Among the many sectors in which Made in Italy excels, there is also the little-known one ofthermal induction. A quantitatively limited market, but with a very high level of know-how and quality. One of the many hidden excellences that comes in this case from Piedmont, in the province of Turin, but with the non-secondary contribution of the University of Padua, demonstrating a synergy between public and private, between research and innovation, which in some cases works and how.
This is the case of the Saet Group, a company founded in 1966 by Pietro Canavesio and one of his partners and led since 2006 by his son Davide, which is also at the top of young entrepreneurs of Confindustria Turin. The headquarters is in Leinì, just outside Turin, but the 100% Italian technology has come to expand all over the world, with three other offices in China, India and the United States.
The first recipe against the crisis is just that: expand. “Although it wasn't easy”, as the 40enne Davide Canavesio, but the results are unequivocal: in 2011 the group had a turnover of 35 million euros, conquering more and more markets in emerging countries (at least 75% of the production is destined for export) and confirming the third world player in the design and construction of induction heat treatment plants.
A sector that is little known but which works hand in hand with the large manufacturing industry, in particular for the components of the automotive and metallurgical sectors, and which sees Saet signing contracts with the largest Italian and foreign companies in the sector, from Renault to Toyota, from Volkswagen to Caterpillar. “Internationalising does not mean relocating – Canavesio is keen to point out -, so much so that of our current 330 employees, at least half work here in Leinì. And in 2006, before we started our expansion, there were only 110”.
Internationalization, but not only. Saet's real challenge is that it has become one of the most virtuous examples of investments in research and development, with 1 million euros each year, also through InovaLab, an R&D center born as a spin-off from the University of Padua. With several projects already in the pipeline, one of which is very close to completion and which could broaden the horizon of application of thermal induction and revolutionize the future of renewable energies.
“As well as broadening our range of action – explains Canavesio – in order to survive the crisis it was important to innovate. I want to say that all of this was set up before the recession, it was already the right way to interpret entrepreneurial activity and it was all the more reason to resist in the most difficult years. By innovation I also mean the diversity of applications and the definition of a technological avant-garde, that is of an increasingly higher know-how. But not before having defined the 'core' of the company”. Very clear ideas, Canavesio: “After which we merged human and financial resources in the creation of the Saet Academy, which in my opinion has the decisive task of making all our knowledge filter into every corner of the structure, which must be permeated by it, and even before that in financing the spin-off InovaLab, with which we already have 18 projects in the field".
Visiting the operating department of the Leinì factory, one physically (and not verbally) comes across one of these: two 26-year-old Paduan boys, together with Saet engineers, have almost perfected a new machine for melting and re-solidifying silicon. Not everyone knows that silicon is the mineral used to build solar panels, one of the fastest growing and most future-oriented markets, both in Italy (in 2011 it was the country that installed the most in the world) and in other countries emerging countries, in particular China, which is preparing public funding to make photovoltaics take off and where the world's top player company is based.
Precisely with this company, whose name it is not yet possible to indicate (the official status is still missing), Saet has reached an agreement for the processing of silicon. A method that promises to be revolutionary, and that starting from the benches of the Venetian university and moving on from the headquarters in Leinì is now ready to land in the Asian giant and then all over the world.
The crystalline silicon, so far worked through fusion in resistance furnaces which take about 55 hours to package the ingot that goes to form the panel, will now be transformed through the electromagnetic waves of induction, up to a temperature of 1.400 degrees, in just 50 hours. Faster, therefore, but not only. In addition to the evident saving of time (and energy), this way of working the silicon will make the finished product qualitatively much better. “It will be usable for longer – he explains the COO and project coordinator, Leonardo Salazzari - and especially it will have a markedly higher efficiency in its function of absorbing solar energy”.
All thanks to a 40-year-old entrepreneur ea two researchers of 26. It is not yet Silicon Valleybut almost.
