Energy Identification Code

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), which function is exercised by the ENTSO-E Secretariat for both the electricity and gas sectors, and ENTSO-E-authorised Local Issuing Offices (LIOs) in Europe. As of 2024-12-17, there are 62 LIOs ^[3]

EIC consists of 16 characters structured as follows: ^{[4] [5]}

• 2 digits: LIO id
• 1 letter: resource type as per the table below.
• 12 chars: LIO-specific identifier, padded on the right with dashes
• 1 char: checksum

EIC types (see EIC Definitions for more details ^[6] ):

type	name
A	Substation
T	Tieline
V	Location
W	Resource Object
X	Party
Y	Area or Domain
Z	Measurement point

On 2021-12-16, IANA registered the urn:eic URN namespace, ^[7] so now EIC can be used in making semantic triples of Common Information Model (electricity) data or other energy Linked Open Data.

References

1. "ENTSO-E Transparency Platform" . Retrieved 22 August 2022.
2. "ENTSO-G Transparency Platform" . Retrieved 22 August 2022.
3. "EIC LIO Websites". Energy Identification Codes (EICs). ENTSO-E. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
4. "THE ENERGY IDENTIFICATION CODING SCHEME (EIC) REFERENCE MANUAL" (PDF). ENTSO-E. 2022-02-01. p. 16. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
5. "EIC Codes". BulgarTransGaz. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
6. "Definitions of EIC functions" (PDF). ENTSO-E. October 2024. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
7. "Namespace Registration for Energy Identification Coding Scheme (EIC)". IANA. 16 December 2021. Retrieved 22 August 2022.