SHOPS: Towards a secure system for identity management and payments in the new electrical market

By the year 2010, the liberalization of Europe's utilities industry has created a dynamic market of production, distribution and reselling organizations where quality of service, personalization and smart marketing, as well as an attentive attitude towards ecology and preservation of resources play a major role. Advancement in information technology in domains such as remote monitoring, communication networks, security and control of distributed systems, as well as innovative payment schemes enable new ways in which customers consume and pay for their utility services. SHOPS has developed an open, cross-domain and platform-neutral system for describing the services for different equipment and applications. The developed technology allows the reduction of the cost and time for launching new equipment and applications. SHOPS architecture is based on advanced communication networks and web technologies.