Soil resistivity

Soil resistivity is a measure of how much the soil resists the flow of electricity. It is a critical factor in design of systems that rely on passing current through the Earth's surface. An understanding of the soil resistivity and how it varies with depth in the soil is necessary to design the grounding system in an electrical substation, or for lightning conductors. It is needed for design of grounding (earthing) electrodes for substations and High-voltage direct current transmission systems. In most substations the earth is used to conduct fault current when there are ground faults on the system. In single wire earth return power transmission systems, the earth itself is used as the path of conduction from the end customers (the power consumers) back to the transmission facility. In general there is some value above which the impedance of the earth connection must not rise, and some maximum step voltage which must not be exceeded to avoid endangering people and livestock.