Phoenix, based near Munich, reported an operational profit of €3m ($4.5m) in the third quarter, which follows on a profit of €100,000 in the second quarter. Last year during the three-month period to 30 September the company notched up a profit of €17.6m.

But Phoenix has lost €4.4m in the year to date, and will need a strong seasonal push in late 2009 in order to end the year in the positive. Its share price fell more than 4% on the news.

The company saw its third-quarter revenues drop 40% year on year to €89.7m, as the sclerotic debt-finance markets continue blocking many planned large-scale PV plants from moving forward.

Phoenix suggests 2010 could be a strong year for solar-energy developments across Europe, particularly since the newly elected German coalition has gone much softer on Germany’s solar feed-in tariff (FIT) than it indicated it would during the campaign.

In the past month sales have picked up in both of Phoenix’s divisions – power plants, and components and systems – and it expects them to remain healthy throughout the end of 2009. Nevertheless, the company downwardly revised its full-year revenue guidance from €520m to “within a corridor of between €430m and €480m”.

Even that guidance is subject to a number of risks that could hamper its new guidance “or even render it impossible”.

Phoenix says difficult weather conditions late in the year may stall construction work at the 13 PV plants it is now hooking up. It also cautions that there may be a shortage of solar modules and inverters in the next two months as developers rush to take advantage of Germany's current FIT before it is lowered in January 2010.