At the moment, he acknowledges, the German PV pioneer’s business model still looks like that of many traditio­nal Euro­pean system integrators, ­deriving “by far” the largest chunk of revenues from devel­oping, building and selling ­arrays in generously subsidised markets.

Only this spring, Solar­strom finalised the sale of its largest-ever project, the 48MW Serenissima array in northern Italy, to BNP Paribas Clean ­Energy Partners in a deal worth €118m ($155m).

But