The Trump Administration has been announced a tariff on the import of solar panels into the US. Solar operators have warned that it will slow the growth of the market for solar and associated storage, and cost tens of thousands of jobs. Solar panels are one of the critical distributed energy generation assets, and any disruption to their adoption has the potential to slow the transition towards a decentralized smarter energy network. The tariff will start at 30% and then step down over the next four years to protect domestic manufacturers. The tariff will depreciate by 5% every year until finishing in 4-years’ time at 15%. Neither Suniva nor SolarWorld, the two companies that brought the original case to the…