South African power utility Eskom will implement rolling blackouts from 8 am to 10 pm (0600-2000 GMT) on Sunday, the sixth consecutive day of power cuts to hit Africa's most developed economy.

Eskom said in a statement it would restart controlled outages at "Stage 2", which means it has to reduce 2,000 megawatts from the grid as it tries to meet consumer demand of around 30,000 MW.

"This is due to a shortage of generation capacity as several units are currently on unplanned outages due to technical faults," Eskom said. "The power system remains severely constrained and will remain so for the rest of the coming week."

Cash-strapped Eskom said it would use the weekend to build up diesel reserves and dam water levels it could use for power generation next week. (Reporting by Joe Brock; Editing by Gareth Jones).

Source: Reuters