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June 2013 | Earlier this year WILDDESIGN began working with BASF, one of the world’s largest chemical company and raw materials providers, on a solar panel project. BASF Asia Pacific usually don’t undertaken projects in which they were making their own finished products, so this was extremely big challenge for them and for us. WILDDESIGN, as a firm dedicated whole-heartedly to design that brings people and the world a better quality of life, were eager to take on a project with such substantial and positive impacts planet-wide.

BASF approached us because of our reputation for taking a holistic design approach, and they had some unique parameters and requirements: They had developed a lightweight solar panel and require a frame for it that had to be simple to install, easy to transport, durable, lightweight and affordable. Certainly a challenge, but a surmountable one because WILDDESIGN was fortunate enough to be able to use BASF’s composite technology. BASF’s innovative technology utilizes injection molding to create a material much lighter than aluminum but with comparable strength and stability.

The primary goal was to develop a low-cost solar panel frame that could still withstand wear-and-tear from transport and normal operations, so WILDDESIGN created a unique but simple design that made ample use of the advantages of BASF’s composite technology. The frame design was light enough to be lifted manually and stacked together, meaning that transportation of the frames is both easier and safer, and thus more cost-effective. One unexpected issue we encountered during the design process was that the frames were actually too light, but it’s an easy problem to solve: End users can use simple objects like sandbags or bricks to weigh down their panels and ensure they stay in place, and the lightweight panel frames make transport and installation so much easier and more affordable that the added costs for these objects are negligible. After all our hard work, it was fantastic to see the first prototypes of the panel frames released last month at ChinaPlas in Guangzhou!

BASF encourages their clients to look at cutting-edge materials to help meet sustainability goals, and because WILDDESIGN is striving to develop sustainable designs and products, we are very pleased with how our collaboration with BASF went.

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