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2.2 CIM Description
CIM is an Information Model that applies the
paradigm “Object Oriented” of Software
Engineering in order to represent the elements of the
real world that are used for the infrastructure,
management and operation of the electric systems of
Transmission and Distribution, such as cables, lines,
transformers, switches, protections, structures, poles,
measurements, among others. The model is
constituted by: Classes Packages, Object Classes,
Attributes and Relations among Classes/Objects.
The model defines the interfaces for systems
integration and besides, it includes the connectivity
of the electric system, thus facilitating the united
exchange of data among systems and enterprises.
2.3 CIM Wrapper Description
A data interface that complies with CIM is known as
“CIM Wrapper” and it must allow the
reading/writing of messages or XML files, its
information structure meets the syntactic, semantic
and electric rules defined in CIM, thus ensuring that
the receiver system of a CIM message will be able to
read the content (syntactic) and will be able to
interpret its meaning (semantic) in an identical way
as to the transmitter, without the need to know the
internal data structure of the source system and in an
independent manner as to its technological platform,
brand or supplier.
A “CIM Wrapper” is in charge of:
Implementing the data access of the legacy system.
Performs the data transformation according to the
Concept Map and defined Semantic Model.
Implementing functionality in order to exhibit
information to other systems.
Taking and interpreting the information from other
systems for internal use.
3 CIM ADOPTION PROCESS
Due to its complexity and initial cost (in time and
effort), the adoption of CIM in an electric utility it
must be part of a long term integral strategy as part
of the Vision and Technological Roadmap for Smart
Grid. The systems that will be bound must be
defined, as well as the more convenient adoption
strategy. It is recommended that the initial scope is
limited but challenging, meaning by this that the
information that is to be transferred is not trivial,
that it is coherent and that it considers or represents
complete or integral concepts, thus giving a better
experience to the development group that
participates in the process.
A CIM adoption strategy, overall for integrating
legacy systems, it is through the development of
“CIM Wrappers”, which must have perfectly defined
its particular scopes. In Figure 2 it is shown the
adoption process of CIM based in the development
of “CIM Wrappers”.
Figure 2: CIM Adoption Process based on “CIM
Wrappers”.
The first phase in the CIM adoption process, it has
two parallel tasks: the creation of a CIM Profile and
the development of a Conceptual Model of the
Legacy System to integrate.
A CIM Profile is a subset of Classes, Attributes
and Associations of CIM Base Model that
represents the components of the real world selected
for its use in the information systems. The CIM
Profile is obtained by selecting only the concepts
and its relations with other concepts that will be used
in a scheme or architecture of semantic
interoperability for an electric enterprise. For the
concept selection and its relations it is used the
software tool CIMtool (CIMtool, 2013) and the
result must be obtained as Ontology in a format
legible by computer, for example OWL or RDFS
(Scheme) (Espinosa et al., 2011).
The CIM Profile can use native concepts of the
CIM Base Model or the extended concepts during
the Concept Mapping.
The Conceptual Model of a legacy system is a
Model that formally represents the elements that
compose it and the relations among them; according
to the legacy system, this Model must be preferably
created using the paradigm “Object Oriented” and
UML, but in occasions, the relational model can be
applied. This Model is the source of base
information in order to know the meaning of the
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