Well, this is the age of Green Energy. From what we heard at TechGiraffe, Apple is all focused on solar powered iPods as of now. Apples had applied for a patent relating to powering electronic devices using integrated solar cells. This application was filed in August 2008, however was made public on Thursday, this week

Solar Power House - Front Panel

It appears, though, that it’s not the first Apple patent application relating to solar-powered gadgets. In October 2006, a more general patent under the title “Solar Cells on Portable Devices” was filed by at least one of the same people. When that application was published in 2008, it was traced back to Apple iPod engineers.

Rather than have a separate solar panel, the 2006 patent application envisions a small device, such as an iPod, with a transparent solar cell on its surfaces.

The more recent patent application deals with power electronics for managing electricity flow from multiple solar cells on a device. For example, the patent application outlines methods for ensuring that there is sufficient voltage from solar cells to power the device or charge its battery.

Disclosure of the solar-power-related patent application comes a week after a patent application from Apple relating to home energy management surfaced. In that case, Apple engineers described a method for powering multiple electronic devices efficiently using a home’s wiring to manage the flow of power and data.