Oxfordshire has more than its fair share of thinkers-cum-entrepreneurs, many of whom are now addressing their minds to what must surely be the greatest economic opportunity of the early 21st Century — how to produce the energy we need without producing excessive amounts of carbon dioxide.

One such person is Iain McRitchie of Earthwise Products, based at the Didcot Enterprise Centre. And the particular requirement of modern life to which he is currently addressing his mind is the demand for virtually limitless hot water, continually on tap in the home.

His company is now producing the new Solic 200, a device that takes anyone who has already invested in solar panels to the next phase of energy saving, and indeed money saving too; fine tuning, as it were, the business of having their cake and eating it by producing carbon-free power.

It is called Solic 200 because it is a Solar Immersion Controller, saving its owner an average of £200 a year.

The device is effectively a switch which automatically diverts excess solar energy from PV panels to your immersion heater before exporting it to the National Grid.

It is 'super' because it varies the amount of energy it diverts according to the weather, thereby ensuring that every ray of sunshine is transformed into the maximum amount of money.

The economics behind the idea are straightforward: under the complicated rules governing the Feed In Tariff (FIT) — the money the Government has ordered utility companies to pay PV panel owners for the electricity they generate — it is better for home owners to themselves use the electricity they produce than to export it. But that is easier said than done.

Mr McRitchie, 46, a qualified accountant, explained: “People tend to be out at work during the day and so unable to use the electricity they produce there and then. The immersion heater is often the most powerful consumer item in the home, behind the electric shower, and so diverting solar energy to the immersion whenever possible makes economic sense.”

It also makes environmental sense since about eight per cent of energy shipped to the grid is lost in transition.

Mr McRitchie and his wife, Christine, a co-director of Earthwise Products, have been involved in green businesses for many years.

They decided the Solic 200 was a possible winner after meeting its inventor, Frank Decmar, and deciding to go into partnership with him to develop it. Now Mr Decmar assembles the device at a site near Cholsey.

Mr McRitchie, who at present employs only one part-timer on the project, said: “We are getting 500 up and ready for market now, but expect to be able to produce about a thousand a month by late summer.

“There are about 370,000 UK homes with PVs self-generating electricity claiming FIT and even if you halve that because many homes do not have immersion tanks and are therefore not eligible to benefit from the Solic 200, the potential market is considerable.”

Serial inventor Mr Decmar, who has several patents under his belt having worked in industry sectors that include space, defence, and aeronautics design, had the idea for this device after a friend told him one sunny day, shortly after he had had solar panels fitted to his roof, not to forget switch on the immersion heater.

He realised then that he was too busy to do this all the time and decided to automate the switching process and to vary the power going to the element in order to take advantage of even the tiniest vestige of self-generated electricity to at least pre-warm the water prior to the boiler coming on. Once the prototype was up-and-running in his home he found the boiler hardly ever came on at all, in his case saving him about £250 a year. A green business idea was born.

Mr Decmar’s speciality is building things made to last, what he calls, ‘squaddy proof’ (having designed gadgets for the Army), and the new device, measuring just inches and designed to sit with the electric metres, is guaranteed for ten years but built to last for 25.

Mr McRitchie said: “The device is expected cost from £550. It also qualifies for the Government's five per cent VAT rate for renewables provided it is bought on a supply and install basis, so it makes no sense for anyone to try and install it themselves.”

He added: “The reaction we have had so far from mainstream solar panel distributors has so far been very positive and encouraging. After all, consumers are looking at getting their money back on one of these devices within three years."

All in all, perhaps the Solic 200 will be just what this industry needs by way of a fillip following the setback suffered last year when the Government cut the rate of the Feed In Tariff.