Joshua M. Pearce is the John M. Thompson Chair in Information Technology and Innovation. He holds appointments at Ivey Business School and the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Western University. He runs the Free Appropriate Sustainability Technology research group. His research concentrates on the use of open source appropriate technology (OSAT) to find collaborative solutions to problems in sustainability and to reduce poverty. His research spans areas of engineering of solar photovoltaic technology and open hardware, but also includes policy and economics. According to Elsevier’s citation metrics last year he was in the top 0.06% most cited scientists globally and is continually ranked in the top 0.1% for his accessible research on Academia.edu.
He is the author of the Open-Source Lab:How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs, Create, Share, and Save Money Using Open-Source Projects, and To Catch the Sun, an open source book of inspiring stories of communities coming together to harness their own solar energy, and how you can do it too!
Heat pumps, which are incredibly energy efficient because they use electrical energy to move heat rather than generate it, have historically struggled to compete with cheap natural gas financially. Recently, the cost drops in solar photovoltaics have been so massive that our research has shown solar powered air-source heat pumps finally make economic sense for the average home even in colder climates.
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