EVS-EN 62325-301:2014

This part of IEC 62325 specifies the common information model for energy market communications.
The common information model (CIM) is an abstract model that represents all the major objects in an electric utility enterprise typically involved in utility operations and electricity market management. By providing a standard way of representing power system resources as object classes and attributes, along with their relationships, the CIM facilitates the integration
of market management system (MMS) applications developed independently by different vendors, between entire MMS systems developed independently, or between an MMS system and other systems concerned with different aspects of market management, such as capacity
allocation, day-ahead management, balancing, settlement, etc.
The CIM facilitates integration by defining a common language (i.e. semantics) based on the CIM to enable these applications or systems to access public data and exchange information
independent of how such information is represented internally.
The object classes represented in the CIM are abstract in nature and may be used in a wide variety of applications. The use of the CIM goes far beyond its application in a market management system.
Due to the size of the complete CIM, the object classes contained in the CIM are grouped into a number of logical packages, each of which represents a certain part of the overall power
system being modeled. Collections of these packages are progressed as separate international standards. This particular international standard specifies a set of packages which provide a logical view of the functional aspects of market management within an electricity market that is shared between all applications. Other standards specify more specific parts of the model that are needed by only certain applications. Subclause 4.2
provides the current grouping of packages into standards documents.