Five people crammed into a tiny room at Portsmouth Town Hall to listen to Jeff Broadhead, the executive director of the Partnership for Rhode Island Streetlight Management (PRISM), make a pitch for LED streetlights during a workshop last Thursday night.

Mr. Broadhead’s makeshift demonstration showed two kinds of LED lights.

“This is the first time I have taken this out on the road,” Mr. Broadhead said, of his LED streetlight stand with two protruding lights that nearly touched the ceiling.

One light was a 3,000K LED, which had a yellow, softer cast, and the second was a 4,000K LED light which was brighter with sharper detail.

“For public safety, I’d like to see the 4,000K on the main roads,” said Assistant Town Planner Michael A. Asciola. “Both the police chief and fire chief like the clear, whiter light.”

“The 4,000K has a sharp cut-off. It’s jolting to the eyes,” said Portsmouth resident Mike Rousseau. “The other light (3,000K) has a softer cut-off. And I also like the warmer color,” he said.

Portsmouth currently leases the 900-plus high-pressure sodium streetlights from National Grid. The town pays about $125,000 annually for street lighting, according to Lightsmart Energy Consulting, who conducted an analysis in Feb. 2017.

According to Mr. Asciola, the town would have to purchase the streetlight infrastructure from National Grid — the arm and casing, including the sodium light — and then electrically replace the sodium lights with the LED lights purchased from PRISM.

“The savings on the maintenance is a very big part,” said Mr. Asciola. “Being able to control the contractor, the group that you use to maintain the lights, is significantly less expensive than what National Grid was charging.”

The new streetlights will pay for themselves in a few years, said Mr. Asciola. They use substantially less energy than the sodium lights, and the town would own the LED lights, not lease them from National Grid.

“The town would be responsible to contract with a company, or through PRISM, to have someone maintain them or change them when the lights go out,” said Mr. Asciola.

Plus LED streetlights have a 10-year warranty and can last last even longer, according to Mr. Asciola, and will not have to be replaced every two years like the high-pressure sodium lights.

Mr. Broadhead said the town would have the option of putting the brighter 4,000 K LED streetlights along East and West Main roads and the softer 3,000 K LED lights in neighborhoods.

The LED lights can be furnished with dimming controls to give the town the ability to change the brightness or turn a single light on or off.

“One of the things that Portsmouth is looking at is a dimming system,” said Mr. Broadhead. “Each light can be individually addressable. So you can dim or brighten, turn on or turn off remotely any light. That’s a real benefit when you put up a whole system.”

LED lights can also be quickly turned off, while the sodium counterparts take 15 minutes to turn off, all the while burning more energy, according to Mr. Broadhead.

“With the dimming system you can almost double the incentive money that the town gets,” he said.

The Portsmouth Town Council is hoping for feedback on whether to fund the project. Residents may cast their vote on which LED streetlight they would prefer in a cardboard box at town hall.