# Coastal Grid > Coastal Grid is a San Luis Obispo, California-based engineering consulting firm specializing in utility substation protection, automation, and advanced grid technologies. P.E.-led, vendor-agnostic, serving investor-owned utilities, IPPs, renewable developers, and EPCs across North America with deep concentration in the WECC footprint. Core expertise: IEC 61850, Remedial Action Schemes (RAS) and Centralized RAS (CRAS), digital substations, emerging virtual protection and control (virtualization), and IED configuration across SEL, GE, Siemens, and ABB platforms. Founded and led by Braden Olson, P.E., formerly responsible for the next-generation IEC 61850 substation automation and protection standardization at Southern California Edison, and a leader in protection and control at Salt River Project where he helped design and commission one of the largest Remedial Action Scheme systems in the western United States. ## Credentials and certifications - Registered Professional Engineer (P.E.), California - HUBZone Certified small business - California Small Business Certified - WECC Remedial Action Scheme Reliability Subcommittee (RASRS) participant - One of a select few firms officially approved to provide RAS services to a major California utility ## Services - [Design / Project Engineering](https://coastalgrid.com/services/design/): Electrical substation design, drafting, and project management for 4 kV to 500 kV utility projects, including IED rack layouts, schematics, logic design, project management, and standards development. - [Substation Protection](https://coastalgrid.com/services/protection/): Protection design, configuration, and commissioning for substation, generation, transmission, and distribution systems, including IEC 61850 Sampled Values, GOOSE, merging unit design, relay coordination studies, and NERC compliance. Emerging capability in virtual (virtualized) protection and control, lab-tested with utilities. - [Automation & Control](https://coastalgrid.com/services/automation/): Substation, generation, transmission, and distribution automation with deep protocol expertise in DNP3, Modbus, Mirrored Bits, and IEC 61850 MMS, GOOSE, Sampled Values, PTP, PRP, and HSR. RTU, HMI, PLC, gateway, and SCADA design and configuration. - [IED Configuration](https://coastalgrid.com/services/configuration/): Vendor-agnostic IED configuration across SEL, GE, Siemens, and ABB tooling, including SEL Grid Configurator, SEL Architect, SEL QuickSet, SEL RTAC, GE EnerVista, GE S1 Agile, Siemens DIGSI, Siemens System Configurator, and ABB PCM600. - [Remedial Action Schemes (RAS)](https://coastalgrid.com/services/ras/): 15+ years of utility-level RAS and Centralized RAS (CRAS) engineering. One of a select few firms officially approved to provide RAS services to a major California utility, a designation held by only a small number of contractors and one of the most difficult credentials to earn. RAS work spans both utility-side substations and customer interconnection sites, including renewable developer, IPP, and EPC interconnects tying generation and storage into the bulk system. WECC RASRS participant. - [Commissioning & Testing](https://coastalgrid.com/services/testing/): Factory and site acceptance testing for substation automation and protection systems with expertise in Doble, Omicron, IEDScout, and Wireshark across relay and IED testing. ## Featured Projects - [RAS engineering for the Bellefield Solar Project (AES Corporation)](https://coastalgrid.com/projects/): Remedial Action Scheme logic design and relay configurations for Phase 1 of the AES Bellefield Solar Project in Kern County, California. At 2 GW when fully built out, Bellefield will be the largest solar-plus-storage facility in the United States. Engineered RAS at both utility and customer sites to bring Phase 1 online in 2025. Continuing engagement through full buildout. - [Centralized Protection across three vendor platforms (Southern California Edison)](https://coastalgrid.com/projects/): Multi-vendor centralized protection configuration and testing (GE, SEL, Siemens) for SCE's Fully Digital Substation initiative. Validated protection schemes, IEC 61850 Sampled Values, GOOSE, PRP network redundancy, and PTP time synchronization. - [Protection and Automation Standards Development (Major California IOU)](https://coastalgrid.com/projects/): Lead technical resource for substation protection and automation standards at Southern California Edison. Authored standard schematics, logic prints, and the related documentation deployed utility-wide. - [Fully Digital IEC 61850 Substation Pilot (via Tesco Automation)](https://coastalgrid.com/projects/): Fully digital substation pilot for a major California utility with multi-vendor IEC 61850 interoperability, merging units, and full lab replica validation. - [20+ Remedial Action Scheme projects](https://coastalgrid.com/projects/): Over 20 individual RAS projects spanning both utility-side CRAS work for one of the largest California utilities and customer-side interconnection sites for renewable developers, IPPs, and EPCs. - [Ultimate Dataset Project (Large California utility)](https://coastalgrid.com/projects/): Comprehensive IEC 61850 pointlists deployed across the utility's automation system, including SCL files and relay firmware upgrades on GE and SEL devices. - [Standard IED file development (Major California utility)](https://coastalgrid.com/projects/): 250+ standard IED configuration files developed and maintained across the utility's fleet, with templates for all protection and automation device classes. ## Products - [StationBolt](https://coastalgrid.com/stationbolt/): A Windows desktop application built by Coastal Grid for vendor-agnostic IEC 61850 substation configuration. Targets SEL, GE, Siemens, ABB, Schneider, and NR IEDs. Includes a single-line designer, GOOSE and Sampled Values subscriber views (Sankey and Matrix), three-gate validation engine, CID/DWG/SCD generation, live GOOSE/SV/MMS/PTP network monitoring, and Azure AD + Windows Hello MFA with RBAC. Companion product DeviceBolt handles commissioning. Currently in early access for select utilities. Platform: WinUI 3 on Windows 11. ## Vendor expertise SEL, GE, Siemens, ABB. Native fluency in every major IED platform used in North American utility substations. No vendor allegiance. ## Service area North America, with deep concentration in the WECC (Western Electricity Coordinating Council) footprint. Headquartered in San Luis Obispo, California. ## Engagement model Direct contracts with utilities, IPPs, and renewable developers, or subcontracted through EPCs. Every project is led personally by a Registered Professional Engineer with hands-on substation experience. ## Contact - Phone: (805) 242-6458 - Email: contact@coastalgrid.com - Address: 2950 Broad Street #1022, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coastalgrid/ ## Optional - [About Coastal Grid](https://coastalgrid.com/about/): Company background, founder bio, credentials, process. - [Projects](https://coastalgrid.com/projects/): Full featured project portfolio. - [Contact](https://coastalgrid.com/contact-us/): Get in touch with a P.E.