The USA needs to make its own solar panels

[TheVat]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/24/perspectives/solar-panels-tariffs-clean-energy/index.html

This is incredibly important to our energy future.  Why a nation with our manufacturing capacity and resources would be dragging its feet on this is....oh wait, yes, no mystery at all, politics as usual.  

[Phi for All]

If this kind of manufacturing can be done on small scales, I think it would be perfect for rural job creation, which is also where we have problems pushing utilities anyway. Give the USPS the fleet of planes they need, and we could push manufacturing US solar panels to anyplace with a post office. 

[Peterkin]

It is happening, though the biggest players are still based in the far East.

https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/best-american-solar-panel-manufacturers

However, they're still concentrating their efforts on going the wrong way.

Quote

As leading solar manufacturers get bigger, so does their appetite for utility-scale solar projects. Therefore, we should expect more construction of photovoltaic (PV) power stations or solar farms in the coming years. This is good news for areas with outdated electrical grids or struggling power infrastructure.

Another storm just took out the grid of a major city. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/ottawa-storm-2022-a-look-at-the-storms-path-through-the-city and these storms are not going to decrease or grow tamer over time. Whatever the power-source, the delivery grid remains its most vulnerable component. So they keep building and rebuilding the same kind of grid. 

We're nowhere near Ottawa, and our local transformer station was damaged recently. 500-odd people were without electricity for some hours on several occasions, as crews worked at fixing it. Except us; we're 80% independent of the grid. Of course, that's not to say a big enough wind can't knock down our private array ... but that local inconvenience wouldn't affect vital functions and public services.