With more Americans expected to install solar on their rooftops in 2012, residential provider American Solar Direct recently offered nine factors for homeowners to consider in terms of going solar.

"Producing electricity from your own rooftop is getting easier and more affordable. The trends we saw in 2011 - primarily, that home solar was truly entering the mainstream market - should continue at a strong pace this year," predicts Ravi Thuraisingham, ASD's president and chief financial officer. "Thousands of homeowners will continue to seek ways to cut electric bills and have a positive impact on the environment."

According to Thuraisingham, homeowners considering solar should consider the following nine key factors:

Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots, will add more than 1 megawatt of solar to the nearly 600 kW already installed. [Flickr.Com Creative Commons Photo by jkgreenstein12]

We’ve written before about the growing popularity of solar power in the NFL. The prime example is the Washington Redskins home stadium, FedEx Field, which has about 2 megawatts of solar, almost all of it installed on a set of solar canopies in the stadium parking lot. In addition, FedEx Field has directly married solar to EVs, having placed multiple EV charging stations underneath the solar canopies.

While FedEx Field -- which officially went online with solar in Sept. 2011 -- continues to be the flagship solar NFL stadium, Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots, is pushing the Redskins for the NFL solar lead.

Gillette Stadium plans to triple the amount of renewable energy produced at the stadium and the adjacent Patriot Place shopping center with a 1-megawatt photovoltaic (PV) array. NRG Energy will install the project under an agreement with The Kraft Group, which owns the complex.

Turns out going solar is contagious: It inspires neighbors to go solar too.

A study by a few interprid folks over at 1 Block Off the Grid shows that if you have a neighbor with solar panels on his or her house, you’re more than twice as likely to go solar yourself than if none of your neighbors have solar.

The following guest post is written by Andrei Mihai who runs the web site ZMEscience.Com. Established in 2007, ZME Science keeps readers informed and gets them involved in the processes that define our planet.

An artist's concept of a possible design for a space-based solar power array. [Photo Credit: Wikipedia.Org]

Solar energy has developed significantly since the 1970s, and, as the years pass, scientists understand more and more about the benefits this kind of technology brings into our life, be it used for driving your electric car, heating or electricity; but now it's time to take things to the next level, it's time to take it to the sky -- literally.

This idea might seem taken from a sci-fi novel, but it's not. It's much closer than you think. In 2009, California allowed a few companies to start working on a solar-based power plant which will be sent into outer space where it will harness energy which will be sent back to Earth.