From the 1st of February, the City of Cape Town will implement a new load shedding schedule to ensure an equal rotation of power cuts when Eskom implements its power cuts. The current schedule was designed during a time when power cuts were infrequent and operated on a weekly cycle which caused certain residents to experience load-shedding at the most inconvenient times more frequently than others.

“We see that its an important thing to redesign a schedule so that shedding repeats itself only after sixteen days and not at the same time of the day, and day of the week. This is so that people experience a fair rotation of the load-shedding,” the City’s Head of Revenue Protection’s Neil Ballantyne said.

Residents have already expressed confusion about the old schedule, however, with the new schedule, the City plans to publish it in the local papers to ensure residents have easy access to the schedule.

“About 700 000 of these schedules with be printed and disseminted to the public through local newspapers. If residents do not receive the paper, they can get the schedule at their local library as well,” Ballantyne explained.

A mobile version will also be made available to the tech savvy residents. A user friendly version for mobile use which will require little data.

The latest system by the City is promised to be up to date with notifying residents of load-sheddings. Residents have complained about the slow pace of information on the city’s online page regarding load-shedding queries. Ballantyne further explained that the issue has been addressed.

“As soon as Eskom notifies our control centre of load-sheddings, officials will then send an sms to crucial individuals within those particular areas in the mother city in order for our technicians to change the heading on the webpage, informing residents of the exact minutes of load-shedding,” Ballantyne said.

Meanwhile, Ballantyne encouraged residents to switch off all sensitive equipment as soon as load-shedding is implemented as the power is restored on a high voltage level that could cause power surges and damaged equipment. For more information visit www.capetown.gov.za VOC (Ra’eesah Isaacs)