Work on the urban electricity grid remains invisible to passers-by, yet it is what allows everything else to function. TimelapseLab supported Editel in the monitoring of the Unareti construction site on Via Salemi, in Milan.
The installed device remained connected to the TimelapseLab cloud platform for the entire duration of the project, capturing images at regular intervals. The archive makes it possible to go back to any phase of the works and to extract time-lapse content summarising their progress.
Working on a node of the distribution network means operating under constraints that do not depend on the site itself: work windows are agreed with the network operator, some operations can only be carried out under specific operating conditions, and any slippage has knock-on effects on a chain of authorisations that has already been scheduled.
In this context, frequent progress checks serve to protect the schedule. Knowing precisely where a phase stands, without having to send someone to check, makes it possible to confirm or renegotiate a window with sufficient notice. The time-stamped archive then supports reporting to the network operator, where traceability of the works is part of the job.
A project of this length spans several of the network operator’s planning cycles. Continuous documentation makes it possible to reconstruct, years later, what configuration the installation was in at a given moment: information that is needed for later inspections and maintenance activities, when the memory of those who carried out the works is no longer available and the design documentation does not always reflect what was actually built.
Work on the distribution network also involves excavations affecting underground utilities belonging to different operators. Knowing when a section was opened, what was found and how it was closed again avoids the uncertain reconstructions that slow down subsequent work along the same route. It is the kind of information nobody documents until it is needed – and by then it can no longer be recovered.
Site monitoring on Via Salemi documented the construction process through periodic images, distinct from continuous video surveillance, with automatic blurring of faces and number plates in line with a privacy-by-design approach.
