The glow of streetlights in Cherry Hill will soon shift from soft amber to bright white, a change in the nighttime aesthetic that engineers say will be accompanied by a significant decline in township electricity use.

"About 80 percent of the towns in our coverage area use the old mercury-vapor lights," said Benjamin White, a project manager with PSE&G, New Jersey's largest utility provider with 2.1 million electric customers.

Cherry Hill, where nearly all the streetlights were mercury vapor, already has begun installing 4,280 energy-efficient induction-fluorescent models. The conversion will cut electricity use for lighting by as much as 50 percent, White said.

The $50 million streetlight program, which so far involves about 85 cities and towns, is one of $1.2 billion worth of utility-financed projects scheduled to get under way across New Jersey in the next few months.

Last fall, during the stock market crisis, Gov. Corzine called on utility companies to implement long-term infrastructure and energy-efficiency projects to help prop up the state economy. He promised to expedite the typically lengthy reviews to which such projects are subjected.

The work, expected to create 2,300 jobs, has been authorized by the state Board of Public Utilities and is to be completed by the end of 2010. Loans taken by the companies to finance the projects will result in increased rates for utility customers.

"There was a quick turnaround because it was so obvious it needed to be done," said Jeanne Fox, the board president. "We have old cast-iron pipes and old transformers. We only did your basic backbone construction to make the system more reliable, more secure."

Projects such as replacing transmission cables and making infrastructure more energy efficient are in line with President Obama's plans for a "smart" electrical grid, which would require enhancements to the nation's transmission and distribution networks. Nationally, $22 billion in economic-stimulus money is scheduled to be released for those and green energy projects, said Joel Kurtzman, an economist with the Milken Institute, a Los Angeles think tank.

But that will cover only a small fraction of the cost of overhauling the nation's grids, he said. New Jersey is in a small minority of states that have chosen not only to compete for federal stimulus money but also to go out on their own in improving their energy networks, Kurtzman said.

"It's pretty gutsy because they're doing it in the face of very limited resources," he said. "If you walk into any state right now and talk about raising rates on anything you're not going to meet with very much approval, not in this environment."

Rate increases, which were approved by the state Board of Public Utilities, have gone into effect and vary by company. PSE&G electric customers, for instance, will pay an additional 36 cents a month on average, while Atlantic City Electric customers will pay an extra six cents.

With the $787 billion federal economic-stimulus plan expected to yield between $18 billion and $25 billion for projects in New Jersey, one utility commissioner, Elizabeth Randall, questioned why state officials would proceed with their own effort to stimulate employment.

"I didn't think there were enough jobs to justify the rate increase," Randall said of her vote to deny approval of the utility projects. "You start to add it all up and you wonder, 'Why are we doing this when we know federal money is coming our way?' "

Most of New Jersey's municipalities, many of which had worked to improve their energy efficiency in light of state funding cuts, have eagerly signed on for programs such as streetlight replacement, said William Dressel, president of the state's League of Municipalities.

"This is a real gift," said Sara Lipsett, a Cherry Hill councilwoman. "Our main concern is keeping our taxes down, and it's a constant battle to keep our budget as tight and lean as possible. That's the real impetus behind the sustainability movement."

The township, which originally expected to spend $844,000 of its $63 million budget to power the lights, anticipates significant savings after PSE&G is compensated for the cost of the induction fluorescents.

During the last 12 months, Cherry Hill audited its electricity use at Town Hall and approved installation of a new heating and air-conditioning system and rooftop solar panels, all to be paid for with federal stimulus money.

For Stefanie Brand, director of the New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel, which reviewed the state-authorized projects, improvements in energy efficiency justify the cost to consumers.

The increase in utility rates is "less than 1 percent," she said. "There are 37 million existing buildings in the state. There is so much more work to do than the federal stimulus program can support. We absolutely have to do both."

Contact staff writer James Osborne at 856-779-3876 or jaosborne@phillynews.com.