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

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:

Load-shedding update:

Eskom’s load-shedding starts from 17:00 on 7 March 2022 until 05:00 9 March 2022. Eskom customers will be on Stage 2.

The City will do its best to protect its customers.

City customers:
7 March
Stage 1: 17:00 – 22:00
Stage 2: 22:00 – 05:00#CTInfo pic.twitter.com/AN2sNQKAIn

— City of Cape Town (@CityofCT) March 7, 2022