Pepco's program to replace streetlights in municipalities like the Town of Somerset should be halted and investigated by the state Public Service Commission, according to a complaint filed this week by a town councilman.

Alan Proctor's complaint to the PSC, which regulates public utilities, was filed Oct. 13, a week before Somerset residents met with Pepco on Oct. 20 at the Town Hall to discuss the number of outages in the town recently, including a power surge on Sept. 30 that damaged residents' electronic equipment.

In his 13-page complaint, Proctor said Pepco's plan to replace older mercury vapor streetlights with more environmentally friendly, high-pressure sodium lamps is simply replacing one obsolete technology with another. Instead, Proctor argued that using newer light-emitting diode technology would save energy and money in the long term, boost energy efficiency and improve public safety by increasing in brightness when someone walks underneath them and flickering to guide emergency workers to a location.

Proctor, who filed his complaint as a private citizen, did give Pepco credit for agreeing to a 10-light LED pilot program in the town, which currently has 174 mercury vapor streetlights. But he strongly questioned whether Pepco's program was truly in the public interest, and said the PSC should clarify that Pepco is not a monopoly provider of streetlights.

"My concern is that, if Pepco is permitted to continue on its current course, its program will cause much of Maryland to miss a significant opportunity to implement better, more environmentally friendly streetlights," Proctor wrote in his complaint to the PSC.

Pepco spokesman Robert Dobkin said Pepco had no comment about Proctor's complaint.

Pepco is switching its streetlights because a 2005 federal law banned the manufacture of a certain portion of the fixture in mercury vapor lights after 2007. High pressure sodium lights are also more energy efficient than mercury vapor lights, Dobkin said.

In a presentation to the Somerset Town Council in May, Pepco government affairs manager Charles Washington told council members the switch to sodium lamps would save the town $2,000 a month in electricity bills with no upfront costs. But Proctor argued this switch could hamper the town's ability to eventually upgrade to LED streetlights.

The Town of Chevy Chase has hired a Washington, D.C.-based consultant to examine options for upgrading its streetlights. Officials there have mentioned the purchase of its 281 streetlight fixtures from Pepco as a possibility. Chevy Chase View paid $157,000 to upgrade 75 of its streetlights to high-pressure sodium lamps about five years ago.

Proctor's colleague on the council, Mayor Jeffrey Slavin, said he worried Proctor's complaint could hurt the town's relationship with Pepco, and noted that there didn't seem to be a lot of public concern about the issue.

"That isn't the route that I would have taken," Slavin said.

But Somerset residents have begun to question the causes behind the number of power outages in the town recently, according to Slavin. A power surge during the overnight period of Sept. 30 caused damage to some residents' electronic equipment.

Slavin called Pepco's agreement to meet with residents "very responsive."

There have been nine power outages in the energy infrastructure supplying Somerset so far this year, with the most recent occurring on Oct. 7. Not all Somerset residents lost power in these outages. There are no underlying problems with Pepco's infrastructure in Somerset, Dobkin said.

"We're living in an urban forest, and trees are the biggest cause of outages," Dobkin said. "Occasionally you hear about a tree coming down on a sunny day."

Resident Tom Diamond said the Sept. 30 power surge destroyed one of his cable boxes as well as two surge protectors he had installed in his fuse box. He estimated that the surge protectors could cost at least $800 to replace. He wrote to Slavin about the matter Sept. 30.

"Other neighbors have been complaining about it for a couple of years," Diamond said.