The new technology will also be able to tell City Services when there's a blown bulb or another problem.

Workers will be replacing over half of Canberra's 80,000 streetlights' existing incandescent light bulbs with new LED lights over the next seven years.

The government hopes the 45,000 new streetlights will cut carbon dioxide emissions by 80,000 tonnes per year, saving about 20 million kilowatt hours per year.

Streetlights account for one quarter of the ACT's government's power usage and in the 2016 / 17 financial year, the government spend $50,000 upgrading the lights and $300,000 on maintenance.

The National Capital Authority replaced their streetlights over Anzac Parade with similar smart technology using plasma bulbs in February last year.

The new bulbs were expected to reduce power consumption by 43 per cent.

Canberra's streetlights have been a long running issue for the ACT government with both the previous Kate Carnell government and the current Andrew Barr government unsuccessfully attempting to sell them off.

Last year the government began to privately outsource management of the streetlights.

City services minister Christ Steel said the lights would have a longer lifespan, lasting 20 years, and need less maintenance.

"Smart streetlight technology means that we will now know when there is an outage and it can be fixed sooner," Mr Steel said on Thursday.

The government said it would develop a new central management system which will allow them to monitor the streetlights in real time, with the lights automatically detecting any failures.

The LED lights also mean less wasted light, with the light from the new streetlights more directional than normal bulbs.

Workers from Affinity Electrical were seen swapping out some of the old bulbs for the new LED ones by Lake Burley Griffin on Thursday.

The swap is part of the government's plan for zero net emissions by 2020.