Officials said that the temporary shutdown for repairs began on Saturday, which may last as long as four days and may cause power outages.

Iran’s national television said that Iran’s only nuclear power plant was temporarily closed due to “technical maintenance”.

Gholamali Rakhshanimehr, an official of the State Power Corporation, stated on a talk show that the closure of the Bushehr plant began on Saturday and will last “three to four days.”

He added that it may cause power outages. He did not elaborate further, but this is the first time Iran has reported an emergency shutdown of its factory in the southern port city of Bushehr.

It went live in 2011 with the help of Russia. As a nuclear non-proliferation measure, Iran must return the spent fuel rods in the reactor to Russia.

In March of this year, nuclear official Mahmoud Jafari said that due to bank sanctions imposed by the United States in 2018, Iran could not purchase parts and equipment from Russia, so the plant may cease operations.

Bushehr fuel is fueled by uranium produced in Russia, not Iran, and is monitored by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The UN agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the closure of the report.

Abas Aslani, a senior researcher at the Middle East Strategic Research Center in Tehran, told Al Jazeera that the shutdown could hit Iran’s electricity supply. Nervous due to cryptocurrency mining.

“This [shutdown] As far as the power outage is concerned, it is more important than the nuclear aspect of the facility,” Aslani said.

“Because these days we see that cryptocurrency mining is consuming the country’s electricity, which has caused some power outages in the past.”

In the mid-1970s, under the rule of the Iranian King, Bushehr on the northern coast of the Persian Gulf began construction.

After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the factory became the target of the Iran-Iraq war many times. Russia later completed the construction of the facility.

The factory is located near the active fault line and is specially built to withstand strong earthquakes and is regularly affected by earthquakes. In recent days, there have been no reports of major earthquakes in the area.