Hugh McNeal, Proserv non-executive director and CEO of RenewableUK (2016-2021) writes:
Since moving on from my role leading RenewableUK in 2021, I have sought involvement with outward-looking companies and organisations that are driven by innovation, a collaborative spirit and a commitment to engineer the technologies needed to propel the growth of the renewables sector in the UK and around the world. Proserv is undoubtedly one of those companies, as I have seen at close hand in my capacity as a non-executive director over the past year.
Proserv’s vision has been spearheaded and steered by its forward-thinking CEO Davis Larssen. Davis has led his team’s strategic pivot into renewables by reconfiguring oil and gas control system technologies to develop disruptive solutions for offshore wind. The potential for our sector is massive.
Davis works in partnership. At Proserv, he has built alliances with cutting-edge UK start-ups as well as leading developers and OEMs. If elected to the RenewableUK Board, he would bring that commitment to collaboration, and his experience from across the energy supply chain, to Board discussions; a crucial voice for the supply chain with know-how of working successfully with OEMs, developers and operators.
Davis knows first-hand the challenges of breaking into the renewables supply chain. But he remains optimistic, seeing especially offshore wind, including the opportunities in floating wind, as an opening for the UK to emerge as a genuine world leader, developing new technologies and industrial sectors, creating thousands of highly skilled jobs, with the chance to export this knowledge around the globe.
Davis’s outlook for how he sees Proserv’s journey ahead, his passion for seeing the expertise of start-ups find a route to commercialisation and how that could benefit and enhance the UK’s future energy system, are key factors in why I was attracted to his team last year.
Our industry has many talents. But Davis would bring an instinctive entrepreneurial spirit, leading a global business employing hundreds of people across the UK that is living the energy transition, as well as being someone who wants to listen to, understand and act on the needs of all RUK members.
I urge all RUK members to support Davis’s strong candidacy in the current RenewableUK Board Election.
Proserv has once again earned silverware from a leading industry body, with Laura Carrigan, a Graduate Applications Engineer at our Centre of Excellence in Great Yarmouth, deservedly being chosen as Early Career Professional of the Year by Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) at a ceremony last night.
The OEUK Awards 2022 were held at the P&J Live in Aberdeen, with Proserv boasting a strong presence to support Laura’s shortlisting. Chairman David Currie and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Davis Larssen were among those in attendance. Winners across eight categories were selected from a total of 24 shortlisted finalists after scores of applications were whittled down earlier in the autumn.
Speaking ahead of the awards ceremony, Deirdre Michie, OEUK’s CEO commented, “It’s important we continue to recognise and congratulate the hard work and talent of our community – especially at a time where our sector is changing and pioneering new ways of working to help the country move towards its net zero goals while helping to ensure we deliver security of energy supply.”
Laura joined Proserv in early 2021 and in less than two years with the company, she has become a key member of our innovative and growing team, contributing significantly to the rollout of our ECG™ holistic subsea cable monitoring system for offshore wind. Our Vice President, Renewables, Paul Cook was also present at the P&J to offer Laura his support on the night.
At the start of this year, after barely 12 months with the business, Laura was the winner of a Proserv FRESH Award in the Help, Share and Communicate category. Laura has a real passion for, and commitment to sustainability and she is a leading member of our Carbon Action Group, which plays a vital role in aiding our work to fulfil our mission of becoming a net zero emissions company by 2050 or sooner.
Laura is also a strong advocate for encouraging young people to pursue careers in engineering and the STEM subjects and she regularly gives talks to university undergraduates and Girl Guides to communicate her own enthusiasm and experience.
After securing the prize, Laura said:
“I am absolutely delighted to win this award and firstly I would like to congratulate the other finalists on their well-deserved recognition. I must thank the judges and OEUK for selecting me and for making this wonderful event possible.”
“But I also need to express my gratitude to Proserv for providing me with such an opportunity to contribute to an exciting and growing part of its business, to have a role in the on-going transition at such a critical time for the energy industry and for supporting me in my development and early career. To have been considered for nomination was really motivating, so to go on and win the award itself is truly special.”
Paul Cook remarked:
“This acclaim is very well-deserved. Laura initially joined us in 2019 as a three-month student intern. In that short time she contributed significantly to a FEED study exploring the technical basis for our future innovation of a disruptive new solution for subsea cable monitoring that would harness our existing Proserv technologies and expertise. This study was one of the first stepping stones to the development of the ECG™ system.
“Since then, Laura has come into the team as an applications engineer and her undoubted talents and potential are bringing major impacts as we seek to develop further exciting technologies for the offshore wind segment.”
Davis Larssen commented:
“Congratulations to Laura on this excellent achievement. Although she has only been with Proserv for a short time, she has made an immediate and positive impression. Our renewables strategy is a core part of Proserv’s future direction and growth strategy and Laura is already a key contributor to this work.”
“Her role as a leader within our Carbon Action Group is equally important as we seek to make and identify the necessary operational efficiencies that will help us with our target of becoming a carbon net zero company in the years to come.”
David Currie observed:
“Nurturing and developing young talent sits at the heart of Proserv’s values and so it is excellent to see Laura’s potential and capability highlighted in this way. I first met Laura at an offshore wind exhibition soon after she joined us and her enthusiasm and knowledge shone through.”
“As we look ahead to the future of our industry, Laura and her generation have a tremendous opportunity to become the ultimate baton carriers for the on-going energy transition. Laura has the passion and motivation to play a vital part in that task.”
Tie-up augments Proserv’s sand sampling system design and manufacturing capabilities with SMS’s real-time monitoring and analytics solutions.
Global controls technology company Proserv has announced that it has signed an agreement with Aberdeen based sand and erosion monitoring, analytics and management experts SMS.
The deal sees SMS become the exclusive agent and representative for Proserv’s sampling activities across Malaysia. The arrangement brings Proserv’s sampling system know-how, equipment design and high-quality manufacturing, delivering safe, enclosed and portable solutions, together with SMS’s sand monitoring technologies.
SMS engages non-intrusive corrosion and erosion sensors to supply real-time monitoring and data acquisition which when analysed and interpreted by subject matter experts can enable swift identification of incipient problems that, without appropriate intervention, could halt production via equipment damage or failure.
It is expected that Proserv and SMS’s combined offering will give clients a step change in the visibility of the condition and integrity of flowlines and, through the live measurement of sand quantities, will allow operators to make informed early strategy decisions around production rates, maintenance planning and ultimately the life of critical infrastructure.
Malaysia and the wider Southeast Asia region have a significant need for effective, real-time monitoring and assessment of sand levels in oil and gas production flowlines to alleviate erosion risks, improve safety and reduce the threat of downtime.
Andrew Kinsler, Operations Director, SMS commented:
“We are delighted to formalise the signing of this agreement to act as Proserv’s representative in Malaysia, as this underpins a truly constructive and on-going working relationship. Proserv has a reputation for innovating disruptive solutions to support improved efficiencies, better reliability of infrastructure and ultimately the optimisation of assets.”
“This is equally what we at SMS provide to the market, around the globe, with our cutting-edge sand monitoring, integrity management and data analytics solutions, substantially enhancing the well performance of our clients. Malaysia represents the first market region where our combined SMS and Proserv offering could make a real difference to production levels and performance.”
As part of the tie-up, Proserv will also establish a service centre in Malaysia located at SMS’s local facility in Labuan. This will be based upon the successful model in operation at Proserv’s main Sampling Centre of Excellence in Aberdeen and at its sites in the US, Norway, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The centre will supply both servicing and sampling equipment rental.
Following the signing of the agreement, Proserv’s General Manager, Sampling, Sean Andersson added:
“Forging this arrangement with SMS is an exciting development for Proserv’s global sampling business. SMS offers genuinely impactful monitoring capabilities and we believe that our collaboration, fusing our own renowned system design expertise with such digital technologies, will advance real gains and benefits to the Malaysian market.”
“There are many synergies between our businesses, particularly in terms of our value proposition for our customers, and so we will seek to identify further ways by which we can maximise this tie-up more widely.”
Today marks the final day of the ADIPEC Exhibition and Conference in Abu Dhabi. It has been a great and busy event for our team in the UAE capital. Our VP, Services, Angus Rodger took time out earlier this week to give an interview to OGV Energy about our broad activities in the Middle East, the messages we are relaying to ADIPEC’s visitors and delegates and why we were recently voted the Service & Solutions Company of the Year for the Middle East and Africa by the Energy Industries Council.
This VIDEO is reproduced with the kind permission of OGV Energy.
The ADIPEC Exhibition and Conference is now in full swing in Abu Dhabi and today our VP, Services, Angus Rodger has featured in a full page interview in the ADIPEC Show Daily newspaper. In the article, Angus talks about our on-going success in the Middle East and our exciting global technology development, incorporating real-time condition monitoring and intelligence insights.
Angus is part of our strong team attending ADIPEC this year. Please come and see us at Stand 8336. To read Angus’s interview, please click on the below.
This article is reproduced with the kind permission of the ADIPEC Exhibition and Conference and DMG events. To read the full magazine, please follow this link.
The win represents the latest achievement in a string of successes for the regional team.
Global controls technology company Proserv has picked up a major regional industry award from leading trade body the Energy Industries Council (EIC), taking home the prize in the Service & Solutions category across the Middle East and Africa. The ceremony took place on October 13th in Abu Dhabi with Service & Solutions the most keenly contested of the seven awards handed out on the day.
This latest honour is yet another piece of silverware for Proserv’s regional team after it won the EIC’s global Service & Solutions category in 2021 and finished as a runner-up earlier this month at the EIC Awards Dinner held at the Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden, London.
John Bright, Operations Director, MEA received the trophy on behalf of Proserv from Ryan McPherson, Regional Director & GM, ME, Africa & CIS for the EIC.
John, who led and drove Proserv’s EIC nomination and shortlisting including its inclusion in the latest Survive & Thrive Insight Report, said afterwards:
“Many thanks to the EIC for hosting yet another excellent awards event as part of its much-appreciated global support to the sector.
“This recognition, following our strong showing earlier this month and our win last year, is further testament to the great work our whole Middle East team is doing, building vital partnerships with major clients on the back of our expertise, our expanding capabilities and impressive reputation. Well-deserved congratulations to everyone.”
Move reinforces Proserv’s proactive pivot towards innovating further disruptive technology solutions for offshore wind and the wider energy segment.
Global controls technology company Proserv has acquired a minority stake in Glasgow based power system monitoring expert, Synaptec, with whom it had initially formed a strategic alliance in October 2020 to drive forward the innovation of disruptive condition-monitoring technologies for the energy sector.
Synaptec developed as a spin out business from Strathclyde University in 2014 with its management team, Board of Directors and Advisory Board comprising former leaders from the power sector, academic professors and energy entrepreneurs.
A technology consortium led and driven by Proserv, including Synaptec and subsea power cable engineering and consultancy specialists BPP Cable Solutions, with initial support from the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (OREC), has collaborated to innovate the pioneering holistic cable monitoring system, ECG™, for the offshore wind segment.
Proserv’s ECG utilises Synaptec’s passive electrical and mechanical instrumentation systems, integrating its unique distributed electromechanical sensors, or DES, as a key element. The potential capabilities of ECG, regarding real-time monitoring and predictive insights, saw it receive £1mn development funding from Innovate UK in 2021, alongside subsequent industrial sponsorship from ScottishPower Renewables and Equinor.
The technology has won a landmark contract on phases A and B of the vast Dogger Bank Wind Farm and it is to be demonstrated on Equinor’s floating Hywind Scotland Wind Farm later this year.
Synaptec is one of several technology disrupters and start-ups with whom Proserv has recently forged alliances, including data analytics firm Intelligent Plant in late 2020 and real-time optimisation innovators Ortomation just last month. These moves reflect Proserv’s collaborative philosophy towards innovation, as well as its strategic roadmap to pivot its business to the needs and priorities of the evolving energy transition.
This investment strengthens an already fruitful connection between Proserv and Synaptec, who will continue their work together to create and deliver instrumentation solutions to solve the many challenges faced by offshore renewables developers.
Proserv’s Vice President, Renewables, Paul Cook commented:
“We have formed a close working relationship with the Synaptec team over the past two years as we have combined our controls and integration expertise, and reputation, with its own unique power system monitoring capabilities, leading to the generation of disruptive new solutions to support the offshore wind space.
“We look forward to further collaboration as we seek to identify more opportunities where we can deploy our know-how right across the energy sector.”
Synaptec’s Chairman Dave Pratt remarked:
“Synaptec is delighted that Proserv has become one of our investors, joining our existing shareholders who also supported this funding round. As a well-established, experienced provider of control and instrumentation systems, Proserv brings fundamental technical and commercial expertise which will be vital to ‘business as usual’ implementation of Synaptec’s sensor technology.
“Our integrated systems are already being deployed on the world’s largest offshore wind farm and the world’s first floating wind farm. Proserv’s investment and support will help Synaptec scale up to meet increasing market demand.”
As part of the transaction, Proserv’s Chief Executive Officer Davis Larssen will take up a seat on Synaptec’s Board of Directors. Speaking after the agreement, he said:
“I am delighted to take up a seat on Synaptec’s Board. This is a team comprising both technical excellence and a pioneering, creative outlook, very much like our own.
“Our commitment to acquiring a stake in the business cements our relationship further and builds progressively on what has been an open and constructive alliance. At Proserv, we always seek to develop and nurture partnerships that will ultimately lead to genuine gains and benefits for the broader energy market.”
Laura Carrigan, a Graduate Applications Engineer at our Great Yarmouth Centre of Excellence and a key member of our renewables team, has been shortlisted by Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) as a finalist in the category of Early Career Professional of the Year at its OEUK Awards 2022.
Laura joined Proserv in early 2021 following a brief three-month student internship in 2019, during which she contributed to a key FEED study and market report that would represent some of the first stepping stones to the development of our disruptive holistic cable monitoring system – ECG™.
At the start of this year, after barely 12 months with the business, Laura was the winner of a Proserv FRESH Award in the Help, Share and Communicate category.
Laura has a real passion for sustainability and she is a leading member of our Proserv Carbon Action Group, which plays a vital role in aiding our work to fulfil our mission of being a net zero emissions company by 2050 or sooner.
Earlier this month, Laura was the subject of a Proserv People Story and this reveals more about her interests, commitments and aspirations.
Only 24 finalists were shortlisted across eight categories and Acting OEUK CEO Mike Tholen remarked, “From an impressive list of submissions, these finalists are a real reflection of the great talent and expertise of our energy communities – those that personify the North Sea innovation this industry has become known for.”
The OEUK Awards ceremony will take place at the P&J Live in Aberdeen on Thursday, December 8th.
Proserv would like to send its sincere condolences to King Charles III, the Queen Consort and the whole British Royal Family following the sad passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. For more than 70 years, Her Majesty served her country with tremendous dedication and energy.
Agreement sees Proserv invest seed capital in new technology start-up venture to accelerate route to market for RTO solution.
Global controls technology leader Proserv has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with UK based start-up company Ortomation. The tie-up is intended to facilitate the development and commercialisation of unique real-time optimisation (RTO) software.
The agreement is the latest development in Proserv’s ambitious technology roadmap which is focused on delivering impactful, disruptive monitoring and optimisation solutions, harnessing the power of data analytics, to bring gains right across the broad energy sector.
By targeting production and yield increases, as well as a reduction in energy consumption and other operating costs, effective RTO software can increase performance by up to 5%. As businesses align themselves towards the needs of the energy transition and a net zero future, RTO can offer tangible upside around improved operational efficiencies and reduced emissions footprints.
Proserv and Ortomation will collaborate on deploying the latter’s innovative and novel model free, self-learning “autonomous agent” technology, enabling a simple, scalable and transparent solution, fundamentally distinct from the status quo method of providing “Asset Optimisation”.
Traditional optimisation software tends to be “OEM closed” packages that are expensive, demand long lead-in times before implementation and are resource intensive. Deployed schemes also require high levels of ongoing maintenance, as an asset’s behaviour evolves and changes over time.
Ortomation’s approach greatly simplifies RTO implementation, overcoming the hurdles that have habitually hindered its widespread application. As a result, return on investment is accelerated and improved.
The technology to be harnessed by Proserv and Ortomation has already gone through proof of concept with a major energy company and the portfolio of possible applications continues to grow.
Stuart Harvey, Vice President, Digital Innovation, Proserv stated:
“We are delighted to sign this MoU with Ortomation. Nurturing technology partnerships and collaboration are part of our Proserv identity as we continually seek to solve industry’s biggest challenges, particularly ones where others have failed.
“We very much understand the benefits RTO can bring and we believe Ortomation’s innovative and disruptive technology strongly aligns with our methodology around offering independent, OEM agnostic, scalable and transparent solutions.”
Proserv will utilise its in-house software application expertise to assist Ortomation in taking its technology from its existing, current prototype to a marketable industrial RTO product with universal applicability.
Paul Oram, Chief Executive Officer of Ortomation added, “We are extremely excited to be working with Proserv and truly believe our partnership will deliver a game-changing technology for all across the process industry.”