The following master thesis is conducted on behalf of The Royal Institute of Technology and Manetos AB with the purpose of investigating potential business markets for the new innovation, the Digital Circuit Breaker (DCB). The DCB is a mean for digitalising the distribution board, which is the middleman between households’ electrical appliances and the electrical grid. Through this digitalisation, a two-way communication between households and the grid can emerge, creating possibilities for demand side flexibility and energy management. The technology also provides more transparency for homeowners and real estate owners into households’ and buildings’ energy consumption, through monitoring and disaggregation. The study found that the energy landscape is facing significant challenges for the future. The integration of more intermittent energy, unpredictable energy consumption, new power consuming technologies and an aging grid were examples of challenges which potentially could jeopardize the security of electric supply. Many of these challenges however were also found to be issues which the DCB could potentially solve. It was also found that power-based tariffs spoke in favour of the DCB. Based on the overall empirical results, the study found that there is a need amongst utilities for demand side flexibility solutions and that there is a need amongst homeowners for electricity transparency and monitoring tools. This gives rise to a situation where the possibility to commercialize the DCB exists. By making the DCB a demand flexibility solution for utilities and a transparency and monitoring tool for homeowners, the needs for both utilities and homeowners can be fulfilled. The recommendations towards Manetos were to focus on the business markets electric utilities, more specifically municipally owned grid companies, and homeowners. It was found that the municipally owned grid companies focused more on socioeconomics than profit based grid companies. Furthermore, the municipally owned grid companies that had powerbased tariffs in place today showed great interest in the DCB as a tool for better managing electrical load and avoiding power peaks. For homeowners it was found that the people who owned electric vehicles or had direct electric heating showed great interest in an electricity management tool such as the DCB. The study also found real estate companies to be a business market of interest, however, not enough interviews were conducted in order to draw conclusions for the markets viability. Therefore, further investigation of the real estate company market is recommended. / Följande examensarbete har utförts på uppdrag av Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan och Manetos AB med syftet att undersöka potentiella affärsmarknader för en ny innovation kallad den Digitala Brytaren (DCB – Digital Circuit Breaker). DCBn är ett verktyg för att digitalisera elskåpet, vilket fungerar som en mellanhand mellan hushåll och elnätet. Denna digitalisering möjliggör för tvåvägskommunikation mellan hushåll och elnät, vilket öppnar upp möjligheter för efterfrågeflexibilitet och bättre energihushållning. Teknologin ökar även transparensen gällande byggnaders energikonsumtion, både för hushåll och fastighetsägare, genom övervakning och dissaggregering. Studien fann att energilandskapet står inför betydande utmaningar inför framtiden. Integrationen av mer intermittent energi, oförutsägbar energikonsumtion, nya teknologier och ett åldrande elnät är några exempel på utmaningar vilka kan komma att äventyra leveranssäkerheten i systemet. Många av dessa utmaningar visade sig dock vara problem som DCBn skulle kunna lösa. Studien fann även att effektbaserade tariffer, vilka idag används som ett verktyg för att motverka höga effektuttag, fungerar som incitament för DCBn och för en mer hållbar energikonsumtion generellt. Baserat på de övergripande empiriska resultaten fann studien att det finns ett behov för efterfrågeflexibilitets lösningar bland elnätsägare, samt ett behov för transparens- och kontroll-verktyg för villaägare. Detta ger möjlighet för att kommersialisera DCBn. Behoven hos både elnätsägare och villaägare kan uppnås genom att paketera DCBn som ett efterfrågeflexibilitets-, transparens- och övervaknings-verktyg. Rekommendationen till Manetos var att fokusera på kundsegmenten elnätsägare, främst de kommunalt ägda, samt villaägare. Studien fann att kommunalägda elnätsägare fokuserade mer på samhällsekonomi är de vinstdrivande elnätsföretagen. Vidare så fann studien att de kommunala elnätsägarna vilka idag använder effekt tariffer, hade ett stort intresse för DCBn som ett verktyg för att minska effekttoppar och uppnå bättre övervakning. För villaägare kunde det ses att de personer som ägde elbilar eller hade direktverkande el i bostaden visade störst intresse för ett verktyg såsom DCBn. Även kundsegmentet fastighetsägare visade sig vara av intresse, dock genomfördes inte ett tillräckligt stort antal intervjuer inom segmentet för att kunna dra slutsatser om marknadens lönsamhet. Därför föreslås undersökning av detta segment för vidare framtida studier, såväl som att undersöka potentialen för DCBn internationellt samt att inkludera ett större antal villaägare i studien.

The transportation sector has a significant impact on the environment both nationally and globally since it is a major vehicle fuel consumption and emissions contributor. These emissions are considered a major environmental threat. Consequently, decision makers desperately need tools that can estimate vehicle emissions accurately to quantify the impact of transportation operational projects on the environment. Microscopic fuel consumption and emission models should be capable of computing vehicle emissions reliably to assist decision makers in developing emission mitigation strategies. However, the majority of current state-of-the-art models suffer from two major shortcomings, namely; they either produce a bang-bang control system because they use a linear fuel consumption versus power model or they cannot be calibrated using publicly available data and thus require expensive laboratory or field data collection. Consequently, this dissertation attempts to fill this gap in state-of-the-art emission modeling through a framework based on the Virginia Tech Comprehensive Power-Based Fuel consumption Model (VT-CPFM), which overcomes the above mentioned drawbacks. Specifically, VT-CPFM does not result in a bang-bang control and can be calibrated using publicly available vehicle and road pavement parameters. The main emphasis of this dissertation is to develop a simple and reliable emission model that is able to compute instantaneous emission rates of carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons (HC) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) for the light-duty vehicles (LDVs) and heavy-duty diesel trucks (HDDTs). The proposed extension is entitled Virginia Tech Comprehensive Power-Based Fuel consumption and Emission Model (VT-CPFEM). The study proposes two square root models where the first model structure is a cubic polynomial function that depends on fuel estimates derived solely from VT-CPFM fuel estimates, which enhances the simplicity of the model. The second modeling framework combines the cubic function of the VT-CPFM fuel estimates with a linear speed term. The additional speed term improves the accuracy of the model and can be used as a reference for the driving condition of the vehicle. Moreover, the model is tested and compared with existing models to demonstrate the robustness of the model. Furthermore, the performance of the model was further investigated by applying the model on driving cycles based on real-world driving conditions. The results demonstrate the efficacy of the model in replicating empirical observations reliably and simply with only two parameters. / Ph. D.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the frequency and type of bullying behaviours experienced in a Pretoria private high school in the past six months. The aim was to determine how factors such as gender, age and ethnicity influenced the frequency and type of bullying experienced. The different types of bullying behaviours were categorised into physical, indirect, verbal and cyber-bullying. A quantitative method was applied and a self-report questionnaire was administered to 367 learners ranging from ages 12 – 18 (Grade 8 to Grade 12). The results of the study indicated that indirect bullying (such as malicious gossip) was the highest form of bullying reported in the study and occurred equally throughout the grades. However a high amount of bullying in all categories was found in the grade 9 group. Females reported higher frequencies of indirect bullying than males but no differences were found with regards to gender and the other types of bullying. No differences were found between the ethnic groups and physical violence as well as cyber-bullying. Caucasians seem to experience higher frequencies in bullying behaviours when it came to indirect bullying compared to African and Asian learners. Indian learners were also more prone to experience indirect bullying than Asians. Caucasians were also more likely to experience verbal bullying than Asian learners. It was found that racial bullying might occur in the school but that it does so at a minimal level. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted