Iran’s only nuclear power plant has been put back on line for a two-week shutdown Nuclear Energy News

The director of the Bushehr plant said electricity has been restarted and called on Iranians to minimize electricity consumption.

Iran’s only nuclear power plant has returned to the grid after two weeks of being off the grid after conflicting reports of an apparent regular maintenance.

Factory director Mahmoud Jafari Bushehr said on Monday that it was a “technical error” turn off the plant repaired a 1,000-megawatt reactor on the south coast of Iran.

This allowed the plant to start generating electricity and reconnect it, said Jafari, who is also the deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).

Jafari said electricity had resumed on Sunday and called on Iranians to “help” the Islamic Republic overloaded grid minimizing energy consumption, as weather forecasts predicted a rise in temperature in the coming days.

Cities across the country, including the capital Tehran, have been hit by escalating blackouts in recent days, which have lasted for several hours and hit without warning more than once a day.

On June 20, the AEOI blamed a “technical error” on the shutdown and said it had given the energy ministry a one-day warning before it was put offline.

Two days later he said the problem was with the plant’s “energy generator,” without further explanation.

But the Iranian foreign ministry at the time said the closure was “common”, saying it was done “once or twice a year”.

Concerns about worse blackouts outside the Bushehr network have been blamed on Iran’s hot power outage, drought affecting hydroelectric facilities and increased electricity demand.

The punctual nature of the blackouts and the incompatibility with the announced schedules have angered the citizens and disrupted the business.

The blackouts have also caused disruptions to the Internet in areas across the country, as cell towers were closed after being without power for a long time.

Iranian Information and Communication Technology Minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi apologized on Sunday for the disruptions, saying “everyone should be responsible for that.”

Power outages are not uncommon in Iran’s hot summers, when air conditioners use spikes. Adding to the problem is that the country’s hydroelectric power capacity has been affected by low rainfall.

A report by the government in May said rainfall had fallen by 34% compared to the long-term average and warned that the annual water supply had been reduced.

Since the end of May, the energy ministry has regularly informed citizens of potential blackouts that can last at least two hours a day.

The Bushehr plant was built by Russia and officially delivered in September 2013.

Russian and Iranian companies began work on two additional 1,000-megawatt reactors in 2016, and construction is expected to last 10 years.