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The Rockville Chamber of Commerce and a local energy broker have formed a green energy cooperative aimed at saving money and reducing the business community's environmental impact.

The group would pool the energy buying needs of chamber members into one purchase through Clean Currents, a Rockville-based company that provides wind and renewable energy credits to residential and commercial customers. The company buys power from wind farms and other renewable energy sources nationwide and provides it to the power grid.

Ron Rodriguez, the senior business development manager at Clean Currents, said the more businesses that sign up, the better the deal they can get.

The deadline for signing up for the program is Dec. 11, he said.

Andrea Jolly, the chamber's director, said there are several reasons her group joined with Clean Currents to form the group.

"The chamber is doing this because we want to help businesses to become more environmentally friendly, save some money and get some recognition for what they're doing," she said. "It's a total win-win."

So far the Jewish Foundation for Group Homes, which has about 20 group homes in the county, has signed up for the cooperative and negotiations to sign up a major commercial real estate developer are in the works, Rodriguez said.

Once the final group is formed, the members will decide what percentage of their energy they would like to have as "green" energy. That percentage could be anywhere between 10 percent and 100 percent, he said.

"The first group we did in Wheaton was 50 percent," he said.

The benefits of environmentally friendly practices can be felt locally.

"This helps promote the Buy Rockville campaign," he said, referring to a program designed to get consumers to patronize the businesses in the community. "It's helping to re-energize these businesses and make them more sustainable."

The program is open to any business, but will be slightly more expensive for non-chamber members, Jolly said.

"Chamber members tend to be smaller businesses, so right now we're focusing on them," she said. "We hope to start with a smaller group just to get started, then maybe doing another group down the road."

The program fee is free for chamber members and $350 per year for non-chamber members, Rodriguez said.

For more information on Clean Currents, visit www.cleancurrents.com, or the Rockville Chamber of Commerce, visit www.rockvillechamber.org.