On Friday, the Cape Town loadshedding schedule will resume with no outages for City clients.
Cape Town loadshedding schedule for Friday, 12 April 2024
On Wednesday, Eskom confirmed that loadshedding would remain suspended until further notice, extending the reprieve from rotational outages to over a week.
In a statement, the power utility cited the expected return of 1,800MW of generation capacity by Friday as one of the reasons behind the positive outlook.
“Eskom will provide a system update on Sunday afternoon or communicate any significant changes should they occur,” the utility wrote.
Therefore, barring any unexpected changes necessitated by unplanned breakdowns at Megawatt Park’s ailing generation fleet, the City of Cape Town should avoid outages, on Friday.
Here’s a look at the Cape Town loadshedding schedule for Friday, 12 April 2024:
| Time | Cape Town | Eskom |
| 00:00 – 05:00 | Suspended* | Suspended* |
| 05:00 – 16:00 | Suspended* | Suspended* |
| 16:00 – 20:00 | Suspended* | Suspended* |
| 20:00 – 22:00 | Suspended* | Suspended* |
| 22:00 – 00:00 | Suspended* | Suspended* |
How to check your loadshedding schedule
In Cape Town, loadshedding is implemented rotationally in zones split between 23 areas.
Areas 1 – 16 follow the City of Cape Town’s loadshedding schedule, while Areas 17 – 23 adhere to Eskom’s national outage timetable.
To check the latest outage status, refer to the schedule for the loadshedding stage announced; dates indicated along the top (left to right), with the corresponding affected areas for that day and time slots (from top to bottom).
Here’s how City of Cape Town lowers loadshedding stages
The City of Cape Town has its Steenbras Pumped Storage Plant to thank for the delayed implementation of increased power cuts. The hydro-electric pumped power station is the first of its kind in Africa and in 2019, it was refurbished to provide auxiliary support when needed most.
Currently, the City of Cape Town is the only metro able to provide a semblance of relief to households impacted by loadshedding. Using the hydroelectric pumped power plant, residents connected to the City’s grid experience a lower stage of loadshedding, where possible.
Here’s how the Steenbras Pumped Storage plant works:
- Electricity generated during off-peak periods pumps water to an upper storage reservoir
- The down-flowing water is then used to power a generator
- Small hydro-generators like the one at Steenbras Dam mean that the City can sometimes avoid loadshedding or stay at a lower stage.
