Interview with Marcello Chiappini from Coveme
Transformers Magazine is bringing an interview with Marcello Chiappini from Coveme, held by our editor-in-chief Mladen Banovic at Coiltech Italia.
On the photo: Marcello Chiappini from Coveme
Transformers Magazine is bringing an interview with Marcello Chiappini from Coveme, held by our editor-in-chief Mladen Banovic at Coiltech Italia, in Pordenone, Italy.
Mr. Chiappini, please tell us about yourself and Coveme company.
Coveme was founded in 1965 by Mr. Pier Luigi Miciano, the current President and owner of the company. Coveme started as a distributor of electrical insulation materials in Europe. After a long partnership with DuPont, we started to study Nomex®-based laminates and to produce them in the 1974. The production was focused on electrical motor application, but these products are also used for transformers, especially the dry-type ones. In time, COVEME developed its production, and today we divide our market into three areas: the first one is for dry-type transformers, which is a historical and our main market. Then there is the oil-filled transformer market, where we supply parts for high-temperature transformers. We produce some Nomex® with epoxy resin diamond-dotted paper for railway-application and for wind generators. This is the main field for oil-filled H-class transformers. Today, Coveme is one of the few companies in the world with both certifications as Nomex Official Distributor and Nomex Official Laminator.
Five or six years ago, we started producing a special polyester film with a special surface treatment and also with diamond dotted epoxy resin for SF6 gas transformers. These are the main products dedicated for transformer application.
Today, Coveme Group employs approximately 300 employees and has €150 million annual turnover.
The company has production sites in Italy and China, with R&D hubs in Germany, Italy and China. Our new 3,000 m2 building at Gorizia production site has just been completed. It will host two new lines, with the first to become operative at the beginning of 2023, featuring highly advanced coating technologies, also dedicated to the automotive sector, where we hold the IATF certification. It will be equipped with the latest sustainability features such as post-combustion systems for heat recovery and solar panels for energy production.
As for me, I have worked in Coveme for 16 years, where I came from Italian transformer company Trafomec. I can say that I was born into and bread on Nomex® insulating material.
Tell us a bit more about the markets that you serve. Are you present in the European market or wider? Can you tell us more about your key customers and also key products for transformers?
We can say that Coveme is a market leader in Italy, which is our historical market. About 15 years ago we also started turning to the European market. Now we are really satisfied, since we have started cooperation with some big players in the transformers industry, such as Schneider Electric, Siemens group, Hitachi Energy, ABB, and Tamura Group, which is a Japanese corporation with a headquarter in Italy and a production plant in the Czech Republic. We are a worldwide supplier for this group. Surely, we want to grow further in Europe and in other parts of the world. In fact, our production plant in China has been producing flexible insulation laminates since 2020 and today it covers the full range of Coveme products for this application for the Asian target market.
What are your chances for growth?
For sure, we pay great attention to the service and development, and we invest a lot of energy in the new development, new materials, and into adapting historical products to new needs of the customers. Then, together with our partner, who is also a part of our company, we investigate the possibility of producing some new product for creating a new opportunity on the market.
Is there anything else that you would like to point out?
I would like to point out that Coveme is greatly focused on sustainability. The company set out a concrete sustainability path at 360° including the employment of recycled materials, circular economy projects and LCA assessment. The first milestone on this path will be Coveme’s first Sustainability Report to be published in June 2023.