To the directors and vice chancellors of University Facilities and Housing, it seemed almost too good to be true.

A new type of lighting developed by a local company has the potential to drastically reduce power consumption by about 85 percent. It can theoretically last up to 20 years or more before burning out. It could reduce the number of fixtures in any given area while providing the same amount of light or more. And it even has a warmer glow than traditional fluorescent bulbs.

But Barry Olson, associate director of University Housing facilities, was initially skeptical of LED, or light-emitting diode, lighting.

For one, it’s expensive. Olson said each of the light fixtures costs about $110.

So in mid-November, Olson said Housing decided to see what the LEDs could do. Over three days, University electricians spent about 16 hours retrofitting and replacing five lights purchased from Morrisville-based LLF Inc. in the main living areas of a Wolf Village apartment.

The results, Olson said, were amazing.

“I was a skeptic,” Olson said. “The moment we did the install, I was believer.”

He said the installation reduced the power consumption in the hallways and kitchens from 230 watts of fluorescent bulbs to 60 watts of LEDs.

“What we’ve seen is that we’ve increased the lighting dramatically,” Olson said. “The beam of light it casts is just remarkable.”

It’s so bright, in fact, that Olson said residents of the room requested that Housing install dimmer switches to adjust the light level.

He said the color is also more warm and inviting, closer to incandescent bulbs.

“It’s been amazing to see how quickly you can change an environment with lighting,” Olson said.

According to Gary Trott, vice president of market development for LLF Inc., the color of the company’s products is a mark of the evolution of LEDs themselves.

“It’s not just off-the-shelf stuff,” Trott said. “The color is much better than fluorescent.”

Trott said LEDs have been around for a long time. But the industry is beginning to figure out how to create LED fixtures that can compete with incandescent lights, which produce a broad spectrum, or color range, of light.

“The issue is that an LED emits lights of one wavelength only,” Trott said.

That means a limited color range, which can be a deterrent for residential and commercial lighting alike. Trott said it took the development of the blue LED, combined with a yellow coating of phosphorus, to create a viable lighting option.

But even this combination, Trott said, didn’t give the same warm glow people are used to in other lighting. He pointed to the color and intensity of LED flashlights, which use the blue LED-phosphorus combination, as an example.

“Imagine that light in a flashlight in your house,” he said. “You wouldn’t want that.”

Earlier LED technology was also not much better than incandescent in terms of power consumption.

“The efficacy was not good,” Trott said.

LLF’s lighting fixtures combines two LED lights — red and yellow — to achieve the desired effect. Trott said the red LED is saturated, which means it produces one “really vibrant” color. The yellow LED is nonsaturated, which uses coatings to emit a wider spectrum of colors.

“It’s a unique patented approach that nobody else can do,” Trott said.

LEDs are also more efficient at converting power into light than incandescent and fluorescent bulbs, which waste some or most of that power on heat. That means that a 12 watt LED can replace a 75 watt incandescent bulb or a 26 watt compact fluorescent bulb and emit the same amount of light.

Although Olson said the lights are expensive, they could decrease maintenance costs in the long run. Each light will last an average of seven to eight years.

“They could go up to 20 years, but they haven’t been around long enough to guess,” Olson said.

Olson said the energy savings from the LED installation is hard to measure, since the rooms in Wolf Village aren’t metered individually for electricity consumption. He also said adopting the use of the lights might involve a different way of looking at the overall budgets, since the costs and savings come from different places.

“You pay out of the supply line and you save out of utilities,” Olson said.

But between maintenance and energy usage, Olson said the lighting costs could easily equal out.

“We could certainly save the University and the students of the University a significant amount of money,” Olson said.

Olson said Housing and Facilities are considering other destinations for the LED lights, including stairwells across campus and lobby areas in residence halls. He said the installation of the lighting is a possibility for residence halls marked for upcoming renovations — like Bragaw Hall — but stressed that the plans are not yet definite.

“Right now we’re very much in test mode,” Olson said.

With conservation on the minds of the University community, Olson said the new lighting may be an important step for conservation on campus.

“Some students are naturally efficient people,” Olson said. “The best we can do is provide alternatives.”