cape town load shedding

Cape Town by night – Photo: Flickr / Chris Schumacher

Lights ON: Cape Town gets ‘load shedding relief’ for Monday 7 March

Cape Town will experience a LIGHTER load shedding programme than the rest of South Africa on Monday – here’s the amended schedule.

cape town load shedding

Cape Town by night – Photo: Flickr / Chris Schumacher

Residents based in the municipal region of Cape Town will avoid the worst of what load shedding has to offer on Monday 7 March, after city officials confirmed that Stage 2 cuts would be delayed by FIVE HOURS.

Cape Town load shedding schedule for Monday 7 March

As the rest of the country slips into a more hectic bout of power outages, Cape Town will remain at Stage 1. That’s until 22:00 this evening anyway, when the Mother City is scheduled to join the rest of the country at Stage 2.

Eskom announced earlier today that a 36-hour programme of load shedding would be implemented, after multiple generating units went offline. They initially announced a 16-hour schedule, to come into effect overnight on Monday and Tuesday respectively. However, that was soon amended when ANOTHER breakdown was reported.

Why are Stage 2 power cuts back again?

The troublesome Medupi plant also experienced a technical issue, forcing Eskom into a humiliating amendment to their statement. Public anger has, once again, swelled against the beleaguered utility.

“Due to multiple unit failures, Stage 2 load shedding will be implemented. Medupi Unit 3 broke down a short while ago. This requires Stage 2 load shedding to be implemented continuously starting at 17:00 this afternoon, until 05:00 on Wednesday.”

Eskom statement

Cape Town at Stage 1 load shedding

However, those in Cape Town can celebrate the small victories. For at least five hours on Monday, you’ll only experience Stage 1 blackouts. More relief could be announced tomorrow, but that’s yet to be confirmed.

  • Here’s the official schedule, as confirmed by the COCT on their Twitter feed: