.
Russia is likely to experience an energy shortage in the future if it continues to rely on thermal power generation, which is mainly based on non-renewable reserves of natural gas.
Russia has 31 operating power reactors at 10 nuclear power plants (NPPs), with a total installed capacity of 23.2 MW. The average current share of NPPs in electricity generation is 16.5%.
Kiriyenko said last week that Russia is planning to bring online three power reactors annually starting 2016, and in 2018-20 that number could increase to four.
Sergei Ivanov, recently put in charge of the country's nuclear power and defense sectors, said a new executive body will be formed in the near future to exercise centralized control over the civilian nuclear power sector following the merger of four existing nuclear power "dinosaurs" - TVEL, Techsnabexport, Rosenergoatom and Atomstroyexport.
Ivanov also said Russia could boost its uranium ore production, eventually becoming the world's third-largest holder of uranium ore reserves.
A 2006 report Uranium 2005: Resources, Production and Demand, jointly prepared by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), places Russia ninth on the list of countries that possess the largest reserves of uranium ore, with 172,000 tons (over 3% of the global supply).
