TEHRAN -- Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant has resumed operations after being shut down two weeks ago for an overhaul, national broadcaster IRIB reported on Saturday.
“After repairs ... the Bushehr power plant is back online, and 1000 MW of electricity is injected into the country’s distribution network,” Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, a spokesman for state-run power company TAVANIR, said.
Iran has faced power blackouts blamed by officials on surging electricity demand during a hot and dry summer.
Bushehr is fueled by uranium produced in Russia and is monitored by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA acknowledged being aware of reports about the plant.
Construction on Bushehr, on the coast of the northern reaches of the Persian Gulf, began under Iran’s shah in the mid-1970s. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the plant was repeatedly targeted in the Iran-Iraq war. Russia later completed construction of the facility.
The 1,000-megwatt plant feeds the grid with enough energy for a part of Iran’s nationwide 64,000-megawatt consumption.
“The Bushehr nuclear power plant, like other thermal power plants, needs repairs and the removal of technical problems after working for a while,” Mashhadi said.
Iran and Russia signed a number of documents in November 2014, expanding cooperation in the field of peaceful use of atomic energy and opening the possibility of construction in Iran of up to eight power units.
Iran began building two more nuclear reactors in a joint project with Russia’s Rosatom energy firm in Bushehr in November 2017.
The country’s aim is to build nuclear power plants with 20,000-megawatt capacity to meet growing electricity demand,

so it can save its hydrocarbons for export.
Russia has been involved in Iran’s nuclear power generation efforts more than any country. It is currently supplying the nuclear fuel used at Bushehr, but the Islamic Republic has said it wants to make its own fuel so that it will have secure supplies in the future.
Some media reports had recently claimed that Moscow and Tehran differed over the payment of salaries to the Bushehr plant’s personnel, which allegedly could affect the course of the Vienna talks on a potential revitalization of the 2015 nuclear agreement, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The deal has been in crisis since the U.S.’ unilateral exit in May 2018.
However, Russian Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov told Sputnik News on Tuesday that any issues between Iran and Russia cannot influence the Vienna negotiations.