Founded in 1986 by Marshall Blalock, SWPV was one of the original Authorized Distributors in North America for Solarex Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Amoco Corporation. Solarex had developed many cost saving manufacturing innovations centered around its' patented SEMIX polycrystalline cell delivering the first significant cost savings for volume manufactured PV modules in North America. SWPV was then able to take the Solarex product line of PV modules and develop many new customers and innovative off grid applications within the industrial and rural electrification emerging markets within North America. Then, in 1996 Amoco Corp. was merged into British Petroleum (BP) thus creating one of the largest PV module manufacturing and technology companies in the world. SWPV thus became a BP Solar Distributor and in 2002 was named a Premier Distributor for BP Solar. In 2006, SWPV was named the largest volume distributor for BP Solar in North America. In May 2007, Southwest PV Systems Inc. was merged with Ameresco, Inc of Framingham, MA.