South Africa's Eskom will cut 3,000 megawatts of power in controlled outages, known locally as loadshedding, from 5:30 p.m. (1530 GMT) on Saturday until further notice after a "temporary setback", the power utility said.

At the end of January, Eskom implemented similar power cuts after 10 months of uninterrupted supply as the utility aims to overcome chronic outages that have curtailed economic growth for years.

In a statement, Eskom said it would provide an update on Sunday and did not indicate what the latest setback was.

Regular breakdowns at its fleet of ageing coal-fired plants that provide the bulk of electricity in Africa's most industrialised economy are often the cause of loadshedding - an incremental system where stage 1 sees 1,000 MW cut from the national grid, with stage 6 the highest implemented to date.