M.J. (Thinus) Booysen

M.J. (Thinus) Booysen
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M.J. (Thinus) verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
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M.J. (Thinus) verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
Stellenbosch University | SUN · Faculty of Engineering

PhD

About

259
Publications
178,114
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2,610
Citations
Introduction
Thank you for your interest. Please have a look at my profile at http://www.thinus.co.za , which is more interesting than this RG site, and where you can find open-access versions of all my research.

Publications

Publications (259)
Article
Full-text available
Scheduled control of domestic electric water heaters, designed to cut energy use while minimising the impact on users' comfort and convenience, has been fairly common for some time in a number of countries. The aim is usually load-shifting (by heating water at off-peak times) and/or maximising time-of-use pricing benefits for users. The scheduling...
Preprint
Full-text available
Electric vehicles (EVs) are widely heralded as the silver bullet for greening personal transport. However their eventual impact in South Africa, a developing country with a low-capacity carbon-heavy grid, is questionable. This paper examines the potential impact of electrification of the vehicle fleet in South Africa, and explores the concept that...
Preprint
Full-text available
Minibus taxi public transport is a seemingly chaotic phenomenon in the developing cities of the Global South with unique mobility and operational characteristics. Eventually this wide-spread fleet of minibus taxis will have to transition to electric vehicles. This paper examines the impact of this inevitable evolution on a city-wide scale in Kampal...
Article
Full-text available
Electrification is expected to decarbonise transportation and forms part of the agenda to delay climate change. EV sales have ballooned and production of combustion engines will stop soon. In sub-Saharan Africa the transition is slow. Minibus taxis carry more than 70% of commuters and little is known about the electrification requirements. This unc...
Article
Full-text available
As lower- and middle-income countries strive for greater energy efficiency, they encounter challenges such as rapid urban growth, limited resources, and restricted access to reliable and affordable energy services. High energy usage, resulting from inadequate building designs, outdated technologies, and poor practices, further complicates these eff...
Article
Full-text available
Residential water heating represents one of the most energy-intensive household applications, particularly in South Africa, where immersed resistive element heating dominates. Solar photovoltaic systems provide a promising solution for augmenting grid-based electrical water heaters, offering energy cost savings and environmental benefits. This stud...
Article
Full-text available
The predominant mode of public transport in South Africa originates from the informal sector, specifically "paratransit". Vehicles carry up to 23 passengers and are still propelled by internal combustion engines. We investigate the feasibility of using electric vehicles without negating the loss of opportunities by drivers and owners. We propose th...
Article
Full-text available
Simulation is a cornerstone of planning and facilitating the transition towards electric mobility in sub-Saharan Africa’s informal public transport. The primary objective of this study is to validate and refine the electro-kinetic model used to simulate electric versions of the sector’s minibuses. A systematic simulation methodology is also develop...
Article
Full-text available
The global push towards sustainable energy usage and the increasing adoption of renewable energy sources, such as solar power, requires innovative approaches to energy management, particularly in energy-intensive sectors such as education. This study proposes a change in school start time from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. to align operational hours with period...
Article
Full-text available
The electrification of sub-Saharan Africa’s paratransit industry is mainly seen in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals around climate action, clean energy, health, and sustainability. However, a vital objective of the transitions is a “just energy transition” through equal access for all in the transition to a low-carbon...
Article
Full-text available
The integration of electric vehicles (EVs) into power systems worldwide will be challenged in many locations by grid constraints, such as load shedding in developing countries or active network management in developed countries. Nevertheless, an opportunity exists for EV fleets to alleviate financial and operational repercussions of these constrain...
Article
Full-text available
Eucalyptus plantations are a crucial global resource, offering raw materials for industries across five continents, including renewable energy sources, recyclable fibers, and eco-friendly wood products. To support sustainable management, ten wireless dendrometer and environmental sensor systems were deployed on Eucalyptus trees—six in Stellenbosch,...
Article
Full-text available
Hot water storage tanks are important in residential and industrial heating systems, ensuring a reliable hot water supply. Despite their importance, there is a lack of studies on immersion of electrical heating through a helical coil in horizontally oriented hot water storage devices, especially considering combined heating and water draw. This stu...
Article
Full-text available
In the resource-constrained education sector in South Africa, infrastructure deemed temporary or backup elsewhere is used as permanent classrooms, mainly in areas of low income. Temperature and CO 2 levels, substantial determinants of air quality, have not been studied across different classroom types, despite their direct impact on children's cogn...
Article
Full-text available
The path to electrification of the informal and organic transport sector – minibus taxis in South Africa’s case – is fraught with challenges. These stem mainly from shorter ranges and slower re-energising of electric vehicles, compounded by their unscheduled nature and day-variant routing. However, the transformation also presents opportunities for...
Article
Full-text available
Loadshedding has become the norm in South Africa, with rolling blackouts ranging from Stage 1 to 6. This results in households experiencing disempowerment for durations spanning two to four hours daily, averaging between 1.5 to 9 h. In an unequal society like South Africa, those with higher energy consumption can afford battery backup solutions to...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
South Africa's minibus taxis operate fundamentally differently to formalised and structured public transport. The informal, demand-driven industry has grown into the constraints of passenger demand, accessibility, and affordability of the lower-income group it tends to serve, and it has become the main mode of transport for millions of South Africa...
Article
Full-text available
Minibus taxis, a form of informal shared mobility that carries up to 16 passengers, is the main mode of public transport in sub-Saharan Africa, and given global trends, a large-scale shift to electric paratransit is imminent in the coming decades. Modeling the energy consumption (kWh/km) of electric vehicle (EV) fleets is a pre-requisite for planni...
Article
Full-text available
Knowledge of a person’s level of skin pigmentation, or so-called “skin tone”, has proven to be an important building block in improving the performance and fairness of various applications that rely on computer vision. These include medical diagnosis of skin conditions, cosmetic and skincare support, and face recognition, especially for darker skin...
Article
Full-text available
In the resource-constrained South African education sector, infrastructure considered temporary or a backup in other countries is used as permanent classrooms, primarily but not exclusively in lower-income areas. Children's cognitive performance and comfort are directly impacted by indoor air quality. Temperature, relative humidity, particulate mat...
Article
Full-text available
A test station was designed and built to measure the thermal stratification (vertical thermal gradients) in a horizontal 150 L electric water heater storage device for different external environmental and user-emulating inputs, ambient temperature, inlet water temperature, water draw flow rate, thermostat temperature and heating coil active time. S...
Article
Full-text available
The electrification of minibus taxis in sub-Sahara’s paratransit sector is yet to take off. It transports nearly 70% of daily commuters in cities with its transformation being prohibited by multiple factors: an already fragile grid network, and energy scarcity in the region. Planning for eventual electrification is complicated by the sector’s uniqu...
Conference Paper
Sub-Sahara's paratransit sector is yet to take off in the electrification of its minibus taxis. More than two thirds of daily commuters are transported by minibus taxis in cities. However, the electrification process is prohibited by multiple factors, such as an already fragile grid network, and an energy scarcity in the region. Planning for eventu...
Conference Paper
Germany aims to achieve carbon-neutral electricity generation by 2045. As a part of this plan, solar and wind electricity generation is expected to increase significantly. Since renewable energy sources are highly volatile and intermittent, this leads to periods of energy surplus and deficit, resulting in need of energy storage solutions for effici...
Article
Full-text available
The survey data contain information on the socio-economic characteristics and intention of electric vehicle (EV) adoption amongst paratransit owners and drivers, to address knowledge gaps and inform policy-making in paratransit electrification. The data were collected by distributing a Microsoft Forms survey questionnaire among paratransit owners a...
Article
Full-text available
Climate-change-induced unpredictable weather patterns are adversely affecting global agricultural productivity, posing a significant threat to sustainability and food security, particularly in developing regions. Wealthier nations can invest substantially in measures to mitigate climate change’s impact on food production, but economically disadvant...
Article
Full-text available
Despite the unstoppable global drive towards electric mobility, the electrification of sub-Saharan Africa’s ubiquitous informal multi-passenger minibus taxis raises substantial concerns. This is due to a constrained electricity system, both in terms of generation capacity and distribution networks. Without careful planning and mitigation, the addit...
Article
Full-text available
The availability of high-fidelity energy consumption estimates and the ability to evaluate drivetrain efficiency are crucial for effectively planning a large-scale transition to electric vehicles. For both new and retrofitted electric vehicles, a key question is the transmission type—single-speed or multi-speed—and the resulting impact on the vehic...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Agriculture is poised to suffer greatly from the effects of climate change. Prediction models, using deep learning, have been developed that can simulate and predict conditions in open field farming to combat the climate variability from climate change. However, deep learning used in precision agriculture, specifically greenhouse tunnels, is under-...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The Global North is increasing the drive for the electrification of the mobility industry. In sub-Saharan Africa, however, the adoption is yet to pick up steam due to various other challenges in the region. The viability of converting the paratransit fleet (which consists mostly of minibus taxis) to electric vehicles (EVs) with current combustion-b...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Soilless cultivation systems such as aeroponics provide a more efficient, and clean food production of in areas where there is limited access to arable land for agricultural practices and drought-prone countries. The objective of this study was to evaluate the yield performance of seventy Bambara groundnut (BGN) landraces cultivated in aeroponics a...
Article
Full-text available
The nascent electrification of transport has heralded a new chapter in the driving force of mobility. Developing regions such as sub-Saharan Africa already lag in this transformative transport transition. A potential transitional step towards full-scale electric mobility is the retrofitting of the existing fleet of internal combustion-based vehicle...
Article
Full-text available
The inevitable electrification of the sub-Saharan African paratransit system poses substantial threats to an already crippled electricity supply network. The integration of any electric vehicle fleet in this region will require in-depth analyses and understanding of the grid impact due to charging. This allows informative decisions for sufficient p...
Article
Full-text available
A greenhouse tunnel in Stellenbosch, South Africa was used for testing a generic sensing system for monitoring and control of climatic conditions in the tunnel. Three temperature and humidity sensors were used to record data throughout the day in 5 min intervals. Bambara Nuts, a climate change-resilient and nutritious crop, were grown in a separate...
Conference Paper
Unpredictable weather patterns caused by climate change is impacting agricultural productivity worldwide. This threatens sustainability and may lead to food insecurity, especially in poorer regions. Affluent countries can afford costly investments toward mitigating the affects of climate change on food production. However, poorer countries tend to...
Article
Full-text available
SIGNIFICANCE: Culling electrical demand to save a fickle supply costs South Africa more than you may think. Load shedding is South Africa's new norm, affecting each of us, with individual impacts ranging from annoyance to ruin. Much of our vital and collective electrical lifeline is sacrificed on the altars of convenience, inefficiency, and oversig...
Article
Full-text available
Load shedding has become the norm in South Africa. These rolling blackouts currently range from Stage 1 to Stage 6. Households are disempowered for 2–4 hours and for an average of 1.5 – 9 hours per day. In financially unequal South Africa, heavy users can afford battery backup solutions to keep the lights on. However, installing these at scale, wit...
Chapter
Bird identification is an important task in wildlife monitoring and conservation. However, traditional methods for bird identification often require significant computational resources, making them impractical for use on edge computing devices. In this paper, we propose an image mosaicing-based method for bird identification on edge computing devic...
Article
Full-text available
Planning for the eventual electrification of transport in sub-Saharan Africa requires accurate simulation of its unique transport systems. The few studies that attempt to model electric minibus taxis—vehicles extensively used in sub-Saharan Africa’s public transport systems—vary greatly in their results. This paper analyses, compares and corrects t...
Article
Full-text available
The temporal histogram model and synthesiser that is presented in this paper statistically models the unique usage behaviour of electricity or hot water usage for individual residential households. These can be used to model behaviour and do simulations for demand management and planning. The model takes into consideration both seasonal variations...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The minibus taxi (MBT) is the dominant form of public transport across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). With a growing global call for greener transport, MBTs are seen as a key sector of implementation. The electrification of MBTs entails many challenges, including limited electricity resources and the lack of understanding of MBTs' operational behaviour....
Conference Paper
Full-text available
As fuel prices climb and the global automotive sector migrates to more sustainable vehicle technologies, the future of South Africa's minibus taxis is in flux. The authors' previous research has found that battery electric technology struggles to meet all the mobility requirements of minibus taxis. They investigate the technical feasibility of powe...
Preprint
Full-text available
Despite the unstoppable global drive towards electric mobility, the seemingly inevitable electrification of sub-Saharan Africa's main mode of transportation, so-called ``paratransit'', raises substantial concerns due to an already struggling electric infrastructure and supply network. Without careful planning and mitigation, the additional load of...
Preprint
Full-text available
p>Despite the unstoppable global drive towards electric mobility, the seemingly inevitable electrification of sub-Saharan Africa's main mode of transportation, so-called ``paratransit'', raises substantial concerns due to an already struggling electric infrastructure and supply network. Without careful planning and mitigation, the additional load o...
Preprint
Full-text available
p>Planning for eventual electrification of transport in sub-Saharan Africa requires accurate simulation of its unique transport systems. The few studies that attempt to model electric minibus taxis – vehicles extensively used in sub-Saharan Africa’s public transport systems – vary greatly in their results. In this paper, we analyse, compare and cor...
Preprint
Full-text available
p>Planning for eventual electrification of transport in sub-Saharan Africa requires accurate simulation of its unique transport systems. The few studies that attempt to model electric minibus taxis – vehicles extensively used in sub-Saharan Africa’s public transport systems – vary greatly in their results. In this paper, we analyse, compare and cor...
Article
Full-text available
Face recognition is widely used for security and access control. Its performance is limited when working with highly pigmented skin tones due to training bias caused by the under-representation of darker-skinned individuals in existing datasets and the fact that darker skin absorbs more light and therefore reflects less discernible detail in the vi...
Article
Full-text available
In the course of a more intensive energy generation from regenerative sources, an increased number of energy storages is required. In addition to the widespread means of storing electric energy, storing energy thermally can contribute significantly. However, limited research exists on the behaviour of thermal energy storages (TES) in practical oper...
Article
Full-text available
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is faced with the challenge to integrate e-mobility into its paratransit (its informal mass transit). Old, unsafe, fuel-inefficient, polluting minibus taxis are the cornerstone of daily commuting for millions in the region. Planning for electrification requires accurate high-frequency mobility data, which is currently unava...
Article
The expected electrification of Sub-Sahara Africa's urban paratransit with an electric minibus taxi (eMBT) has received increased attention in energy research and expenditure analyses. In this paper, several long-distance routes between the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape in South Africa are assessed for electrification. To mitigate the long char...
Article
Full-text available
Paratransit, in particular the minibus taxi, is the mainstay of public transport in sub-Saharan Africa. These vehicles are often secondhand , ageing, fuel inefficient, and expensive to operate-issues that electrification can ameliorate. However, modeling and planning large-scale transitions to electric paratransit require reliable estimates of vehi...
Article
Full-text available
Global agricultural production is currently limited by negative climate-related hazards such as drought, uneven rainfall and rising temperatures. Many efforts have been put in place by government and non-government agencies to mitigate the challenges of climate change in the sector. However, the approaches do not seem feasible due to the growing de...