Wednesday, 13 February

13:20

All UCT services are currently in full operation and lectures are under way. The UCT executive has received a memorandum from the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) and has responded (Read the statement). The Graduate School of Business and Hiddingh Campus are scheduled for load-shedding from 14:00 to 16:30 on 13 February.

09:00

UCT’s upper, middle and lower campuses, the health sciences campus and all residences will not be experiencing load-shedding on 13 February. The Graduate School of Business and Hiddingh Campus are scheduled for load-shedding from 14:00 to 16:30 on 13 February.

On Sunday, 10 February 2019, Eskom announced the resumption of load-shedding, which will affect all UCT campuses.

UCT has put measures in place to ensure that minimal teaching and learning time is lost during load-shedding, and that the impact on all other university operations is reduced as much as possible. The university has made a request to the City of Cape Town that the medical campus be exempted from load-shedding, and the response to this is pending.

UCT’s upper, middle and lower campuses, the health sciences campus and all residences are in Area 15. Hiddingh Campus and the Graduate School of Business are in Area 7. Staff and students are encouraged to check the City of Cape Town load-shedding schedule accordingly.

During load-shedding, all buildings equipped with generators will have electrical power supply. The Sarah Baartman Hall, the Kramer Law Building, the Geological Sciences building, the Molecular and Cellular Biology building and the data centres have full-coverage back-up power supply. Some UCT facilities have generators to provide back-up power that is limited to research facilities, emergency lighting, some power points, and access and fire-detection systems. Other UCT facilities have uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) that will provide emergency lighting and some power points for a limited time – usually about two hours.

Wi-Fi will unfortunately not be available in most UCT buildings during power outages. Although UCT IP landlines will not function during load-shedding, the Campus Protection Services (CPS) landline (021 650 2222/3) will still be operational.

UCT has over 100 lifts. Staff and students are cautioned not to use these lifts 10 minutes prior to scheduled load-shedding times. Some of the lifts have emergency dial-out systems that will allow communication with CPS, and you are advised to use this service if necessary. Alternatively, make use of your cellphone to contact CPS on 021 650 2222/3, assuming that reception is sufficient.

• Check the City of Cape Town load-shedding schedule.
• See a list of UCT venues with back-up power-generation capacity.
• Read tips on managing load-shedding.
• Read the City of Cape Town media release.

Go to the campus updates page.