Lovato Electric: Low-voltage industrial components, energy meters and power analysers

Overview

Lovato Electric started in Bergamo in 1922 making air-break and oil-break switches, moved to contactors in 1948 and built the Gorle factory that is still its headquarters in 1963, according to its company history. It remains privately owned and run by the same family in its fourth generation. The catalogue now holds dozens of families of low-voltage components for machine builders and switchboard makers, from contactors and motor protection to pushbuttons, micro PLCs and power supplies.

Metering sits inside the energy management group, next to automatic transfer switch controllers, engine and generator controllers, power factor controllers, current transformers, communication devices and software. That grouping explains how the meters are used. A Lovato meter is usually one part of a panel that Lovato also equips, so a builder can take the incomer meter, the transfer-switch controller, the generator controller and the capacitor bank controller from one supplier, with one setup tool and one protocol document.

What sets the company apart from meter specialists is that breadth and its documentation. The DMG Modbus protocol document covers the whole multimeter family in one table, and recent analysers such as the DMG8000 add Ethernet, a web server and logic functions, so the meter can also do small automation jobs in the panel.

Offering

Multimeters and power analysers

The energy meters and power analysers range is built around the DMG series. The DMG110 is a four-module DIN-rail multimeter for /5 A or /1 A current transformers, with plus or minus 0.5% voltage and current accuracy, class 1 active energy, harmonics to the 15th and an isolated RS-485 port; the DMG100 is the same meter without communication. The DMG200, DMG210, DMG300 and DMG600 series add graphic displays, expansion slots, harmonic analysis or a front optical port. At the top, the DMG8000 and DMG9000 are colour-display analysers in a 92 mm cut-out with RS-485 and Ethernet, a browser-based setup and data view, internal memory, harmonics to the 63rd, NFC programming and built-in PLC logic. The DMG2000 and DMG2500 sit between them.

Energy meters

The DMED meters cover billing and submetering: single-phase meters for 40 to 63 A, three-phase meters for direct connection up to 80 A or for current transformers, and MID versions. The DMED301MID is a four-module, 10(80) A three-phase meter with MID class B active energy under modules B and D and a built-in RS-485 port.

Gateways and software

Communication devices include the EXCGLB gateway data loggers with RS-485, Ethernet, Wi-Fi or 4G, and the EXCCON02 Modbus RS-485 to Ethernet gateway. Synergy is the supervision and energy management software, licensed per device, permanently or as a 365-day cloud subscription, with separate licences for third-party devices, database access and a web API. Xpress handles setup and remote control. Lovato also sells commissioning, training and driver development for third-party devices as services. Hardware is sold through subsidiaries and importers; prices are not published.

Technology

Modbus documentation

Lovato publishes one Modbus protocol document for the DMG series, edition I317IGB02_22 of February 2022, with a column per model. The meters answer Modbus RTU or ASCII on RS-485 at 1,200 to 38,400 bit/s. Because models share columns, the details matter: the DMG110 shares a column with the DMG210 but scales frequency in thousandths of a hertz where the DMG210 uses hundredths, and its energy totals are four-register counters. The DMG100 and DMG110 manual covers wiring and the serial settings.

Ethernet, expansion and data collection

The DMG8000 and DMG9000 carry Ethernet and RS-485 on board and take up to three EXP modules for extra inputs, outputs and communication ports. Their web server shows values as graphs and tables and stores readings internally. Lovato's announcement does not name the Ethernet protocol. Serial meters reach an IP network through the EXCCON02 gateway or an EXCGLB data logger, which can forward readings to Synergy or to a remote server. Synergy stores data in Microsoft SQL Server and exposes it through a licensed web API.

Accuracy and approvals

The DMG8000 and DMG9000 are certified to IEC 62053-22 class 0.5S, IEC 62053-24 class 1 and IEC 61557-12 class 0.5. MID meters carry type examination under modules B and D, and the company holds an MID Annex II Module D quality-system certificate and a Module D certificate under the German measurement ordinance for charging equipment. The DMG110 is UL listed under file E346886 for North American panels. Lovato's internal test laboratory is accredited to EN ISO/IEC 17025, and the company opened an in-house SMT electronics line, LOVATO Electronic, at Gorle in 2023.

Markets

Lovato says its products are available in more than 100 countries through 15 branches abroad and more than 90 importers. The company opened its first factory outside Italy in 1979 and its fifteenth foreign subsidiary, in Brazil, in 2026.

Its buyers are mostly panel builders, original equipment manufacturers and electrical contractors. In industrial and commercial switchboards the DMG multimeters measure incomers and feeders, often beside Lovato transfer-switch, generator and power-factor controllers in the same panel. The DMED meters serve tenant and circuit submetering, with MID versions where the reading is billed. The UL listing of meters such as the DMG110 matters for machines and panels exported to North America, where the company's US subsidiary marks 25 years of trading.

Croatia became a second manufacturing base in 2019. Končar, the Croatian electrical group, disclosed on the Zagreb Stock Exchange that its low-voltage switchgear unit had sold KONČAR-LE d.o.o. to Lovato Electric S.p.A. under an agreement of 11 April 2019. Lider reported that Lovato would continue production of modular switches and take over workers with their collective-agreement rights. The business now trades as LOVATO Koncar, and the Italian ambassador visited the Zagreb plant in May 2025.

Company

Legal entity and ownership

The parent company is LOVATO Electric S.p.A., Via Don E. Mazza 12, Gorle, in the province of Bergamo, with fiscal code and VAT number 01921300164 and paid-up share capital of €3,200,000, as its address page states. It describes itself as privately owned and managed by the founding family for four generations. Massimiliano Cacciavillani is chief executive, quoted in the company's October 2024 announcement of a €14 million, 4,800 square metre building at Gorle for its LOVATO Plastic tooling and moulding operation, due for completion in August 2026. ANSA named Stefano Testa as chief operating officer in 2025.

Finances

Accounts filed by the S.p.A. show revenue rising from about €68.0 million in 2019 to €125.0 million in 2022 and €127.2 million in 2023, with net profit of €28.1 million in 2023, before falling to €112.5 million in 2024, according to the Top Aziende summary of the filings. The Atoka company record gives €123.2 million for 2025 and 374 employees, classed as a large enterprise under ATECO 27.12, the manufacture of electricity distribution and control apparatus. These figures are for the Italian parent company, not the group with its subsidiaries.

Milestones

The company history lists ISO 9001 in 1992, among the first in Italy, ISO 14001 and a new 3,500 square metre research and development building in 2002, the SM motor protection circuit breakers in 1999, ISO 50001 in 2020 and IATF 16949 in 2026.