At the end of 2016, Hungary – following in the footsteps of several other European countries – started applying the new Edig@s standard, a set of strict regulations concerning the electronic messaging between the players of the gas industry. Several clients of Astron Informatics Ltd. were affected by the changes.
Electronic data exchange (EDI) refers to the automated transmission of structured data between IT systems. It has an important role in several fields such as electronic invoicing, bank transfers, electronic tax filing, or data exchange in the energy industry. Depending on the application field, there are different international EDI standards specifying the whole process and method of data exchange: the data link, the message stream, the format of electronic documents and the software used for encoding, encrypting or decrypting documents.
Edig@s is the specific EDI standard regulating the electronic data exchange amongst the players of the gas industry. By the end of 2012, almost all of the Western European countries had totally or partially introduced Edig@s with the purpose of improving the efficiency and at the same time simplifying the European gas market.
From October 1st, 2016, the newest Edig@s 5.1 standard has been applied in Hungary regulating the electronic communication in the gas industry. Besides data standardization, there are other significant changes as well: in the future, in order to identify the network node, one will have to define the direction as well.
The changes affected the IT systems of several of Astron’s partners. ‘It is to my great pleasure that all of our clients in question have successfully adapted the new standard, and as of the beginning of the new gas year, the 1st of October, their systems communicate with Edig@s messages as well. I am grateful to my colleagues who made this happen with their knowledge and hard work. ‘ – said Zoltán Jacsó, the head of the Energy Industry Applications Division at Astron.