Xcel has asked the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to allow the company to proceed with a two-year test of the lights, which have been adopted by cities elsewhere in the country as a money saver. According to some estimates, LED streetlights can give off the same amount of light as traditional models with half the electricity. They last longer than traditional bulbs but cost more up front.

A few Minnesota cities have some LED streetlights, but the West St. Paul test would be the first to bathe an entire community in the brighter, whiter lighting. The project would allow Xcel to test the lights and see how much they cost to install and operate, information it could use to come up with a billing rate for LED street lighting that it could offer more widely. Most Minnesota cities contract with Xcel for street lighting.

"A number of cities are looking at different alternatives for street lighting" to replace existing high-pressure sodium lamps, but until now Xcel has not had an LED option, said Steve Nauer, street maintenance superintendent for Brooklyn Park.

In a test of about 80 LED streetlights, that city has had to put a meter on each one and pay Xcel for the energy used. "I wish they would have picked us instead of West St. Paul," Nauer said.

Brooklyn Park and Worthington, Minn. -- which has LED lights on about two miles of city streets -- report that people like the whiter, brighter glow of the LED lights and that they use 50 percent less energy than the current generation of high-pressure sodium vapor lighting, which cast a yellow light.

"The word on the street is that they are nice and bright," said City Engineer Bruce Westby of Monticello.

West St. Paul is happy to be a testing ground for the lights, said City Council Member Ed Iago. "I like the potential cost savings and the fact that you end up with a much better-lit community all the way around," he said.