The New Mexico Green Chamber of Commerce announced a cutting-edge deal that will make solar power more affordable for its members this week.

The chamber struck a bargain with SunPower Corporation that will allow any individual employee who works for a member company to get up to a $2,000 rebate on a residential solar installation and any of the member businesses to get up to a $10,000 rebate on a commercial system.

There are 12,000 businesses that belong to New Mexico’s Green Chamber, said chamber CEO Allan Oliver.

Two SunPower dealers, Positive Energy and Consolidated Energy, are member businesses, Oliver said.

Other companies that belong to the green chamber are directly and indirectly involved in the green industry. Some produce or sell technology that helps people save energy, others are normal businesses that want to be greener.

The High Desert Brewery is one of those, Oliver said. It just went solar earlier this year and is now one of the country’s only solar-powered breweries.

“Our philosophy is very much focused toward how do we conserve our energy and sustainable profits,” Oliver said. “We think it makes sense to help out our bottom line not once but twice.”

Going solar is starting to make sense to a lot of the chamber’s members and this deal will help to make the energy and money-saving move even more lucrative, he said.

Oliver said he believes New Mexico’s Green Chamber is the first in the country to make an arrangement like this one with SunPower.

“What’s really neat about this is that the individuals who are part of these companies get to take advantage of it,” Oliver said.

Most of the companies that belong to the green chamber are small businesses, he said. “That’s the nature of green business,” he said, “but really, that’s the nature of business in New Mexico.”

He said 85 percent of New Mexico-based businesses are small.

Image from New Mexico Green Chamber web site