The Oakland (California) Unified School District recently became the first major school district in the country to convert to a 100 percent electrified school bus fleet.
The website Cleantechnica.com reported that the district has a fleet of 74 electric buses and biodirectional chargers. The program will be managed through an artificial intelligence-enabled technology platform.
The EV fleet is also set to serve as a virtual power plant and provide 2.1 gigawatt hours of energy annually.
While EV buses are trending across the country, the transition has been a slow one, as costs are often prohibitive for districts to make the conversion, with electric buses running a price tag of well over $500,000 per bus. According to the article, more than 90 percent of the nation’s 500,000 school buses are still operating on carbon-based fuels.
Programs such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus program are providing federal funding to districts to support the cost of electric bus programs.
For Oakland’s transition, the district and bus supplier worked with Pacific Gas and Electric Company to provide 2.7 megawatts of load to support the effort.
Dave Lubach is executive editor of the facility market.
