Defines a standard for a communication platform which every Transmission System Operator (TSO) in Europe may use to reliably and securely exchange documents for the energy market.

This technical specification is for European electricity markets.

This document specifies a standard for a communication platform which every Transmission System Operator (TSO) in Europe may use to reliably and securely exchange documents for the energy market. Consequently a European market participant (trader, distribution utilities, etc.) could benefit from a single, common, harmonized and secure platform for message exchange with the different TSOs; thus reducing the cost of building different IT platforms to interface with all the parties involved. This also represents an important step in facilitating parties entering into markets other than their national ones.

From now on the acronym “MADES?? (MArket Data ExchangeS) will be used to designate these Technical Specifications.

MADES is a specification for a decentralized common communication platform based on international IT protocol standards:

• From a business application (BA) perspective, MADES specifies software interfaces to exchange electronic documents with other BAs. Such interfaces mainly provide means to send and receive documents using a so-called “MADES network??. Every step of the delivery process is acknowledged, and the sender can request about the delivery status of a document. This is done through acknowledgement, which are messages returned back to the sender. This makes MADES networks usable for exchanging documents in business processes requiring reliable delivery.

• MADES also specifies all services for the business application (BA); the complexities of recipient localisation, recipient connection status, message routing and security are hidden from the connecting BA. MADES services include directory, authentication, encryption, signing, message tracking, message logging and temporary message storage.

The purpose of MADES is to create a data exchange standard comprised of standard protocols and utilizing IT best practices to create a mechanism for exchanging data over any TCP/IP communication network, in order to facilitate business to business information exchanges as described in IEC 62325-351 and the IEC 62325-451 series.

A MADES network acts as a post-office organization. The transported object is a “message?? in which the sender document is securely repackaged in an envelope (i.e. a header) containing all the necessary information for tracking, transportation and delivery.