Cape Town’s loadshedding schedule will switch between Stages 2, 3 and 5, on Monday, 22 May 2023, offering its clients a much-needed reprieve from heightened blackouts.
Cape Town loadshedding schedule for Monday, 22 May 2023
On Sunday, Eskom published the first draft of this week’s loadshedding schedule, noting that rotational outages will, in the interim, follow a pattern of Stage 3 during daytime peak periods (05:00 – 16:00) and Stage 5 in the evenings.
While the rest of South Africa will be plunged into 11 hours of Stage 3 loadshedding between 05:00 and 16:00 on Monday, 22 May 2023, City of Cape Town clients will be on Stage 3.
During the evening peak period (16:00 – 05:00), Eskom will hike outages to Stage 5.
On the other hand, the City of Cape Town will delay the heightened blackouts by four hours in this period, with Stage 3 loadshedding implemented between 16:00 and 20:00, and Stage 5 after that until 05:00 the next day.
“We are doing all we can to protect you where possible, but non-stop load-shedding at high stages impacts our ability to protect,” the City wrote.
Here’s a look at the Cape Town loadshedding schedule for Monday, 22 May 2023:
| Time | Cape Town | Eskom |
| 05:00 – 16:00 | Stage 2 | Stage 3 |
| 16:00 – 20:00 | Stage 3 | Stage 5 |
| 20:00 – 05:00 | Stage 5 | Stage 5 |
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.