In Massachusetts, the use of electric school buses to supply the power grid with 80 hours' worth of energy just shows how useful and beneficial electric vehicles can be.
US Vice President Kamala Harris (3rd L) and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan (6th L) tour electric school buses at Meridian High School in Falls Church, Virginia on May 20, 2022.
Largest Electric School Bus Deployment in the US
Due to the extreme summer heat, some areas nationally are experiencing increases in energy use. But the Boston suburb of Beverly, Massachusetts, developed a strategy to beat the heat and rising energy consumption.
To aid with energy conservation and emissions reduction, the city uses its electric school buses to transmit electricity back to the grid. To bring the concept to life, Highland Electric Fleet collaborated with a number of industry titans, including Thomas Built Buses, Proterra, Rhombus, and Synop, according to a report by Electrek.
Highland Electric Fleets were established in 2018 to offer electrification as a service to state and federal fleets. This means that Highland's membership service comes with everything required to start using electric buses.
The company provides the necessary training materials, charging infrastructure, and buses.
The electric bus firm Highland, which has over 330 electric buses operating in 30 US states and Canada, claims to be responsible for the largest electric school bus deployment in the United States.
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V2G Technology
The EV bus manufacturer is also using its services to kickstart the heavy-duty EV revolution. Additionally, Highland is feeding energy back into the grid via its vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology.
In Massachusetts and Vermont, it introduced V2G for the first time. Highland collaborated with the same partners in 2021 to return around three MWh of energy to the grid.
This summer, Highland and its collaborators used electric school buses to recharge the grid in Massachusetts for the second time.
Several businesses are already using V2G technology to help reduce emissions and save the power grid. For instance, Ford F-150 Lightning owners can collaborate with Duke Electricity, one of the biggest utilities, to send energy back to the grid when it is not in use, saving them money on utility bills.
Two Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley EV buses made by Thomas Built Buses and powered by Proterra battery systems were used by the partners. More than seven MWh of energy was returned to the system by the two electric buses.
The manager of technology and platform management at Highland discusses the enormous possibilities that this technology can bring, saying:
"Electric school buses are ideal assets for V2G applications. Nearly 500,000 school buses in North America spend most of their time parked. Fossil fuel-powered buses provide no value when idle. Electric buses, on the other hand, can be used effectively as mobile batteries when not transporting students to provide additional power that supports grid stability and resiliency. "
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Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla
