Electricity supplier Powercor said an inspection team was flying a helicopter across 1088 kilometres in the Wimmera across the month of March, taking aerial photos of more than 6,000 poles.

Head of Digital, Luke Skinner said if adopted, the practice could save customers money while keeping the network safe.

"Traditionally, our ground crews inspect the powerlines but this is time-intensive, particularly when compared to the speed and distances a helicopter can travel," Mr Skinner said.

"By using a helicopter, our team is able to fly quickly along large stretches of poles and wires. We can capture high-resolution imagery from helicopters and continue to train our computer vision algorithms to find irregularities while we progress with aerial photo research and development."

A spokeswoman for Powercor said ground crews were also inspecting the poles over the same period.

"We chose Horsham for this trial as it coincided with where our ground based inspections were being held. This allowed us to run both the ground-based and aerial inspections at the same time and be able to compare results," she said.

"The aerial inspections are more efficient and cost less to operate."

The second trial site is the Winchelsea area, west of Geelong.