In an industrial corner of Oakland, sandwiched between a 10-lane highway and a freight terminal, stands California's newest source of renewable energy: a squadron of vibrant yellow electric school buses. It is the primary all-electric bus fleet to serve a significant U.S. school district. Starting in August, the 74 vehicles can even contribute 2.1 gigawatt hours of electricity to the Bay Area's power grid, enough energy for 300 to 400 homes.
The buses are expected to scale back carbon dioxide emissions by about 25,000 tons per 12 months in a city where 72% of public school students come from low-income families, disproportionately affected by pollution from the busy port, truck traffic and manufacturing plants affected by Oakland. Alameda County, where Oakland is positioned, has a number of the worst air pollution within the country, based on a report released this month by the American Lung Association.
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The Oakland Unified School District's previous diesel bus fleet gave children no respite from pollutants linked to lung diseases reminiscent of asthma. “At the end of the day, I wiped my fingers on the inside of the bus and they were black from diesel smoke,” said Marjorie Urbina, who has been driving school buses for 23 years. “If it’s on the bus, it’s in my lungs.”
According to the World Resources Institute, a lot of the 480,000 school buses within the United States run on diesel fuel, and 60% of the 20 million children they transport on daily basis are low-income students. Heavy-duty trucks, which include school buses, make up just 6% of vehicles within the U.S. but produce 59% of road traffic pollution.
“Electrifying school buses can really play an important role in making our air healthier for everyone, especially children,” Harold Wimmer, chief executive of the American Lung Association, said Wednesday during a webinar on electric school buses.
Oakland's electric buses are provided by Zūm, a Silicon Valley startup that now manages the varsity district's fleet in addition to those in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle and other U.S. cities. Zūm began adding electric buses to its fleet in 2022 and about 10% of the corporate's 3,000 buses at the moment are zero-emission. As Zūm converts more of its fleet to battery power, Oakland is offering lessons to other districts on how you can move away from diesel and finance electrification by utilizing buses to power the grid.
“Electric school buses are a unique fleet because they are essentially large batteries on wheels that can travel very few, predictable miles and support the electrical grid,” says Vivek Garg, co-founder and chief operating officer of Zūm, who’s round the corner at OUSD Depot stands by a line of buses manufactured in Southern California by Chinese electric giant BYD.
School bus schedules are well-aligned with renewable energy production and electricity demand, making them ideal for vehicle-to-grid programs.
When the brand new school 12 months begins in August, Urbina and other Zūm drivers will leave the depot with a spread of 110 miles within the morning to select up students from home and take them to highschool. Drivers return to the depot around 10:30 a.m. with battery capability at 68%. At this time, solar energy production shall be ramping up in California, allowing drivers to attach buses to bi-directional chargers developed by Zūm and profit from lower electricity rates.
After the batteries are empty, the buses leave again at around 1:30 p.m. to take the scholars home from school. By 5:30pm they’re back on the bus station as renewable energy production declines with the setting sun and electricity demand and tariffs peak. The buses shall be plugged back into chargers — except now they'll be feeding green electricity to the grid at a time of day when utilities typically depend on fossil fuel power plants. When demand and costs drop after 9 p.m., buses begin charging in order that they are able to run the subsequent morning.
“There is an oversupply during the peak of the sun, and this allows us to shift some of that energy from that time of day to where we actually need it,” says Rudi Halbright, product manager for vehicle-grid integration pilots and analytics at California-based utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company. “With 74 buses, that’s a lot of power and has a really big impact for us. This pilot is intended to pave the way for us to do this at scale.”
A law passed last 12 months requires all newly purchased school buses in California to be zero-emissions starting in 2035. However, electrifying school bus fleets is a challenge for cash-strapped school districts. Even the smaller, 26-seat electric buses utilized in Oakland can cost $350,000, thrice the value of a diesel vehicle of the identical size.
To make the maths work, Zūm's electric buses were subsidized by grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Clean School Bus Program, in addition to money from the state and regional air quality district. Raney and Garg say PG&E was key to the project's financial viability. The utility paid for the transmission upgrades needed to offer 2.7 megawatts of power to the bus chargers and in addition compensated Zūm for the electricity the buses fed into the grid.
The California School Bus Act of 2023 also extends the utmost term of a zero-emission bus contract between a faculty district and a personal operator from five to fifteen years. Garg says guaranteeing such long-term contracts will make it easier to get financing for electric buses.
Zūm's technology also helps reduce the fee of electrification. An app increases fleet efficiency by providing drivers with a every day list of scholars to select up and recording routes. If a student will not be in school that day, the app will reroute the bus. And given the vehicles' predictable energy needs, they might be charged at a lower voltage, eliminating the necessity to install expensive fast chargers.
At the OUSD depot, Urbina boards an electrical school bus for a brief ride across the yard. The bus is air-conditioned so the windows can remain closed, further reducing children's exposure to air pollution. An even clearer contrast to the deafening noise of the diesel buses: it's quiet.
“I love that it’s quiet,” Urbina says, “because when the bus is loud, the kids get louder.”
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