Financial Tribune - Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in the southern namesake city that was temporarily shut down for technical overhaul has restarted operation, head of the plant said.

"The plant will operate for 298 days and generate 7.3 billion kilowatt hours of power," Hossein Ghaffari was quoted as saying by IRNA on Monday.

The plant produced 6.6 billion kWh of electricity in 2018, he said.

As is the norm, the nuclear power facility was shut down for maintenance for 90 days in March.

"Detecting and replacing defective and worn-out parts was undertaken after the nuclear feedstock was moved to a secure location," he said.

Ghaffari said 13 experts from eight countries checked the plant in March and approved its compliance with international standards.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, has said the plant's utilization factor was 85.3% in 2017 – up 9% compared to the year before.

Utilization factor or use factor is the ratio of the time that a piece of equipment is in use compared to the total time that it could be in use.

Iran’s sole nuclear reactor has generated over 35 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity since 2011 that is equivalent to energy produced by burning 55 million barrels of crude.

The Bushehr plant is the first civilian nuclear power facility in the Middle East and operates under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

It was built with Russian assistance.