Introducing Edig@s and AS4

Simple and secure data exchange in the gas industry

If you are an operator on the gas market, you almost certainly need to exchange large amounts of data and documents with your business partners.

In order to make the process as smooth and simple as possible, a standard has been developed for the electronic exchange of these data, designed specifically for the gas industry. The name of this standard is Edig@s.

Why use Edig@s?

By using Edig@s, you become part of a European network of operators, enterprises and organizations that exchange data and documents with one another quickly and easily. The Edig@s standard is recognized by the EU and can be used to exchange all the data associated with gas trade and distribution throughout the EU, both at national level and across international borders.

In the past, the separate countries used different standards for exchanging electronic files and documents. Operators in the gas industry were therefore typically obliged to use different IT solutions to meet all the various requirements – which made the exchange of information a complicated and time-consuming process for everyone involved in gas operations in multiple countries.

Edig@s has been developed on the basis of a general description of the gas market in Europe so that all the different countries can use the same standard. This means that Edig@s is the self-evident choice for you if you work with gas trades in more than one country.

The EU Regulation on network codes on interoperability and data exchange rules lists Edig@s as the data format to be used for the nomination and matching process.

What is Edig@s?

As mentioned above, Edig@s is an EDI-standard for sending and receiving electronic documents relating to gas trade and distribution in the EU. The standard is based specifically on the processes and data exchange requirements that exist within the gas industry, and it builds on internationally recognized data exchange standards such as UN/EDIFACT (Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport, developed by the UN) and XML.

You can use Edig@s to exchange information in connection with the following processes:

  • Capacity Trading Process
  • Gas Trading Process
  • Nomination and Matching Process
  • Settlement Process
  • Balancing Process
  • Transparency Process
  • Facility setting Process
  • General Service Processes
  • REMIT (EU Regulation on Wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency) implementation process
  • Market balancing process

If you would like to find out more about how you can use the Edig@s standard to support specific work situations, take a look at these simplified scenario descriptions from Edig@s.

Live up to the requirement of exchanging Edig@s formats via AS4

For exchanging data in – and between – several European countries including Denmark, Germany, Italy and Sweden, it is mandatory to use the secure exchange protocol AS4 when transferring data in connection with certain gas trade processes. With Link as your integration platform, you can be sure of meeting this requirement in full, because the Edig@s formats are exchanged via the AS4 protocol when you use Link.

How can you get started with Edig@s?

The Edig@s standard is freely available, but it can be useful to implement a solution that assists you in managing your document exchanges – both via Edig@s and using other data exchange standards. The Integration Management platform Link provides a solution of precisely this kind.

Setting up a Link solution is the quick, easy and secure way to get started with Edig@s. Major operators including Evida and Energinet are already using this platform, so you can be sure that it will meet all the requirements you are likely to encounter with regard to exchanging information in the field of gas