The City of Cape Town will not be required to step in to shield residents from Eskom outages on Friday.
Cape Town loadshedding schedule for Friday, 29 November 2024
In its weekly power update last Friday, Eskom announced an extension of the suspension of rotational blackouts for another week.
“The Generation Recovery Plan continues to improve system stability significantly, cutting diesel costs by R15.16 billion—a 69.9% decrease compared to the same period last year.”
Scheduled maintenance currently accounts for 8,402MW, aligning with typical spring and summer patterns, where peak-hour demand tends to be lower.
However, Eskom has called on the public to remain cautious and conserve electricity wherever possible.
As it stands, clients connected to the City of Cape Town should enjoy a day without rotational blackouts.
Here’s a look at Cape Town area faults reported on Friday, 29 November 2024:
- The City of Cape Town publishes the area faults list from 08:30 SAST. Please bookmark this page and refresh it for live updates on areas experiencing unplanned outages.
Is loadshedding over in South Africa?
Loadshedding in South Africa has been suspended for over 247 consecutive days, and the country has seen significant improvements in its energy supply due to better performance by Eskom.
This turnaround is attributed to a higher Energy Availability Factor (EAF), which has exceeded 70% in recent months, alongside reduced unplanned outages and strategic maintenance.
While Eskom’s performance has sparked optimism, officials have warned that South Africa is “not out of the woods yet.”
Factors such as peak electricity demand and ongoing infrastructure challenges mean that load shedding could still return under specific conditions.
There is cautious optimism that loadshedding may be over by the end of 2024, but South Africans are being urged to remain vigilant until the situation stabilizes.
Therefore, while loadshedding has not yet been officially declared over, the improvements in Eskom’s operations offer hope that the worst of the power cuts may be behind us.
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.
