Iranian officials are warning of higher food prices and shortages in the coming weeks and serious damages to industrial units amid unplanned and ongoing power outages across the country.

"Power outage very quickly manifests its effect in food industries. In a few weeks [the market] will face shortages and higher prices," the Secretary of Iranian Food Industries Federation, Mohsen Naghashi, told the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) on Sunday.

Naghashi also warned that a crisis taskforce has to be formed if outages continue. "The disruption in food production will harm not only producers but also consumers," he said.

In recent weeks power outages have hit several major cities such as Tehran, Mashhad and Tabriz in ten of Iran's thirty-one provinces. Government officials and the ministry of energy have yet not offered a clear reason for the power cuts, but President Hassan Rouhani’s Chief-of-Staff Ali Vaezi on January 14 said the government is working to put an end to unannounced blackouts.

Saber Parnian, CEO of Tehran Industrial Complexes on January 13 urged officials to inform companies about power cuts to prevent damage to machinery and waste of materials. According to Parnian on January 12 an unannounced power cut affected more than 2,300 industrial units in Tehran. Like several other officials he blamed extensive illegal cryptocurrency mining for overpowering the electricity grid and causing outages.

According to Mohammad-Hassan Motavalizadeh, head of the state-run electricity company (Tavanir), police has now seized 45,000 bitcoin mining machines that were illegally using subsidized electricity. Illegal cryptocurrency miners were consuming 95 megawatts per hour (MWh) of electricity at ultracheap prices, he was quoted by Press TV as saying on Saturday. Motavalizdeh added that the total consumption corresponds to the electricity use for a city with a population of over half a million.

There have also been speculations about Israeli cyberattacks causing the power outages, particularly as they occur without prior announcements, but Mostafa Rajabi-Mashhadi, a spokesperson for the Iranian electricity industry on January 13 refuted the rumors and said there have been no cyberattacks on the power grid. "We are prepared for cyberattacks and we will definitely announce it if cyberattacks cause power cuts."

Iran suffered persistent power outages during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s but at the time there was pre-announced schedule, showing the government was in control and rationed electricity.

Rajabi-Mashhadi blamed the electricity shortage on fuel shortage and said power stations are not receiving enough natural gas due to the "unprecedented" increase in domestic and industrial gas consumption.