A Richmond manufacturing company was selected to produce a new street light technology that could result in huge energy savings for cities, businesses and individuals around the globe.

LAD-JD Lighting of Muncie designed a new patent-pending LED street light that uses 90 percent less energy than current street lights. The Muncie company then stumbled across Richmond's CMJ Corp. -- a Department of Defense contractor -- during Google Internet searches to try to find a nearby manufacturer that could mass-produce the technology.

The unit uses just 13 watts of power compared to a traditional street light that uses 300. According to research done by LAD-JD Lighting, that equates to a savings of nearly $120 a year per light.

According to the city, Richmond has 6,401 lights and 100 dusk-to-dawn lights that the city pays Richmond Power & Light to power.

On average, the city would save roughly $780,000 a year by switching to LAD-JD's energy-efficient lights compared to traditional street lamps.