Bunch of reasons. Power is pretty cheap, thats the big one, so the payoff is long long away.. The infrastructure you need even for a small solar array to prevent feeding back into the grid when you aren't supposed to isn't really developed here for small-scale deployments. We have big hailstorms, someone has to pay the insurance bill. Just a bunch of reasons.

Solar and wind in spite of the rhetoric is really big here, so not a lot to gain by expensive small solar installs.

Probably because anything but petroleum is communism.

Because the US is full of absolute backwards redneck suckers who are convinced that oil is still the future.

Lobbying is far too powerful, and ethics nowhere in sight.

Because our owners haven't allowed us.

solar panels are dei

Because of electricity costs in Germany it is a real no-Brainer but US has much cheaper electricity and I am not sure whether US plugs or electrical systems are up to the task tbh.

Because there is no climate change in the US!

Because apartment living is far more common in Europe, and tenants generally have more rights as to what they can do with these apartments compared to the US. I can’t imagine trying to get an apartment building in the US to allow you to wire in a solar battery and hang panels off the balcony, they’d never agree. A quick read shows that balcony solar became a right of sorts in Germany in 2024. Americans have no such allowance.

Balcony solar bill dies in Illinois after union voices… | Canary Media

Balcony solar bill dies in Illinois after union voices opposition

Legislation to open the door for small plug-in solar panels hit roadblocks, including safety concerns raised by the state’s electrical workers union

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/balcony-solar-bill-dies-illinois

There are some legitimate safety concerns for plug-in solar/battery systems, mostly related to firefighting.

With public utilities, the electrical service to a building can be cut off externally. If there's a fire, a live damaged electrical cable can reignite fires after they're put out, especially after the building is flooded with firefighting water. This also presents a potential shock hazard to firefighters. If the building has plug-in solar attached, there's no way to know which circuits might be energized or which walls might have live power in them (punching through interior walls is pretty common during fire rescue), and also no way to shut the power off from outside the building. If the system also includes a lithium battery that creates an additional problem.

Lockout/tagout for electrical maintenance also becomes more complicated, because the main breaker no longer controls all of the power for the building. Plugging in a system like this to a power outlet completely bypasses the building's breaker panel, and therefore bypasses all of the safety standards that rely on that breaker panel. It's not impossible to address, but some thought needs to be put into it and I can understand why some jurisdictions might just say "nope, we're not dealing with that."

I'm not sure how Germany is addressing these issues. I don't think it's enough to justify prohibiting the use of these systems entirely, but there is justification for establishing some safe and sane regulations around them, and not just rubber-stamping them broadly.

The answer is draconian regulations and apartment owners that aren't concerned with decreasing their teammates power bill. Half the country is still debating if climate change is real.

Do these panels just plug directly into a GFCI outlet? Or do they use battery storage?