Solar panels are no longer just stuck on rooftops.

Thanks to declining manufacturing prices and the ability to make bendable solar panels, solar power is being built into everything from tents to backpacks. It’s even finding its way into awnings and on top of RVs. Add to that reports that Toyota (TM) will install solar panels on some new Prius hybrids to power part of the air conditioning.

“Solar photovoltaic technology has been coming down in price and also increasing in applicability,” said Roberta Gamble, director of energy and power systems at market-research firm Frost & Sullivan. “It could be boundless what you can do with this technology. We’ll be finding it in a lot of surfaces in the near future.” A solar cell or photovoltaic cell is a device that converts solar energy into electricity.

For years, solar panels were used only to power homes and commercial buildings, but technological advances have made it possible for manufacturers to make solar cells on more pliable surfaces without the need for glass. While powering homes and commercial buildings is still the prominent revenue driver for the solar panel industry, companies have been finding unique ways to use the technology that relies purely on the sun for power.

“Solar energy is ubiquitous across the planet,” said Bradley Collins, executive director of the American Solar Energy Society. “It allows people to look at innovative ways to bring energy because the sun shines where ever they happen to be.”

QuickerTek, the Wichita, Kan., wireless Apple product maker, recently started selling a foldable solar panel charger for Apple’s (AAPL) MacBook Air laptop.  

Rick Estes, founder of QuickerTek, said he decided to make a solar-panel charger because many MacBook Air users take their computer on the go.

“With the advent of the MacBook Air it opened up a whole new line for us,” said Estes. “Because their light, small and use less power people are putting them in back packs and climbing mountains.”

The QuickerTek Apple Juicz solar charger comes in an 18-watt, 27-watt and 55-watt versions ranging in prices from $500 to $1,000.  The 55-watt version will recharge the MacBook Air in five hours. The small size makes it easy to fold and fit inside a bag. It also charges the MacBook Air while it’s being used.

“Typically people plug them into a computer while camping or hiking out in the middle of nowhere and want to use their computer for whatever reason,” said Este, noting one French customer wanted the Apple Juicz to take his MacBook Air into the jungle.

For the last few years PowerFilm out of Ames, Iowa, has been making solar powered tents, as well as foldable and rollable solar power charges thanks to its manufacturing process. The company developed a low cost way to place solar cells on a roll of plastic 13 inches in width enabling things like tents to have solar panels.

The PowerFilm tents are used largely  by the military as communication centers, medical refrigeration areas and for portable medical units, said Mike Coon, chief operating officer and chief financial officer of PowerFilm. The tents, depending on the size, can cost anywhere from $10,000 to upwards of $40,000.  While Coon said there has been some demand among consumers, currently the tents are drawing a lot of interest from the military and disaster-relief agencies.

PowerFilm “makes product priced competitively to any source of electric generation for broad use in the marketplace," said Coon.

Cavco Industries of Phoenix, Ariz., is one of the first RV markers to make a recreational park trailer or park model that has solar panels. RV park models, which are 400 square feet, are typically used as vacation cottages at campgrounds and RV resorts around the country. Cavco’s park models use solar panels to generate enough power  to eliminate the need for electrical hook ups. Cavco said in a press release it expects to sell the park models in Southwestern, Rocky Mountain and Sunbelt states.

But uses for solar panels don’t stop there. According to analysts and industry watchers, companies are putting solar panels on restaurant awnings, beach umbrellas, backpacks and even as solar back-up generators.

“If solar power has been formatted on to a material that’s not rigid it can go on a tent, on an awning, on an umbrella or in a back pack. It allows people the opportunity to have energy at their finger tips no matter where they are,” said Collins of the American Solar Energy Society.