Pooling station
Also called: Renewable energy pooling station · Topic: Infrastructure: Transport, Communications and Energy · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
A pooling station is a substation that collects power from many renewable plants in one area, such as solar parks and wind farms. A substation is a point on the grid where voltage is changed and power lines meet. Each plant sends its output a short distance to the pooling station. The station then steps the power up to high voltage and sends it into the transmission grid. This is called evacuation, which means carrying power away from where it is made to where it is used. Without a pooling station and the line beyond it, a solar park's power cannot be sold.
Example
In Karnataka, the Bidar scheme is built around the Bidar Pooling Station and evacuates 2.5 GW of solar power. The Koppal-II/Gadag-II scheme evacuates about 2 GW of renewable power (2026). Both are needed to bring power from the state's renewable energy zones to the grid.
Don't confuse with
- Power plant (solar park): a power plant generates electricity. A pooling station generates nothing. It only gathers power from many plants and passes it on to the grid.
- Green Energy Corridor: this is the wider transmission framework for evacuating renewable power, with inter-state and intra-state lines. A pooling station is one node on such a network. It is not the whole corridor.