If there’s any vehicle that should be electric, it’s a school bus. Getting rid of local-pollution-tailpipe when children are around is a big plus, and from an operational standpoint they have all the virtues of fleet operation that makes recharging feasible: regular routes, lots of stop-and-go, no long runs, usually returning to the same place every evening.
There’s one more benefit, however: The schedule of the school year. School buses sit around doing nothing for weeks or months at a time, which is a complete waste for a combustion-engine bus. For an electric bus, however, it’s a chance to use the battery to benefit the grid and make a few bucks for the school system through vehicle-to-grid connections.
Such V2G has been a dream for a while and isn’t around to any extent, partly because of the complexity of getting auto companies and utilities to agree on standards and operations. But as Canary Media reports (here’s the story), Massachusetts is launching a tiny pilot of it, with just three buses.
Acton-Boxborough’s school buses are the first vehicles to plug in to a Massachusetts program that aims to demonstrate and investigate the potential of “vehicle-to-everything” technologies, more commonly known as V2X. These systems use bidirectional chargers, which can power up a vehicle as well as send the energy stored in an EV’s battery back to a building or the grid.
Supporters say V2X technologies can yield a host of benefits. They can lower emissions by using stored energy generated at times when the grid is consuming less fossil fuel. They can help users offset their electricity bills by compensating them for power sent to the grid. They contribute to resilience when the power goes out. Plus, they can keep prices lower for everyone by sending cheaper power to the grid during times of high demand.
