Energy Identification Coding scheme (EIC) is used by the ENTSO-E, ENTSOG and the EU energy market participants to identify objects in the energy infrastructure like (the list non-exhaustive):

  • system operators, traders, producers, consumers, power exchanges, grid operators, suppliers, agents, service providers, etc.,
  • local grids where metering points are situated, market balance areas consisting of a number of local grids, control areas, etc.,
  • cross border connections, metering points, settlement or accounting points, etc.,
  • any object that generates, or consumes energy,
  • the physical lines that connect adjacent market (balance) areas or internal lines within an area,
  • the physical or logical places where an identified object or the IT system of an identified object is or could be located,
  • substations for electrical nodes (stations, passive nodes, etc.). 

                       
                 
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Q4 2022

REMIT Quarterly, Issue No. 31 /Q4 2022 - Updated List of accepted EIC codes

 The fourth and last 2022 quarterly update of the List of accepted IC codes was published on the REMIT section of the ACER website on 20 December. The new edition of the List of Accepted EIC incorporates four new IC as requested by stakeholders. Furthermore, by the end of 2022, ACER delisted 44 EICs - 39 of them referred to in-country or cross-country interconnections points exclusively in relation to non-EU countries, which is why they were outside the scope of REMIT data reporting, while the other five codes referred to gas Virtual Interconnection Points, which constitute bundled interconnection capacity.

The next update of the List of accepted EIC codes will occur by the end of Q1 2023.

 


 

Structure for the EIC management

 

EIC system is managed through a means of a four level structure, with the involvement of EIC Participants, Local Issuing Offices (LIO), Central Issuing Offices (CIO) and ENTSO-E.


Level 1: EIC Participant


EIC Participant is a physical or legal entity which is allocated one or several EIC code(s) by an authorised LIO. The quality of being “EIC Participant” applies as soon as an entity applies for an EIC code. The EIC Participant submits a request for an EIC code for an identifying party or for an object. The role of the EIC Participant consists in providing the LIO with the information necessary for the EIC code creation and all necessary updates.


Level 2: Local Issuing Office (LIO)

 

clip2   Links

 

Full list of Y-Z-W EIC codes available on ENTSO-E website

Each country, which directly or indirectly is a part of the European energy network, can have one or more LIO for issuing EIC codes. In addition, an energy association, (such as ENTSO-E, EFET, BDEW, DVGW, etc.) can also become a LIO. The LIO manages the EIC codes it allocates and maintains a local registry.


Level 3: Central Issuing Office (CIO)


The CIO is currently under the direct responsibility of ENTSO-E. It ensures the management of the central registry and the acceptance of LIOs.


Level 4: ENTSO-E

 

ENTSO-E defines after consulting the LIOs the governance of the EIC scheme and maintains the EIC Reference manual.

 

Local and International EIC codes 

 

EIC codes are assigned at the local as well as at the international level. According to the ENTSO-E Energy Identification Coding Scheme (EIC) Reference Manual of 15 February 2016 Local EIC code is an EIC code allocated for activities limited to an area of operation and is not used in another country.

In turn, International EIC code is an EIC code allocated for activities on one or several geographical area(s), which may cross borders with another country and/or for any other activities outside the limits of this area as subject to publication or reporting requirements pursuant to EU legislation.

The international EIC code are registered in the CIO registry.  The EIC code is unique within the central registry. 

 

 

EIC code types


EIC object type X (Party)


The EIC code of type X is used to identify a Party.


The allocation of an EIC code does not permit a Party to participate in any energy market. The Party has necessarily to be registered in accordance with local market rules of the area where the Party wants to operate.


EIC object type Y (Area)


The EIC code of type Y is used to identify a domain which can be considered as a delimited area that is uniquely identified for a specific purpose and where energy consumption, production or trade may be determined. It can be a geographical or market area, such as control areas, balance groups, bidding zones, balancing areas, etc.


Only system operators, grid operators (distribution operators), market operators, imbalance settlement responsible parties, balance responsible parties, and regulators are allowed to request new EIC area identification codes.


EIC object type Z (Measurement point)

 

The EIC code of type Z is used to identify a physical or logical point that is used to identify an object where the measurement of energy is measured or calculated.


EIC object type W (Resource object)


The EIC code of type W is used to identify objects to be used for production, consumption or storage of energy. Examples are: generation unit, production unit, LNG terminals, gas storages etc. Excluded are the passive elements in the grid, e.g. lines or transformers.


EIC object type T (Tie-line)


The EIC code of type T is used to identify connecting objects such as interconnection lines, lines, busbar-couples, transformers, etc.


EIC object type V (Location)


The EIC code of type V is used to identify a physical or logical place where a Party or an IT system of a Party is or could be located (endpoints, nodes etc.). A location has necessarily an EIC responsible party associated with it.


EIC object Type A (Substations)


The EIC code of type A is used to identify substations.

 

Source: The Energy Identification Coding Scheme (EIC) Reference Manual, ENTSO-E, 2016.02.15, p. 15, 

 

 

 

 

Structure of the EIC code


General


The Energy Identification Coding scheme (EIC) is based on fixed length alphanumeric codes. The EIC codes will contain information about the LIO in addition to information on the object identified.


It is strongly recommended that EIC codes should be non-significant alphanumeric codes. This maintains the uniqueness of the code and stability of the coding system. Examples: 



 

- of a random non-significant code: 10X1680A248;


- of a non-random significant code: 10X---ENTSOE--3.

 

Permitted characters

 

Permitted characters are numbers (0 to 9), capital letters (A to Z, English alphabet) and the sign minus (-). To avoid confusion, the check character shall use numbers (0 to 9) or the capital letters (A to Z).


Overall structure

 

The structure of the EIC may be broken down as follows:


- The 2-characters identifying the LIO, as assigned by the CIO.


- One character identifying the object type that the EIC code represents.

 

- 12 digits, uppercase characters or minus signs allocated by the LIO in compliance with general and local rules to identify the object in question (party, measurement point, area, etc.). This implies that the significance of these 12 characters shall always remain constant.

 

- 1 check character based on the 15 previous characters used to ensure the validity of the EIC code. The check digit algorithm is described in the EIC implementation guide document, which is available in the EIC website.

 

Structure of other attributes

 

The display name should have a maximum length of 16 character.

 

The permitted letters are the uppercase characters “A” to “Z”, the minus sign “-“, the plus sign “+”, the underscore sign “_”, or the numeric values “0” to “9”.

 

Each Display name assigned by a LIO must be unique within the LIO's registry and the central (CIO) registry.

 

This uniqueness should be guaranteed only within codes of the same EIC type.

 

Source: The Energy Identification Coding Scheme (EIC) Reference Manual, ENTSO-E, 2016.02.15, p. 15, 16 

 

 

 

Application of the EIC codes in the European Union Internal Energy Market

 

The ENTSO-E Energy Identification Coding Scheme (EIC) Reference Manual of 15 February 2016 evidences the following examples of the application of the EIC codes in the European Union legal framework for energy markets:

 

1. Transparency Regulation (Commission Regulation (EU) No 543/2013 of 14 June 2013 on submission and publication of data in electricity markets and amending Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 714/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council - the manual of procedures developed by ENTSO-E prescribes the use of EIC codes to report information for the electricity sector (notably EIC codes type X, Y, W, V and T);


2. Gas Regulation (Regulation (EC) No 715/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 on conditions for access to the natural gas transmission networks and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1775/2005, as modified by Commission Decision of 24 August 2012) - the Automatic Download User Manual developed by ENTSOG pursuant to the Gas Regulation prescribes the use of EIC codes to report information for the gas sector (notably EIC codes types X, Y and Z);


3. REMIT Regulation and the REMIT implementing act (Regulation (EU) No 1277/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of October 2011 on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency and the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1348/2014 of 17 December 2014 on data reporting implementing Article 8(2) and Article 8(6) of Regulation (EU) No 1227/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency render EIC codes mandatory for both the electricity and the gas sectors:

 

a) EIC codes have to be submitted to report information pursuant to Article 8(2) of the REMIT Regulation (Article 5 and the Annex of the REMIT implementing act):

‒ EIC codes identifying the delivery point or zone/areas for contracts related to the supply of electricity and gas (Annex of the REMIT implementing act, Table 1, row 48 and Table 2, row 41),

‒  EIC codes type X (identifying the sender of the document, the bidding party, the rights holder, the transferee party and the market participant for whom a bid is submitted) and EIC codes type Y (identifying the “in” and “out” area, both for primary allocation and secondary rights) for contracts related to the transportation of electricity (Annex of the REMIT implementing act, Table 3, rows 4, 16, 19, 20, 33 – 36, and 54),

‒  EIC code type Z (identifying the network point) for contracts related to gas (Annex of the REMIT implementing act, Table 4, row 22);

 

b) ENTSO-E and ENTSOG have to report the data under Article 8(5) of the REMIT Regulation through their transparency platforms (Articles 8 and 9 of the REMIT implementing act);

 

c) as EIC codes are to be used to report information on the transparency platforms, they are equally to be used to report information under Article 8(5) of the REMIT Regulation and Articles 8 and 9 of the REMIT implementing act;


d) EIC codes are listed as an option amongst other codes (e.g. Legal Entity Identifier (LEI), Bank Identifier Code (BIC), etc.) to identify information under Article 8(2) of the REMIT Regulation (Article 5 and the Annex of the REMIT implementing act).

 

The list of accepted EIC codes for REMIT transaction reporting purposes is attached to the Annex VI to the REMIT Transaction Reporting User Manual. According to the said ACER's manual no other codes are allowed to be reported under the REMIT reporting scheme. Additional codes that represent delivery points for REMIT transaction reporting purposes currently not listed should be notified to the ACER.

The said Annex VI also underlines:

"Any contract related to the supply of electricity or gas, irrespective of whether the contract is a spot, a physical forward, a future or an option contract has a reference to a delivery point or zone. Also financial derivatives related to EU electricity or gas have a reference price or other attributes which relates to the delivery of the commodity".

As of 1 July 2017 a new validation rule will prevent the reporting of EICs not listed in the ACER’s list of accepted codes.

In case any new delivery point or zone has been created, which will be relevant for REMIT transaction reporting purposes, reporting parties should notify them to the ACER using the online form to update the ARIS validation rules with a least 10 working days’ notice. It means energy market participants need to verify the EIC designations they use in their existing agreements as well as to set up procedures ensuring the proper use of these codes in the future. The necessary element of these procedures is the establishment of the ongoing monitoring of the consistency with the ACER's EIC register. However, Europex in its document “The need to simplify and streamline reporting obligations under EMIR, MiFID II/MiFIR and REMIT - Europex response to Commission fitness check on supervisory reporting” points to differences in the EIC’s reporting formats under REMIT and EMIR, where with respect to the “Delivery point or zone” EIC Y Code or EIC Z code are reported under REMIT if applicable, while under EMIR the reporting of EIC Y code is mandatory for all gas and power contracts and there is no possibility to report “not applicable”.

Similarly, for the reporting of the Interconnection Point under EMIR EIC Z code is mandatory for all gas and power contracts with no possibility to report “not applicable”.

In the REMIT Quarterly Issue No. 15 / Q4 2018 ACER reminds that:

- in November 2018, the Agency introduced two new validation rules in ARIS related to the reporting of delivery points or zones in Table 1 and Table 2,
- after the implementation of the rules, a delivery point or zone may be identified only by using an accepted EICs,
- all unsuitable records of transactions are rejected and need to be correctly resubmitted to the Agency.

The complete list currently contains 633 EIC codes and is published on the Agency’s List of Accepted EICs, accessible via the REMIT portal. The Agency will update the list if required.

 

It is noteworthy, in the update of the REMIT Transaction Reporting User Manual (TRUM) of 30 June 2020 (Version 4.0) the ACER provided additional guidance on Data Field No 31 in REMIT Table1_V2 (“Additional unique transaction info”).

The ACER’s explanation is as follows:
-unique transaction ID is represented by the following fields in the schema: Unique transaction ID and Additional UTI info;
- the AdditionalUtiInfo field can be used to report the EIC Y code for a delivery point or zone in a non-EU country;
- for example, if a trade is a cross border trade referring to a EU delivery point or zone and the Swiss delivery point or zone (or any other non-EU delivery point or zone), then the organised market place may report the EIC Y code for the non-EU country delivery point or zone in the “Additional unique transaction info” field;
- it should be noted that reporting EIC Y code for delivery point or zone in the non-EU country is not a REMIT requirement;
- the Agency is aware that REMIT market participants reporting trades (executed at OMPs) through third parties may not possess this information and may therefore not be able to report the EIC Y code for the non-EU country delivery point or zone.

 

In turn, in the REMIT Quarterly Issue No. 25 /Q2 2021 the ACER underlines that if the contracts requested to be listed by an organised market place (OMP) qualify as wholesale energy products, ACER ensures that the delivery point or zone is compliant with the List of Accepted EIC codes.

 
In the REMIT Q+A 27th edition updated on 31 March 2022 the ACER explained that “According to Article 10(2) of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1348/2014, when reporting information referred to in Articles 6, 8 and 9 of the same Implementing Regulation, including inside information, the market participant shall identify itself, or shall be identified by the third party reporting on its behalf, using the ACER registration code which the market participant received or the unique market participant code which the market participant provided while registering in accordance with Article 9 of REMIT. This means that any EIC, BIC, GS1 or LEI code used for reporting purposes must be provided with registration as a market participant. According to the Agency Decision No 01/2012 on the registration format, the EIC code is mandatory only if it is available. The content of the field cannot be technically verified, as there is no database of the issued EIC codes available that could be used for validation against the data provided in CEREMP. It is a market participant’s responsibility to provide the correct data and update them if necessary” (Question II.4.8).

 

4. Another noteworthy example of the EIC Codes’ use in the European Union Internal Electricity Market is Article 46 of the Harmonised Allocation Rules (HAR), according to which person eligible for nomination of physical transmission rights (PTRs) must have an EIC Code in order to allow its identification in the rights document.

 

EICs mapping to the balancing zones/areas, interconnection points, LNG and storage facilities for the purposes of REMIT reporting

 

ACER's stance as regards EICs mapping to the balancing zones/areas, interconnection points, LNG and storage facilities for the purposes of REMIT reporting has been explained in greater detail in the ACER's answers to Question 2.1.39 and 2.1.40 (relating to Data Field (48)) in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on REMIT transaction reporting - see quotes below. 

 

 

ACER's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on REMIT transaction reporting

 

Question 2.1.39, Data Field (48)

 

Could the Agency clarify the reporting of EICs and their mapping to the balancing zones/areas, interconnection points, LNG and storage facilities?

 

Answer

 

In the Transaction Reporting User Manual (TRUM) after consulting the industry through two public consultations, the Agency has indicated that the Energy Identification Code (EIC) to be reported for transaction reporting purposes for Table 1 and Table 2 has to identify the commodity delivery point or zone.

 

This field reports the EIC Y code (or an alternative code to be agreed with the Agency if the EIC is not available) to identify the delivery and/or balancing point for the contract. In addition, the TRUM clarifies that since gas can also be delivered at the interconnection point, then the EIC Z Code for that interconnector may be used.

 

Furthermore, in the FAQs on transaction reporting – Question II.3.1.23, the Agency has indicated that where the gas is delivered at an LNG or a gas storage facility, then the EIC W code for that facility should be reported.

 

Based on more than 1 billion transactions (Table 1 and Table 2) reported to the Agency, it was found that market participants and organised market places are using more than 4000 codes to indicate the delivery points. In some occasions more than 1000 different codes were used to indicate the same balancing zone.

 

Since the Agency (supported by the input provided by the industry) does not find this diversification reasonable and has seen that 95% of the overall transactions have been reported with the correct EICs, on 26 June 2017 the Agency has published Annex VI to the TRUM (including the list of accepted EICs) in the REMIT portal and will only consider the codes listed in the list of accepted codes. The said list has been updated on 26 June 2018.

 

In the Agency’s view, if 95% of the reported transactions are compliant with REMIT, there is no reason for the remaining 5% of transactions to be reported with alternative codes.

 

Market participants that use different codes for nomination purposes at domestic/industrial aggregate points, distribution zones/networks or production sites should report in any case the EIC of the balancing zone these points are connected to. While they may want to keep using those codes for nomination purposes, they will need to translate those codes into the EIC of the balancing zone they are related to when reporting the transaction to the Agency for REMIT purposes.

 

With regard to interconnection points, the Agency has explained in Annex VI to the TRUM that the reportable Y EIC code has to belong to the interconnection point where gas is delivered and then transferred to the other side of the interconnection point by the system operator. This case applies to unbundled interconnection capacity only.

 

In Annex VI to the TRUM the Agency has explained that only the EICs in the list of accepted codes are reportable codes. All the other codes available in the sheet “EICs Validity Check” and flagged as “Invalid” , “ENTSO-E” and “Missing” (please carefully read Annex VI to the TRUM) are not considered compliant with the Agency’s guidance according to Article 5(2) of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1348/2014.

 

However, in order to help market participants and organised market places to comply with REMIT, the Agency has given the opportunity to clear their transaction reporting history (related to the EICs) through the online “EIC mapping form” (please see Annex VI to the TRUM for the link).

 

The online form allows reporting parties to map a previously reported EIC (Missing, Invalid, ENTSO-E list) to a code listed in the "List of Accepted EICs" and to report a code for a zone/area/facility that is not included in the "List of Accepted EICs" (or changing its name/function).

 

However, market participants that have submitted new codes for domestic/industrial aggregate points, distribution zones/networks or production sites connected to a balancing zone, should not expect the inclusion of those codes in the list of accepted codes, unless the Agency believes there is reasonable ground for their inclusion in the list.

 

The Agency has already updated the list of EICs codes to accommodate TSOs or market participants requests where the Agency believed there was a reasonable ground for the inclusion of new EICs (this is visible in the EIC list of accepted codes spreadsheet attached to Annex VI to the TRUM).

 

 

 

 

ACER's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on REMIT transaction reporting

 

Question 2.1.40, Data Field (48)

 

A Market Participant is buying gas for its own needs (fuel gas) outside an OMP via bilateral contract. The location where commodity changes hands under the contract conditions is a Gas storage facility.


For reporting purposes under the requirements of Regulation (EU) No 1348/2014, point 3.1 (a), what data shall be provided in the respective field of schema REMIT Table 1 or REMIT Table 2: DELIVERY POINT OR ZONE – the EIC of the Gas storage facility or the EIC of the Balancing zone to which the Gas storage facility belongs?

 

Answer


Assuming that the seller is withdrawing the gas from the system and injecting it into the storage, then handing it over to the buyer, or if the seller sells the gas that he already owns in the storage to the buyer, the EIC of the Gas storage facility should be reported.

 

 

 

 

chronicle   Regulatory chronicle

 

 

Q4 2022

 

REMIT Quarterly, Issue No. 31 /Q4 2022 - Updated List of accepted EIC codes

 The fourth and last 2022 quarterly update of the List of accepted IC codes was published on the REMIT section of the ACER website on 20 December. The new edition of the List of Accepted EIC incorporates four new IC as requested by stakeholders. Furthermore, by the end of 2022, ACER delisted 44 EICs - 39 of them referred to in-country or cross-country interconnections points exclusively in relation to non-EU countries, which is why they were outside the scope of REMIT data reporting, while the other five codes referred to gas Virtual Interconnection Points, which constitute bundled interconnection capacity.

The next update of the List of accepted EIC codes will occur by the end of Q1 2023.

 

 

 

 

IMG 0744    Documentation

 

 

 

 

Full list of Y-Z-W EIC codes available on ENTSO-E website

 

Energy Identification Codes (EIC) Documentation

 

The Energy Identification Coding Scheme (EIC) Reference Manual, ENTSO-E, 2016.02.15

 

REMIT Transaction Reporting User Manual Annex VI Additional information on how to correctly report the Delivery point or zone

 

ACER's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on REMIT transaction reportingQuestions 2.1.39, 2.1.40

 

 

 

 

 

 

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