Unalaska, AK – The Department of Public Utilities recently won a $153,000 grant from the Alaska Energy Authority to buy LED street lights. Director of Public Utilities Dan Winters said the new lamps will use 75 percent less power than the current 400 watt bulbs but still give out the same amount of light.

Winters said his department is still looking for good lights for this environment. "We've been testing LED lights for quite a while out here and we've had a few of them that we've taken down and sent back and said these aren't going to work with our weather environment. Actually, the one's they put up in the Alaska Ship Supply new parking lot look really promising. They were up during the 175 mile per hour winds."

They don't tell people where they put the test lights. "The reason we don't tell the public where they're at is that way if we have complaints, like this light isn't putting out what it should, you should work on it,' then we know it's a definite complaint," he explained.

The lights cost between $600 and $900. The extra money from the grant will go toward installing the lights and for new lighting for parking lots and ball fields. The new lights should be installed in the summer of 2011 after a long test period.