This part of IEC 62056 specifies the overall structure of the OBject Identification System (OBIS) and the mapping of all commonly used data items in metering equipment to their identification codes.

OBIS provides a unique identifier for all data within the metering equipment, including not only measurement values, but also abstract values used for configuration or obtaining information about the behaviour of the metering equipment. The ID codes defined in this standard are used for the identification of:

This standard applies to all types of metering equipment, such as fully integrated meters, modular meters, tariff attachments, data concentrators, etc.

To cover metering equipment measuring energy types other than electricity, combined metering equipment measuring more than one type of energy or metering equipment with several physical measurement channels, the concepts of medium and channels are introduced. This allows meter data originating from different sources to be identified. While this standard fully defines the structure of the identification system for other media, the mapping of non-electrical energy related data items to ID codes needs to be completed separately.