What’s Happening

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Electric school buses can not only reduce harmful emissions to kids, but also speed up the transition to clean energy by providing a critical source of reliable energy storage, a new report says.

Environment New Jersey Research Policy Center, New Jersey NJPIRG Law & Policy Center and the Frontier Group discuss in a 49-page report how an electric bus fleet can use vehicle-to-grid technology to provide emergency power to the grid. What’s more, they can potentially earn revenue for the school district.

The report comes at a time when clean-energy advocates are pressing lawmakers and the Murphy administration to ramp up spending to begin replacing dirty diesel buses, which carry most of the state’s 800,00 students to school each day.

“Getting to school shouldn’t include a daily dose of toxic pollution,’’ said Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey Research Policy Center, referring to the 15,000 diesel buses in use across the state. “Right now, it does.’’

The release of the report Thursday occurred on the same day the Assembly Appropriations Committee approved a bill (A-1282) that would provide up to $45 million over three years to buy electric school buses, viewed as an important fusion of funding to start replacing diesel buses.

Waiting for the e-buses

New Jersey has no electric school buses on the road, although the state Department of Environmental Protection has allocated $24.5 million to school districts to buy 77 zero-emission buses. The delay is blamed on problems with acquiring the necessary charging equipment.

The impetus toward shifting to the vehicle-to-grid system is driven by the varied benefits the emerging technology can deliver to school districts. They include not just providing a new source of revenue but also offering the potential to provide an emergency source of power. The technology would reduce exposure to unhealthy pollution both for students and for people in urban communities already overburdened by diesel emissions from buses and medium- and heavy-duty trucks.

“Reducing dirty-diesel school buses with clean electric school buses will protect children, bus drivers, other school personnel and our communities to toxic diesel exhaust air pollution that is known to cause cancer, asthma attacks and other loss of life,’’ said Dr. Robert Laumbach, an associate professor at the Rutgers University School of Public Healthy.

Bus-based power

If every diesel school bus currently in operation in New Jersey were replaced with an electric model using the right vehicle-to-grid technology, that would add over 2,179 megawatts to the state’s capacity to store electricity, enough to power more than 68,142 average homes for a day, the report said.

“This is the direction where we need to go,’’ said Assemblyman Sterley Stanley (D-Middlesex), the sponsor of the bill that was advanced by the Assembly Appropriations Committee. “It is a first step to provide wide distribution of electric school buses across New Jersey.’’

The additional storage capacity could speed up the transition to a renewable energy grid, advocates argued, and help address problems caused by intermittent sources of power like solar and wind.

As electric school buses are mostly in use during short, specific periods, buses could absorb renewable energy when it is available in abundance and release it when it isn’t. That storage capacity also allows them to provide additional power during unexpected demand spikes or emergency power during outages.

To do so, however, the technology must be able to communicate with the charging equipment during charging and when sending power out to the grid. That technology is not now included in most charging equipment and would add between $10,000 and $50,000 to the cost.

Electric school buses now cost between $300,000 and $400,000, well above the $150,000 school districts spend on a diesel bus. Clean-energy advocates argue the buses are a cost-effective switch because they have lower maintenance costs over the life of the vehicle and are cheaper to refuel than their diesel counterparts.

The report makes recommendations for lawmakers, utility companies and schools to help ease the transition. They include more funding for electric school buses on the state and federal levels; urging utilities and state regulators to establish partnerships with school districts; and having districts commit to a time frame for a full transition to e-buses as soon as possible.