A town in Massachusetts, U.S. has decided to put its LED streetlight upgrade on hold, even though it had received funding from Department of Energy Resources in conjunction with the town’s new status as a Green Community, reported The Patriot Ledger.

Cohasset has tried to generate an accurate streetlight count since early fall, but officials noted the National Grid was unresponsive.

The town’s alternative energy committee recently said the Jan. 22, 2016 deadline for seeking the grant was too short.

“The current grant funding ($141,000) needs to be fully utilized by this time next year in order to be eligible for further competitive $250,000 grants,” Town Engineer Brian Joyce said. “If we waited on the street lights … we’d run the risk of losing that eligibility.”

The town intends to use the grant money to replace the sodium bulbs in municipal streetlights with brighter, more efficient LEDs, but it cannot purchase the LEDs until it finishes the streetlight count.

Instead of making a last minute purchase of the LED lights, officials decided to pursue different use of the grant money.

The money will be used to upgrade exterior lighting at three schools in the town, the Cohasset Teen Center and the public works department. The school will install heat distribution fans in the middle school or high school gym, and replace an electric motor controller at the police station.

The state Department of Energy Resources informed the town that its Green Communities application was approved on Dec. 22, 2015, and that it would be offering a grant of US $141,460 after the town submitted the required paperwork outlining how the money would be used.

Over the summer, the town hired a contractor to do an energy consumption report to show that the town met Green Community requirements. The contractor was only able to locate 449 out of 550 streetlights listed on National Grid’s Cohasset map, and found 88 lamps were no longer functioning.

It is estimated the town would be able to save 16% of its energy bills through the early lighting retrofits to be carried out at public buildings and electric motor controllers installed at the schools.

The LED streetlight conversion to be rolled out in the town is expected to save another 2% to 3% energy savings. The alternative energy committee hopes to bring the energy savings close to 20% by this time next year, according with the energy-use reduction plan it submitted with the Green Community application.