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BIM Substation Designer: Bringing Substation Design into a True BIM Environment

Utilities are under increasing pressure to deliver more infrastructure projects, coordinate across more disciplines, and manage design data more effectively across the full asset lifecycle. At the same time, many substation design workflows still depend on disconnected tools, manual updates, and document-based review processes that make collaboration harder than it needs to be. 

That was the focus of our recent webinar introducing BIM Substation Designer, SBS’s Revit-native platform for substation design. 

During the session, Kevin Whyte, VP of Substations, and Steve Kaufman, Product Owner for 3D Physical Substation Design Solutions, walked through why SBS is investing in Revit, how BIM Substation Designer helps close the gap between Revit and utility substation workflows, and what the product enables today.

Why Revit, and Why Now? 

SBS has worked in intelligent substation design for many years, with tools built on Autodesk platforms including Inventor, AutoCAD Electrical, and AutoCAD Map 3D. Those tools remain important, but the industry is moving toward more model-based, data-driven workflows. 

That shift is being driven by several factors: 

  • Broader BIM adoption across the utility industry 
  • The need for a single model to serve as the source of engineering and data truth 
  • Greater demand for collaboration across physical, electrical, civil, and project teams 
  • Increased pressure to standardize design workflows and reduce manual rework 
  • A growing need to connect design data to downstream systems and lifecycle processes 

BIM Substation Designer was created to support that transition. The goal is not simply to model substations in 3D. It is to bring substation-specific intelligence, data, and engineering logic into the Revit environment. 

Closing the Gap Between Revit and Substation Design

Revit provides a strong BIM foundation, but substation design requires workflows that are specific to utility infrastructure. Traditional design processes often involve manual modeling, disconnected updates, limited in-model validation, and fragmented collaboration across tools. 

BIM Substation Designer addresses those gaps by adding utility-specific capabilities directly into Revit, including:

  • Substation component libraries and catalogs 
  • Configurable equipment and fittings 
  • Intelligent placement using BSD connectors 
  • Bus, cable, ground grid, and grounding lead creation tools 
  • Connectivity modeling 
  • Configurable bill of material schedules 
  • Import and export workflows for family and type data 
  • Support for project-specific and standards-based libraries 

The result is a Revit-based workflow that better reflects how substations are designed, reviewed, and maintained.

A Configurable Library for Utility Standards

 BIM Substation Designer includes an out-of-the-box library, but it is designed to be adapted to each utility’s standards. Teams can create master catalogs, project-specific catalogs, read-only catalogs for third parties, and working catalogs for controlled model development. 

This matters because substation design is not one-size-fits-all. Utilities need the ability to control which components are used, how those components are modeled, and what data is attached to them. 

By managing libraries and catalogs in a structured way, teams can support more consistent modeling practices while still giving designers the flexibility they need on real projects. 

Intelligent Placement and BSD Connectors 

A major part of the demonstration focused on BSD connectors. 

These connectors allow components to be placed in the correct location and orientation within the model. For example, when Steve placed a switch on a steel support, BIM Substation Designer used the connector to locate and orient the switch properly. 

That same connector framework supports more than placement. It also helps establish relationships between components. The software can understand that a fitting is connected to a bus, a cable, or another item in the model. 

That connectivity is foundational for future engineering workflows, including phase tracing, clearance checks, and AI-assisted model review. 

Modeling Bus, Cable, and Ground Grid Workflows 

The webinar also demonstrated several physical design workflows, including bus creation, cable placement, cable shaping, and ground grid generation. 

For bus and cable, designers can select the relevant fittings, choose the appropriate material or conductor type, and generate the modeled element directly in Revit. Cable routing can also be adjusted to reflect the desired path or sag. 

For grounding, the demo showed how a ground grid can be generated from a DWG layout. Many utilities already create ground grid layouts in third-party tools, so BIM Substation Designer supports importing that DWG geometry and converting it into modeled ground grid elements with associated material data and calculated lengths. 

Once modeled, those elements can be reflected in Revit schedules, giving teams a more accurate view of quantities and material requirements. 

Data as the Foundation for the Future 

The long-term value of BIM Substation Designer is not only in the 3D model, its also in the data behind the model. 

The webinar highlighted how connectivity, metadata, component information, and placement data can be used to support more advanced workflows over time. When the system understands what is in the station, where it is located, and how it is connected, that data can be used for validation, reporting, downstream integration, and AI-assisted design workflows. 

That is an important part of SBS’s broader product direction. BIM Substation Designer is being built not only as a design tool, but as a foundation for more connected, automated, and intelligent substation workflows. 

What Is Available Today and What Is Coming Next? 

The webinar included several product roadmap notes. 

Today, BIM Substation Designer supports Revit 2026, with Revit 2027 support planned. The product includes tools for component placement, bus, cable, ground grid creation, grounding workflows, configurable libraries, BOM schedules, and connectivity modeling. 

Additional capabilities are in development, including: 

  • Worksharing support 
  • Expanded conduit layout tools 
  • Bus cutting schedules 
  • Additional grounding enhancements 
  • Clearance checks 
  • Lightning protection workflows 
  • Dynamic force analysis for short circuits 
  • Continued development of protection and control functionality in Revit 

SBS is also continuing to build out training resources, documentation, videos, and community support to help customers adopt the platform. 

A New Foundation for Substation Design 

BIM Substation Designer represents an important step toward a more connected model-based design environment for substations. 

By bringing substation-specific workflows into Revit, SBS is helping utilities move beyond disconnected tools and manual design processes. The platform gives teams a way to standardize design, improve collaboration, manage data more effectively, and prepare for more automated workflows in the future. 

For utilities looking to modernize substation design, BIM Substation Designer provides a practical path into BIM without losing the engineering logic and utility-specific workflows that substation teams depend on. 

Watch the full webinar recording above to see BIM Substation Designer in action. 

To learn more about BIM Substation Designer or discuss how it could fit into your substation design workflows, contact us here.