Looking to save money on street lighting and get better maintenance service, 31 metro-area suburbs are studying alternatives to their longstanding streetlight contracts with Xcel Energy Co., which owns the vast majority of metro-area streetlights.

The cities, which make up the Suburban Rate Authority, need to replace many of their 25- to 30-year-old streetlights installed when the communities were built, said James Strommen, attorney for the Rate Authority.

Although utility regulations require that the cities buy electric power from Xcel, the energy company does not have a monopoly on the sale of poles, lights and maintenance service.

That opens up an opportunity to save money by buying lights and maintenance from competing companies, Strommen said.

The Rate Authority -- an alliance which represents 900,000 suburban residents on utility matters -- expects to report back to the cities on options later this year.

One possibility is that some of the cities could jointly contract with a private company to provide street lights as well as to maintain fixtures and poles. In that case, those cities would only buy power from Xcel Energy.

Some cities' efforts are already underway.

"If we collectively can come up with a new way to look at lighting that is user-friendly, maybe more aesthetically pleasing, and cost-effective ... we will have scored,'' said Gene Dietz, Eden Prairie public works director.

Eden Prairie is currently looking to purchase 29 streetlights, and that will provide a cost comparison for the Rate Authority study. The city is taking bids from Xcel Energy as well as competing companies.

"It seems as if there is a private market out there that would be hungry to get into municipal street lighting,'' Dietz said.

Four private companies have submitted bids ranging from $113,000 to $132,000 to replace the 29 lights. "Xcel is still studying what they would charge,'' Dietz said.

Xcel's bid may indicate how competitive the energy company wants to be in the street lighting business, Dietz said. "We want to learn from that sample.''

Bob Schommer, Xcel's manger of outdoor lighting, said: "The cities certainly are well within their rights to look for the best deal. My comment to the Suburban Rate Authority has been to make sure they are looking at overall life-cycle costs and not just up-front costs.''

Under 25-year contracts, Xcel provides and services most of the streetlights in the metro area, with the exception of St. Paul, which owns and services its own lights, Schommer said.

Other contractors and streetlight manufacturers might offer the cities a better up-front deal, but Xcel would deliver a better value over the 25 years of service, Schommer said.

Steve Caskey, vice president of HPC, LLC consultants in Bloomington, which is advising the Suburban Rate Authority on street lighting options, said Xcel has provided the service for so many years that alternatives have never been considered.

Private companies now exist that could provide streetlights for an entire city, Caskey said. "There really are options.''

Eden Prairie -- with about 4,000 streetlights, most of them leased from and maintained by Xcel -- spends $750,000 a year on street lighting, Dietz said. Savings of even 10 to 15 percent would be "real money" and might be enough of a reason to switch to a different company, Dietz said.

Golden Valley also has an interest in the study because it is replacing many of its 1,080 streetlights as it replaces its streets, said Public Works Director Jeannine Clancy.

Xcel services all of Golden Valley's streetlights, and the city is not happy with the service, Clancy said. "There are outages that seem to go unresponded to for a long period of time, and that needs to be corrected.''

The potential for saving energy and lowering costs by switching from conventional lights to LED streetlights, which use 50 to 60 percent less electricity, is another factor under study by the Rate Authority.

Several cities, including Brooklyn Park, Eden Prairie and Minnetonka, are planning small-scale trials of LED lamps this year.

Minnetonka will test a dozen in its public works building parking lot, said Public Works Director Brian Wagstrom. "The big benefit is the energy saving. The drawback is they have not been out in the field for long. We don't know what their long-term usefulness is,'' he said.

Besides saving energy, LED streetlights last longer than standard fixtures -- 100,000 hours for the LED light versus about 30,000 hours for the standard fixture, said Tanuj Gulati from Energy Management Solutions, consultant to the city of Minnetonka.

LED lights also come on instantly, which means they can be dark until triggered by a motion detector, Gulati said. Standard fixtures take several minutes to light up.

Brooklyn Park is just weeks away from installing 10 LED lights to judge public reaction to them, said Gary Brown, the city's director of engineering and building inspections. "Is this a good light? Is it as bright? Do we get the same coverage?'' All are questions the city wants to answer, Brown said.

Brooklyn Park is considering street lighting options because it's also at the end of its contract with Xcel, Brown said.

Laurie Blake • 612-673-1711