The Energy Identification Code (EIC) is a 16-character identifier (code) used in Europe to uniquely identify market participants and energy resources (entities and objects) related to the electricity and gas sector.
EIC codes are used for:
- Transmission System Operators, Market Participants such as traders, producers, consumers, power exchanges, grid operators, suppliers, agents, service providers, etc.
- Local grids where metering points are situated, Market Balance Areas consisting of several local grids, Control Areas, Bidding Zones, etc.
- The physical lines that connect adjacent market (balance) areas or internal lines within an area, including Transmission lines.
- Metering points
- Physical or logical places where an identified object or the IT system of an identified object is or could be located.
- Any object that generates or consumes energy, including Substations, Generation units and Power plants.
The EIC codes are used — among others — in platforms that support EU regulations on transparency and integrity:
- ENTSO-E Transparency Platform for electricity[1]
- ENTSO-G Transparency Platform for gas[2]
- ARIS platform
Actors involved in the EIC coding scheme
The scheme is supported by a central issuing office (CIO), function exercised by ENTSO-E for both the electricity and the gas sectors) and ENTSO-E-authorised local issuing offices (LIOs) in Europe.
On 2021-12-16, IANA registered the urn:eic URN namespace,[3] so now EIC can be used in making semantic triples of Common Information Model (electricity) data or other energy Linked Open Data.