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(Bari, Italy) was founded in 2021 by husband and wife team Kim Myklebust and Sara Plaga. They loved traveling by recreational vehicle (RV) and boat with their growing family and saw an opportunity to develop a lighter, more efficient portable solar panel to provide auxiliary power to travelers.

Myklebust, whose experience included a role as a design engineer for Formula One vehicles, recognized right away that carbon fiber composites would provide the mix of light weight and durability needed.

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The first design, launched in 2022, was a foldable, origami-inspired concept (see video below) that maximized available surface area — to collect as much solar energy as possible — and compactness for portability and storage.

Myklebust says that this design was based on the high-performance origami solar panel arrays that NASA and others in the space industry have developed for satellite applications — in this case, intended as a smaller, affordable solution for the consumer market. “It all started with wanting to produce as much power from the smallest format possible,” he says.

In 2022, the first working prototype was tested by sailing duo/content creators Sailing Uma, which had previously used heavy, rigid solar panels and were seeking a lighter option that produced more power. 

Since achieving success with the Saling Uma prototype, Levante has had several collaborations and deliveries. The panels’ design has also continued to evolve. In addition to its custom origami-inspired panels, the Levante team began adapting its technology into a more standardized version. In late 2024, the company launched a new product line featuring square 13- and 55-watt semi-rigid panels, and a rectangular 110-watt semi-rigid panel.

“The idea is taking the modularity aspect of the origami into more standardized shapes that are common in the market, only ours are 40% lighter than other semi-rigid panels on the market today [that are] reinforced with aluminum or even other composite sheets, with the same rigidity thanks to the composite material used. It wouldn’t be possible without that,” Myklebust says.

What materials used for the panels? Early on, Levante identified carbon fiber as the best option, but there were some obvious challenges. “We thought of carbon fiber composites because we needed a rigid material under the solar cell for protection, as well as durability to match the 25-plus-year expected lifespan of the ultra-thin, high-efficiency silicon solar cells,” Myklebust explains. “However, the challenge when integrating carbon fiber into a solar panel is that it conducts electricity. You have to understand how to isolate it in the most efficient way possible, and that’s very challenging. In addition to the fiber, the thermoplastic resin needs to adhere properly to the other materials used in the lamination process.”

In addition to these technical challenges, Levante also recognized that using virgin carbon fiber processed from fossil fuels would undermine the inherent environmental focus of manufacturing solar panels.

So, Levante began not only looking into carbon fiber, but into recycled carbon fiber (rCF). “One thing I also knew from working with composites is that there can be a lot of waste. You have this beautiful scrap material that could be reused for something, you just need to find applications for it,” Myklebust says.

In late 2022, Myklebust and Plaga approached startup ReCarbon (Legnano, Italy) seeking a rCF solution for their foldable solar panel design.

As reported previously by CW senior technical editor Ginger Gardiner, ReCarbon was founded in 2022 and manufactures rCF intermediate products in both thermoset and thermoplastic formats, including Replate organosheets, thermoset epoxy prepreg and Recomb composite sandwich panels. ReCarbon incorporates rCF supplied by various partners in the recycling value chain. 

When ReCarbon began working with Levante, “we spent about a year in testing, trying to solve the electrical and material compatibility challenges and solving technical solutions to achieve the desired result. In the end, we found a way to keep the material together, and now it’s on the market,” Patrick Pacchetti, project manager at ReCarbon, explains.

The selected material is one of ReCarbon’s rCF/polypropylene (PP) Replate products. “It’s an organosheet that is thermoformable. In addition to this application we’ve also used these for automotive underbody panels, wheel houses and parcel shelves,” Pacchetti says. “It isn’t totally custom-made per application, but we can offer specific polymers, aerial weights and so on to meet customers’ requirements.”

Why a thermoplastic? “Thermoplastics are thermoformable and more easily recyclable in the end-of-life process, but they also help enable the bonding with the other applied materials,” Pacchetti explains. 

“With the rCF, you have the rigidity, the lightness and also the environmental benefit,” Myklebust adds. “You’re always trying to find the right compromise between lightness and rigidity. And that’s where we went back and forth with different materials, but when you use ReCarbon’s rCF composite, the porous nature of the carbon fiber sheet ends up working as a sort of core material, which adds rigidity as well.”

How are the panels manufactured? The production versions of Levante’s panels are manufactured in partnership with solar panel specialist Solbian (Avigliana, Italy), in a lamination process integrating the silicon solar cells directly onto the carbon fiber panels. Myklebust explains that the process is similar to thermoforming, involving laying up the materials at a specified temperature and under vacuum to apply negative pressure, but without the use of a mold.

“The idea is to laminate the carbon fiber composites into the solar panel [directly] to make it as rigid as possible without a significant weight penalty, because the rigidity protects the solar cells from cracking. It’s very important for the durability of the panel,” he says.

Today, Levante’s custom services and standardized panels are available via its website, and have been used for a variety of marine and RV applications to power auxiliary and lifestyle applications like lighting, refrigerators, computers or other devices.

Beyond selling its current solar panels, Levante continues to test the limits of what rCF composite solar panels can do. For example, the company is working on an EU-funded R&D project with local carbon fiber composites manufacturer (Tortoreto, Italy), to expand its solar panel technology including the incorporation of bio-based resins and curved geometry suitable for applications like car roofs or other vehicle exteriors.

Another goal is to build solar panels large and efficient enough to power an entire electric sailing boat. Myklebust says, “We’re going to completely power a sailing boat when it comes to propulsion and living consumption. Thanks to the rigidity of our panels, we can put them on arches or other places where there is no rigid support to put them, and a flexible type of panel on the deck. We’ll also have an extending version of the rCF panels, thanks to the rigidity, that will extend to the side of the boat. Normally, solar panels installed on a boat would — because of the limited space on where to install them — only power normal living consumptions like navigation navigation, lighting, charging your phone, the computer, etc. But we’re going to have enough solar panels to power an electric motor.”

Sustainability Correspondent

Hannah Mason

Hannah Mason reports on sustainability in manufacturing across Gardner Business Media brands.
She is also a Technical Editor reporting about composites manufacturing for ÂÌñÏ×ÆÞ, a topic she has covered since 2018.
She earned a Masters of Arts in professional writing from the University of Cincinnati and a B.A. in writing from West Liberty University.