NRG Dock

Green technology isn't all about massive solar plants in the desert, or even arrays of solar panels on the roof of your house.

A growing number of products are using solar power to charge up phones, digital music players, BlackBerrys, and other gadgets. Because they require significantly more electricity than smaller devices, laptops are trickier and more expensive to charge from a small solar panel. But people are certainly trying.

At the Consumer Electronics Show, a company called NRG Dock showed off a suite of products under development for using solar energy to charge electronics, including laptop computers.

Its high-end product has a 15-watt solar panel and battery combination that can fully charge in an hour and let someone run a laptop for days, according to Allan Wattenmaker, the company's chief operating officer. This $800 product, and a smaller $500 version meant for smaller devices (pictured), will be available in the second or third quarter of this year.

Caption text by CNET News.com's Martin LaMonica.