NEW YORK - The Times Square New Year's Eve ball is celebrating its centennial by going green.

The star of the world-famous holiday extravaganza was revamped this year with 9,576 energy-efficient bulbs that use about the same amount of electricity as 10 toasters.

Philips Lighting, which created the light-emitting diodes, or LED bulbs, specifically for the event, says they are smaller but more than twice as bright as last year's lights, which were a mix of more than 600 incandescent and halogen bulbs.

And the new lights can create a more than 16 million colors making a kaleidoscope of hues against the 672 Waterford Crystal triangles.

“The ball at Times Square - it's iconic,” said Kaj den Daas, chairman of Philips Lighting North America. “The whole world looks up to New York's New Year's Eve. I'm proud to be able to save energy and show off this technology to the world with such a special event.”

The ball was first dropped for the New Year's Eve celebration in 1907. Made of iron and wood, it weighed 700 pounds and was lit with 100 25-watt incandescent bulbs.

Over the century, five other versions of the ball were designed to ring in the New Year. In 1999, the ball was made from crystal to welcome the new millennium.

This year, the motif is “Let There Be Light” and features a stylized, radiating sunburst on each of the crystal triangles.

“All the around the world, people know about the New Year's Eve celebration,” said Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, a business group in charge of the event. The new design and technology “will make the ball glow like nothing else,” he said.

The ball was tested successfully Sunday afternoon, making its way slowly up and down the 77-foot flagpole atop 1 Times Square with bursts of color. More than a million revelers were expected to crowd the streets for the annual New Year's Eve celebration Monday.

The Times Square Alliance was also inflating balloons and testing confetti ahead of the celebration, and planned to hand out hats and mittens to the frosty crowds Monday afternoon. The forecast for New Year's Eve called for snow and temperatures in the 40s.

The celebration this year was scheduled to include countdowns with entertainment gurus Carson Daly and Ryan Seacrest, and performances by Kid Rock, Jordin Sparks, Carrie Underwood and The Bravery.

In addition, the USO Troupe of Metropolitan New York will perform and there was a “salute to armed forces” planned.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was set to share the stage with recent Police Academy valedictorian Karolina Wierzchowska, who also served in Iraq and worked at ground zero after the Sept. 11 attack.

Also this year, wishes of people from around the world would be included among the confetti dropped when the clock strikes twelve. For the first time, anyone can write their wishes for the New Year on the multicolored confetti by visiting the Times Square Information Center or by typing a message on a “virtual wishing wall” online.

Those message-carrying pieces were to be mixed in with the rest of the confetti, organizers said. More than one ton of confetti is dropped in Times Square on New Year's Eve.

A small army of sanitation workers will be deployed to sweep up the more than 40 tons of party hats, noisemakers and paper streamers that end up on the streets after the event.

The Department of Sanitation says it will have 109 workers, 16 mechanical sweepers, 13 collection trucks, 14 leaf blowers and other street cleaning equipment ready to move in as soon as Times Square is cleared of the hundreds of thousands of merrymakers.

During last year's festivities, the department spent $37,216 to pick up 42 tons of paper debris.