An official from state electric company Tavanir, Gholamali Rakhshanimehr, said on a talk show that the Bushehr plant shutdown began on Saturday and would last “for three to four days.”
Without elaborating, he said that power outages could result. This is the first time Iran has reported an emergency shutdown of the plant, located in the southern port city of Bushehr.
A spokesman for the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee at the Iranian Parliament said the shutdown of the Bushehr facility is technical and that there was no sabotage.
Earlier on Sunday, Tavanir released a statement saying that the nuclear plant was being repaired, without offering further details. It said the repair work would take until Friday, according to AP.
Iran's first Russian-built nuclear power plant in Bushehr started operating in Iran in 2011 and reached full capacity the following year.
In 2014, then-Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that his country would build a second nuclear power plant in Bushehr.
Several months later, Iran and Russia signed a deal for Russia to build two more nuclear power plants in Bushehr.
