Italy is a country highly exposed to natural geological risks, and a correct knowledge of the “significant and extreme” forces to which the neuralgic elements of the electrical system may be subjected is fundamental and indispensable in order to guarantee their correct functioning, to identify the risks and to propose improvement solutions. In this respect, the activities carried out during the first year of the current three-year research period have included studies and analyses aimed at determining the characteristic parameters of the land’s response to seismic stresses in terms of local seismic amplification, with a view to assessing the risk to which the neuralgic components of the electrical system, such as primary substations, are exposed.

The methodological approach involved a number of successive steps that allowed each phase to be calibrated in relation to the results of the previous phases, with the aim of directing the analyses and experimental measures towards sites that were representative of the critical issues present throughout the national territory.

The amplification function is essential for re-scaling the ground response spectra (e.g. as required by law), and therefore for better defining the forces associated with the horizontal and vertical components of the seismic motion, and for assessing any soil-structure interaction at the sites studied.

For the first time in systems research, the predisposition of the land to the effects of seismic amplification, which can also have significant effects and jeopardize the proper functioning of strategic electrical components, will be assessed.

The ability to easily carry out analyses on the various historical and modern seismic catalogues produced by the main Italian research institutes is an important result that should not be underestimated. These catalogues have been standardized and incorporated into an easy-to-use database that allows, among other things, the effects of seismic intensity on the territory to be studied and the response spectra of the ground to be defined, both according to the current NTC (Norme Tecniche Costruzioni – Technical Construction Standards) and according to the appropriate laws of attenuation of the acceleration amplitude as a function of distance and magnitude of the earthquakes of interest.