Interview CGLE 2022 : Michael Oswell de PROTEUS INSTRUMENT

So what do you think about this exhibition today?

Well, we’ve met lots of great people from all different parts of the water industry.

So looking forward to following up and doing some business with them.

Who is RS Hydro ? What do you do?

So RS Hydro has been around for 25 years. We are instrument guys, we’re technical guys.

And we pull together lots of different products and technologies to measure different parameters.

So flow, water level, temperature.

We work in the toughest places around the country.

We like easy jobs too, but we work in hard places.

Wastewater treatment works, minds, enquiries, food and beverage.

Anywhere there’s a pipe or water.

We’ve probably got some interest.

And what’s your business in France? What are you looking for?

We’ve got a great best of class products that we can offer, superb engineering services, so we can pull together all of those technologies and and measure what other people can’t.

So within France, we also have a specialist division that rents flow meters.

So some of the equipments on our stands and on our website, you’ll see where we can ship you a flow meter to do a clamp on test without breaking into the pipe.

Something that can be done in a few minutes.

We’ll ship it to you within 2 to 3 days.

You’ll get some safe measurements, some good reliable data, and then you can start planning what you’re going to do going forward.

That might involve us again, providing some permanent installation, but that’s another story.

Somebody told me you put on the market a revolutionary sensor, Proteus.

Can you tell me a little bit more about this?

The Proteus is a unique instrument, and we’re really very proud.

It’s our own product. We’ve spent seven or eight years developing it with the University of Birmingham.

We also engaged with the UK government for some funding and the result is a patented device that basically does what a lab would take five days to do and we can do it like that.

So rather than waiting five days for some information, you can get your data back in real time.

And that opens up all sorts of possibilities.

That allows you to put it on telemetry, to see data in the middle of nowhere that allows you to put it in a control system so you can measure what’s happening and optimise your process.

Or you could walk around and use it as a spot reader.

So if you wanted to do some investigation or some auditing or maybe some pollution control for an emergency event, you can get the data just like that.

So we call it a game changer.

It’s a paradigm shift in measuring the parameters.

I won’t bore you with the technical bit, but BOD, COD, TOC.

And we can even measure coliforms as well.

So that leads us into public health, bathing water, seawater, drinking water, theme parks, hotels.

It’s a real game changer. And something you are very proud of is a Queen’s Award.

The Queen’s Award is maybe not so important for you guys in France, but back in the UK, it’s an incredible award and recognition, an achievement.

There’s probably only about 30, 40 companies a year would receive this award.

And we’ve been lucky enough to be selected.

And in fact, our MD will be going down to the Buckingham Palace and the Palace of Westminster.

Maybe he won’t meet the Queen, but I’m sure there’ll be some royal dignitaries for him to come back and tell us about.