Committed to innovation Angelantoni

COMMITTED TO INNOVATION

After more than eighty years of activity the Angelantoni group ranks among the leading companies in the testing sector and has a unique offer with regard to renewable energy, particularly solar. Industry Europe speaks to Mr Margherita and Mr Scarponi - respectively General Manager and COO of its ATT division- Mr Cagiola -General Manager of ASE- and Ms Manni - R&D Engineer for the Cold Energy project (ACT division). Barbara Rossi reports.

Angelantoni was established in 1932 by 28 year-old Giuseppe Angelantoni as a refrigeration business. Over the years the business has grown and diversified and in 2012 a new organisational structure was created. Today Angelantoni Industrie is a group with three sub-holdings and one subsidiary. The three sub-holdings are Angelantoni Test Technologies (ATT), Angelantoni Life Science (ALS) and Angelantoni CleanTech (ACT), while the subsidiary is Archimede Solar Energy (ASE).

While having Italian roots and being headquartered in the Perugia area of central Italy, the group has a truly international mindset, with eight production plants in Italy, Germany, France, India and China. Angelantoni is characterised by a high level of innovation in the testing (ATT), biomedical (ALS), and clean technologies (ACT) sectors, as well as in the solar sector (ACT and ASE).

ATT really stands out for its wide and comprehensive range of testing solutions, which are offered through its three brands: ACS (environmental test chambers), BIA (automotive and aerospace test benches) and TIRA (electrodynamic vibration test systems, material testing equipment, balancing machines and mechanical engineering). Research and collaboration with universities and research institutes feature highly and have resulted in various patents and extremely innovative products.

ALS a is leader in the manufacture of biomedical equipment and medical devices for healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors, as well for life science research Institutes. Besides a complete range of cold storage, laminar flow and infection control equipment, ALS offers to major hospitals and industries in the world a new generation of solutions which include software and robotic automation operating at extremely low temperature, setting a new standard in patient safety and traceability of biological samples in life science processes. It invests 10 per cent of its revenue in R&D, which has led to several international patents for unique products in Bloodbanking and Biobanking fields, like Hemosafe® and Smartfreezer®, the only available fully automated system to store and retrieve individual biological samples at cryogenic temperature (Liquid

Nitrogen vapor phase), preventing human mistakes in the identification and positioning of vials and offering the maximum level of traceability and sample protection.

Angelantoni CleanTech and Cold Energy

ACT controls six companies operating in the renewable energy and energy efficiency sector (with a special focus on solar power) and, just like the rest of the group, these have a strong focus on R&D, having produced numerous registered patents over the years, offering innovation and collaborating with universities and research institutes. ACT has recently developed the Cold Energy project, based on an idea of Mr Maurizio Ascani, technical coordinator for the project. Agnese Manni, who follows the project alongside Mr Ascani, says, “Trying to explain this extremely complex project in simple terms, I would say that we have applied an automotive sector type turbo compressor (with cooling fluid) to a refrigeration system, so as to achieve energy savings of between 10-20 per cent (by recycling heat, transforming it and reusing the power to supply the refrigeration process). We have proven savings of 15 per cent, but we are extremely confident that with further optimisation we can reach 20 per cent. We have finance from the ministry of the environment and at a very recent presentation there was a huge amount of interest in the project and its possible developments due to the economic and environmental benefits that it can offer to refrigeration systems. It can be applied to low temperature systems, such as those used in the chemical, food and pharmaceutical industries, but also in future it could be adapted and extended to medium temperature systems and the air conditioning sector. We have been greatly helped by having at our disposal the ATT know-how and facilities. We are working in partnership with Se.Te.L and Roma 3 University to further optimise Cold Energy, which started two years ago.

Archimede Solar Energy

ASE is the world’s only manufacturer of commercially available receivers stable up to 550°C, for thermodynamic plants based on linear parabolic technology using molten salt as the heat transfer fluid. ASE manufactures its products at a recently developed plant based in Massa Martana (Perugia). Here there is also a demo plant using Molten Salt, which became operational in 2013.

“We are now focused on the production of both receivers, for Molten Salt and Oil technology too. The receivers for DSG ( direct steam generation) is under testing now. We started producing our receivers (through an ENEA licence) in 2008, using molten salts as the heat transfer fluid instead of diathermic oil. There is high demand for these products from the Gulf States (especially Saudi Arabia – where there is a plan for developing 26 GW of solar power technology by 2032), South Africa, India and China, as well as from Italy of course. Currently we are able to produce 75,000 receivers per year (equal to approximately 250MW) with the potential of doubling the production capacity, minor investment are required. The interest of Saudi Arabia is proven by the fact that a Saudi company – Fal Holding- is one of the partners with a share in Archimede, alongside the Angelantoni group and Japanese Chiyoda Corporation” Mr Cagiola explains.

“This technology offers a number of advantages. First of all, thermodynamic solar technology is able to produce electric energy on demand, as the energy produced can be stored and then released at a later time (such as during the night). Furthermore, the use of molten salt in place of diathermic oil has a series of additional benefits, namely durability in time, no need for disposal, not being flammable and toxic. It allows a reduction of the initial system building

costs. Archimede is continuously involved in research, aimed at improving product performance and developing new products fulfilling new market needs. A future ASE’starget is to extend it’s activity in order to develop and construct small commercial plants.”

ATT (Angelantoni Test Technologies)

In 2013 the group’s turnover was €115 million, €70 million of which was generated by ATT and its subsidiaries. As well as manufacturing in Italy, France (BIA) and Germany (TIRA), ATT has set up two joint-ventures, in India and China respectively, countries in which it has been present for a number of years. “We are the single player with the broadest and most comprehensive product range in testing. Environmental test chambers generate 50 per cent of our turnover, with the rest equally split between test benches and shakers. Overall we rank at number six in the testing sector globally, but if we just consider environmental chambers we are in third place. We offer testing solutions for a number of sectors, mainly automotive and aerospace, as well as electronic (across a variety of industries). Our flagship products are our solutions for the aerospace sector, able to simulate the environment necessary to test satellite components, for instance. Our joint-venture in China (ATT Zundar) is of particular interest, because our partner (Zundar) has brought us its expertise in automotive, while we contribute with our aerospace specialism” Mauro Margherita and Giacomo Scarponi explain.

“Over the last few years we have experienced a remarkable growth trend, as companies have been investing in R&D during the economic downturn, thus requiring testing solutions. This is also one of the strengths of a diversified group such as Angelantoni, as different divisions compensate each other with regard to market trend variations. We have a high level of market penetration in Italy, especially for environmental test chambers. Other important geographical markets for our division are Germany, France, Japan, China, Russia and India, but we are present on many more markets. Because of our strong presence, the Italian market does not leave us with a huge scope for expansion, but we are expecting growth (although not as dramatic as the one of the last few years) in countries where we are already established, namely Russia and China, as well as Germany – a real focus market for us. We intend to extend our presence in Germany to all of our ATT products (currently our offer there is solely TIRA-based). Starting from the second half of 2015 we could start considering a possible US acquisition to enter a potentially very interesting market, which so far has been out of our reach, mainly due to currency exchange rate issues”.

In terms of segments the ATT division is further expanding in automotive, thanks to the expertise gained through the Chinese joint-venture. Importantly, in 2012 the Fondo Italiano di Investimento acquired a share in ATT (which is still controlled by the Angelantoni group). In terms of its turnover the ATT target is to reach €110 million by 2018 and interestingly a recent development has been that of the application of its technologies to a pilot nuclear fusion plant in France (Cadarache). The development of components for nuclear fusion power plants is a sector in which ATT is going to grow, thanks to its managerial and technical know-how.

Suppliers are regarded as partners who play a fundamental role in the group’s success. The Angelantoni group has a solid supplier portfolio, which will be further expanded because in order to keep production capacity in line with growth demand it will have to outsource some non-critical processes to its suppliers.

Mr Margherita and Mr Scarponi conclude by saying, “We are proud to be a manufacturing company. We strongly believe that our integrated production chain is a real added value and for this reason we will continue with targeted investments so as to make our operational organisation even more global and integrated. We really believe that this is the way to win the market challenge.” n