Solarstrom shifts focus to stay afloat in a subsidy-free Europe

Karl Kuhlmann fears that the lack of a national strategy will hamper the pace of German PV development.

SAG Solarstrom’s plan for staying at the forefront of the European PV sector involves focusing more heavily on servicing existing installations and beefing up its in-house generation portfolio, according to chief executive Karl Kuhlmann.

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 past investments and strategic decisions have left the Freiburg company in a far better position than many of its competitors to Log in to read complete article.

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