TAIPEI - Taiwan's electricity provider said on Monday that power cuts would hit parts of the island starting from 8:50 pm (1250 GMT) as power supplies for the grid were insufficient following a spike in demand and failure at a power plant.

This will be the second time in less than a week the island has experienced power cuts, after phased blackouts last Thursday following an outage at a power plant in southern Taiwan. 

Taipower blamed a rise in demand for the latest power cuts after a technical failure had led to the suspension of some generators in the southern Hsinta Power Plant, Taipower said, the same facility that caused the problem last week.

By 8:40 pm only 40% of the supply had been restored in that coal- and gas-fired power plant, Taipower said.

The Taipei city government said parts of the city had already reported power cuts.

Taiwan is currently experiencing an unusually hot May with temperatures in parts of the island peaking at around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

(Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard Editing by Gareth Jones and Louise Heavens) ((ben.blanchard@thomsonreuters.com;))