Common Information Model (electricity)

This article is about the standard for electric utilities. For the standard for IT
environments, see Common Information Model (computing).
In electric power transmission and distribution, the Common Information Model
(CIM), a standard developed by the electric power industry that has been officially
adopted by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), aims to allow
application software to exchange information about an electrical network.[1]

The CIM is currently maintained as a UML model.[2] It defines a common vocabulary

and basic ontology for aspects of the electric power industry. The CIM models the
network itself using the 'wires model'. This describes the basic components used to
transport electricity. Measurements of power are modeled by another class. These
measurements support the management of powerflow at the transmission level, and by
extension, the modeling of power through a revenue meter on the distribution
network. The CIM can be used to derive 'design artifacts' (e.g. XML Schema, RDF
Schema) as needed for the integration of related application software.

The CIM is also used to derive messages for the wholesale energy market with the
framework for energy market communications, IEC 62325. The European style market
profile is a profile derivation from the CIM to harmonize the energy market data
exchanges in Europe. ENTSO-E is a major contributor to the European style market
profile.[3]

The standard that defines the core packages of the CIM is IEC 61970-301, with a
focus on the needs of electricity transmission, where related applications include
energy management system, SCADA, planning and optimization. The IEC 61970-501 and
61970-452 standards define an XML format for network model exchanges using RDF. The
IEC 61968 series of standards extend the CIM to meet the needs of electrical
distribution, where related applications include distribution management system,
outage management system, planning, metering, work management, geographic
information system, asset management, customer information systems and enterprise
resource planning.

Difference between CIM and SCL

CIM and Substation Configuration Language (SCL) are developed in parallel under
different working groups of IEC TC 57. Though both have the ability to exchange
model and configuration information between different equipment or tools and use
XML for storage, there are lot of differences between both the standards.

CIM is completely developed based on UML which is developed on the basis of

inheritance. SCL representation is sequential or hierarchical in nature.
Although the CIM is not limited to modeling equipment, the CIM approach gives
emphasis on the equipment inheritance and its interconnection whereas SCL starts
from a functional point of view.
CIM is broadly applied to enterprise integration and related information exchanges
between systems including, but not limited to, EMS, DMS, Planning, Energy Markets
and Metering, where SCL is limited to exchange of data within substation equipment
and tools.
Harmonization of CIM and SCL
There are applications which use both these standards and there will be significant
improvements on interoperability and data exchange between the applications if SCL
model can be transformed into CIM based models. Without the harmonization of these
standards, the development and implementation of systems and applications will
result in a significant amount of engineering and design that applies to only one
implementation. The harmonization can be done by mixing equipment topological
approach of CIM and functionality approach of SCL. IEC TC57 WG19 is involved in the
harmonization CIM & SCL. This will involve the following steps
Mapping of logical nodes of IEC 61850 (SCL) to equipment defined in CIM.
Use Web Ontology Language to define the mapping patterns for the areas to which the
automatic mapping cannot be performed.
The complete approach should not modify the existing models to large extent.
See also
CIM Profile
Substation Configuration Language (SCL)
IEC 61970
IEC 61968
IEC 62325
IEC 61850
MultiSpeak
References
IEEE.org | The impact of PAP 8 on the Common Information Model (CIM)
Electric Light and Power.com | Using the common information model for enterprise
integration
ENTSO-E | Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Library
External links
CIM Users Group
An IBM Whitepaper | Design a message and service definition integration strategy
based on Common Information Model standards
A whitepaper | Utilities Enterprise information management strategies
"Overcoming Challenges Using the CIM as a Semantic Model for Energy Applications"
Categories: Electric power