Driving into Mountain View, a small town in southwestern Wyoming, you might catch a glimpse of a herd of grazing buffalo. Atop a nearby ridge, large wind turbines spin, capturing stiff mountain winds to produce clean electricity. Called the “Gateway to the High Uintas” mountains, Mountain View is home to about 1,200 people, and, you might say, sits at a crossroads where tradition meets modernization.

Smart energy use has been important to the community for a long time. In 1991, the town installed 56 street lights along State Highway 414 and 410. Town officials opted for fixtures that were energy efficient for their time and designed to minimize light pollution. By 2010, however, these 20-year-old fixtures each were drawing an estimated 1,095 kWh of electricity annually—or about 61,320 kWh per year combined—a sum considered inefficient by today’s standards.

Seeking a more energy-efficient lighting system, Mountain View applied for and received a $127,000 Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant to perform a streetlight conversion project. Administered through the State of Wyoming, the grant provided 100 percent of the funding— including materials and labor— for the town to replace its old street lights with new light emitting diode (LED) fixtures. A team of two to four workers completed the conversion over the course of a couple of months during the summer of 2010.

The new light fixtures provide better lighting quality and visibility, while minimizing light pollution and reducing the town’s energy and maintenance costs. In fact, the new fixtures use 350 kWh each annually—almost two-thirds less energy than the old lighting. That equates to an annual reduction of 42,924 kWh and a savings of $3,004 a year at current rates.

The interest in streetlight conversions seems to be spreading too. Nearby Evanston, Wyoming, recently undertook its own lighting retrofit. Could your town be next?