Improving Critical Infrastructure Security with Enterprise Vision AI

Overview

For one of the largest municipally owned energy providers in the United States, maintaining the security of critical infrastructure is essential to ensuring reliable service across a major metropolitan area and portions of seven surrounding counties.

The organization delivers electricity to more than 900,000 customers and natural gas to more than 375,000 customers. Its operational footprint includes power generation facilities, substations, data centers, maintenance yards, remote operational sites, thousands of miles of electric transmission and distribution infrastructure, and thousands of miles of natural gas distribution infrastructure.

As a public power utility, reliability, resilience, and safety are central to the organization’s mission. Every operating dollar saved can be reinvested in the community, funding modernization and helping protect the people and assets that keep essential services running.

Working with systems integrator CelPlan, the organization deployed an enterprise video system enhanced by the Vaidio AI Vision Platform. The deployment modernized a large, distributed camera environment into an intelligent, enterprise-scale security solution spanning more than 1,300 cameras, 79 facilities, and 100+ servers.

By converting video into real-time operational intelligence, the deployment enables proactive threat detection, centralized monitoring, faster investigations, and improved visibility across distributed critical infrastructure.

The Challenge and Opportunity

Like many large-scale infrastructure operators, the organization faced the challenge of securing a highly distributed and complex environment with systems that had evolved over time.

Existing video surveillance infrastructure had grown across many sites, systems, and project phases. This made it difficult to maintain consistent visibility, centralize security workflows, and respond quickly to incidents. Security teams relied heavily on manual monitoring, limiting their ability to detect and act on threats in real time.

At the same time, the scale and diversity of the environment created an opportunity to move beyond traditional surveillance. With AI analytics now practical at enterprise scale, the organization had the opportunity to unify a complex camera footprint, add intelligence to existing infrastructure, and support a more proactive security model.

Three priorities shaped the initiative:

• Unified visibility across a distributed video footprint
• Proactive intelligence to help operators focus on the events that matter most
• A scalable architecture that could adapt to diverse site conditions and support future expansion

“We needed a platform that could unify a highly complex environment while giving us the flexibility to adapt to each site’s unique requirements.” - Utility physical security leadership

The Solution

To address these challenges, CelPlan designed and implemented a modernized, enterprise-scale video system integrating Genetec Security Center with the Vaidio AI Vision Platform.

The deployment spans more than 1,300 cameras across 79 facilities and is supported by more than 100 servers. The architecture was designed for enterprise-scale performance, high availability, and continued expansion across critical infrastructure environments.

Vaidio was integrated directly into the existing Genetec environment, enabling the organization to enhance its current investment without requiring a rip-and-replace of its video infrastructure. This integration created a unified operational view, combining Genetec’s video management capabilities with Vaidio’s advanced AI analytics.

CelPlan supported the deployment across the full lifecycle, including system architecture, procurement, staging, installation, site-level testing, administrator and end-user training, SOC enablement, and ongoing support. Equipment was pre-configured prior to deployment, helping minimize operational disruption and accelerate time to value.

Enterprise-Scale Video Intelligence with Vaidio

At the core of the solution is Vaidio’s distributed architecture, which processes video data closer to where it is generated. This approach reduces bandwidth requirements, improves response times, and enables scalable deployment across geographically dispersed sites.

Vaidio transforms existing cameras into intelligent sensors that automatically detect and alert on potential threats without overwhelming the network or the Security Operations Center. The platform enables centrally managed monitoring while allowing analytics to be fine-tuned to specific operational environments.

Precision tuning is a key part of the deployment. Unlike traditional black box analytics, Vaidio allows CelPlan and the customer to optimize analytics camera by camera, accounting for placement, field of view, lighting, and operational role. This helps reduce false positives, improve alert quality, and preserve flexibility across a diverse infrastructure footprint.

“Vaidio gave us the flexibility to design around the customer’s infrastructure—not the other way around.” - CelPlan project lead

Advanced Security and Safety Analytics

The platform transforms the organization’s camera network into a proactive security system through AI-driven analytics, including:

• Intrusion detection for people and vehicles in restricted areas
• License plate recognition for vehicle identification and tracking
• Object detection and tracking across multiple environments
• PPE monitoring for safety compliance at active operational sites

These capabilities enable the system to automatically detect and alert on potential threats, delivering actionable intelligence directly to the Security Operations Center.

Instead of relying on continuous manual stream-watching, operators can focus on prioritized, structured alerts. This improves response speed, reduces operational burden, and helps security teams act on real events more efficiently.

Seamless Integration and Deployment

Vaidio’s integration with Genetec enables a unified monitoring experience, bringing AI-driven insights into existing security workflows without disruption.

CelPlan managed the full deployment lifecycle, including system design, staging, installation, testing, training, and ongoing support. The project was delivered on time and on budget, with multiple expansions since the original deployment began.

By combining Vaidio with the customer’s existing systems, CelPlan and Vaidio helped turn a complex camera network into an intelligent, proactive security platform without forcing the customer to replace its existing video infrastructure.

“By combining Vaidio with the utility’s existing systems, we were able to turn a complex camera network into an intelligent, proactive security platform.” - CelPlan engineering team

Results

By combining scalable infrastructure, a high-availability architecture, and AI-powered video analytics, the organization transformed its surveillance environment into a proactive security solution.

Security teams now have centralized visibility across a wide network of critical assets, enabling faster detection and response to potential threats. The system reduces reliance on manual monitoring while improving overall operational awareness.

Key outcomes include:

• Enhanced security across critical infrastructure through real-time threat detection
• More than 1,300 cameras unified across 79 facilities
• 100+ servers supporting enterprise-scale deployment
• Reduced vandalism across monitored sites
• Proactive monitoring of distributed assets across multiple facilities
• Reduced reliance on manual surveillance processes
• Reduced false positives through camera-by-camera analytics tuning
• Faster investigations, with review workflows compressed from hours to minutes
• Centralized management of a large-scale camera deployment
• Delivered on time and on budget
• Multiple expansions since the initial deployment
• Scalable architecture supporting ongoing growth and future requirements

Together, these capabilities demonstrate how Vaidio can enhance enterprise video systems by adding intelligent analytics that improve both security and operational effectiveness at scale.

The deployment stands as one of the most ambitious AI Vision programs in the U.S. public power sector, showing how a large utility can modernize security operations while preserving existing infrastructure investments.

About CelPlan

CelPlan is a global systems integrator specializing in advanced technology solutions for complex, large-scale environments.

For this deployment, CelPlan played a key role in designing and implementing the enterprise video system, integrating Vaidio with existing infrastructure, and supporting seamless operation across distributed sites.

CelPlan’s experience with mission-critical environments, combined with Vaidio’s flexible and scalable AI platform, enabled the delivery of a future-ready solution tailored to the unique needs of critical infrastructure security.