This issue includes:
- Who won big in EPA’s latest Clean School Bus Program awards, and why
- How the rest of us can win, going forward
- Apply for current rebate round, deadline January 31st
- How repowered school buses are progressing, and not
- Updates on MOVER project and my TEDx talk
- WASBE Galentine’s Forum on February 14th (Women Accelerating School Bus Electrification)
Who Won Big, And Why
In this second round of EPA’s five year, five billion dollar program, EPA awarded almost one billion, 60% of it to third parties that will help groups of school districts to electrify their fleets. It awarded the other 40% to school districts, themselves. In the current rebate round closing in eight days, the odds of winning appear to be much better than in the first rebate round due to fewer applications. Short, simple application; screenshot of it here. You should apply!
Why did third parties win so big? Because of their massive power to scale fleets up to electric. The dollars EPA is investing here are highly leveraged. And how did they win? Highland and First Student did massive outreach to school bus fleets to engage them in electrifying. Change is labor-intensive and collaborative. They also won due to their access to capital, their ability to borrow/invest heavily, and their ability to command lower than usual ESB prices either directly from manufacturers (First Student) or from dealers (Highland). But just 35% of U.S. school bus fleets use contractors like First Student, which is the largest contractor (interestingly, in Canada about 65% of districts use contractors). The majority of U.S. school districts operate their own fleets. Read on.
How A School District Won Big
I can speak to one example of how one school district won almost 20 million, the maximum possible in this round. I can do that because I was one of several cowriters on Beaverton School District’s (BSD’s) project proposal (WRI was another). I focused on community engagement and parts of the project narrative. I observed that many hundreds of hours were devoted to developing the project and writing about it, by many parties, with extensive review and revisions, over months, all led by Craig Beaver, the district’s administrator of transportation. Portland General Electric, the utility, was involved and supportive, as it had been for several years with BSD’s charging of its existing ESBs. The district superintendent was supportive. As above, winning happens via collaboration. See my tips on winning grant proposals.
Sidenote: ESB production surpassed propane bus production in 2023 for the first time. Only 62 propane buses were funded by EPA in this last round compared to 2,675 ESBs. Only one manufacturer (Blue Bird/Micro Bird) is still making propane buses. I see propane as the breakthrough of an earlier time in the school bus industry. It reduced emissions and also engine complexity, but with the rise of electric propulsion and its unusual efficiency and zero tailpipe emissions, propane is no longer a good investment.
Again, Li Mattson created this graph, based on EPA data published here.
I will admit that I am a bit competitive. Only in the healthiest way! And, even allowing for the fact that some EPA regions have much larger populations than others and would logically land more funding, I do believe my region 10, the Pacific Northwest, second to last in this round and not much better in the first rebate round, can do better than we’re yet doing. We love our places on earth and we are smart and spirited, plus three of our four states have the benefit of low cost electricity that is also pretty clean due to the power of our mighty rivers. And as in most places, our energy mix keeps getting cleaner over time (told you I’m a geek.)
I think we in Region 10 (OR, WA, ID, AK) need to build a stronger ESB culture. This will lead us to mount more and better funding applications, and moreover, do the peer to peer learning and “contagion” that drives ESB adoption. Read on for how I propose we do this. Also, as I’ve mentioned before, the state of Oregon needs to start funding electric school buses, as many states (like Washington) have been doing for years. It’s the only way I can see Oregon fleets will be able to follow the CARB guidelines that will phase out the sale of new diesel school buses over time. Federal EPA funds are great, but limited, and should be seen as seed money.
Starting a monthly Region 10 Pacific Northwest ESB meeting is the goal I am working on with Craig Beaver of Beaverton School District (the name thing is a funny coincidence) and our Region 10 EPA staff member. We are inspired by the highly informative, culture-building, widely inclusive Region 5 monthly meeting led by EPA’s Tony Maietta and and Frank Acevedo. They even let people like me attend! Within the ESB world, the monthly Region 5 call is almost famous. Didn’t I hear someone is making a movie about it? OK, I’m kidding about that. Seriously, if you’re in Oregon, Washington, Idaho or Alaska and you’d like to be part of a similar R10 Clean School Bus Program meeting, please hit reply and let me know. Craig and I are hoping for late March 2024 as a possible start date. CALSTART’s ESB forums are another strong peer-to-peer resource. Rugged individualism doesn’t work with ESB adoption; it takes collaboration and info-sharing.
Updated Take on Repowers
The good news first: four out of five repowered electric school buses are performing as well for Logan Bus in New York City as their diesels had been on the same routes. I respect Corey Muirhead’s leadership on repowers; he’s the Executive Vice President of Logan Bus. Two other contractors in New York state (one of several states with mandates for ESBs) have also ordered repowers. See World Resources Institute’s recent report on the above, stating a total cost of ownership savings of .34/mile for repowers over new diesels. Not just NY but Colorado and Texas have made repowers funding-eligible, with Minnesota soon to follow. On the less hopeful side of the equation, a repower ordered by Williamsfield School District is almost a year overdue for delivery with no clear explanation, and an Oregon repower project still hasn’t gone into manufacturing, after 1 1/2 years of effort.
I observe that repowers in general are not taking off, at least not yet. This grieves my heart, because they cost half to one third a new ESB (cost being generally the greatest barrier to ESBs) and could make ESBs spread much more quickly in low income districts. They’d also conserve resources and improve community and climate health, again, on a faster timeline.
Why aren’t repowers taking off? I see three main reasons (and tell me if you see more): 1.) the companies that do repowers are young, with school bus operators dubious about their capacity to stay in business and honor warranties; 2.) manufacturers, whom the EPA listens to closely, are opposed to repowers because they’d hurt their profits (safety is the stated, politically correct objection, sorry if I’m ruffling some feathers here); and 3.) possibly the biggest reason, school bus operators prefer new buses with new parts over mid-life buses with many old/mid-life parts. Possibly mechanics, who are sometimes behind-the-scenes decision makers, are the key objectors here. I believe Logan’s success with their five repowered buses is closely related to UES, who built them, being in the same city as them, and able to promptly perform repairs. Stephanie Ly notes that a repower company has to serve as the dealer, manufacturer, and warranty provider — big roles to fill without extra or enough funds to cover all the work. I think wider adoption of repowers would follow a similar, localized model to the Logan-UES success story, and that mechanics need to be invited into the repower proposition.
MOVER project and my TEDx Talk
These topics are related, in that my TEDx talk I did in November illustrated the concept of the MOVER project. (I should receive the link to my talk in time for my February newsletter; it’s taken longer than expected). MOVER stands for Microgrid Opportunities: Vehicles Enhancing Resiliency. The concept of this project in Hood River, Oregon is that during a power outage (increasingly common, as illustrated last week) ESBs can discharge their massive battery packs into a building that community members can use as a refuge to stay warm, or cool, receive medical support and generally be safe. MOVER is a three year project now early in its first year. We’re working on vehicle procurement and microgrid design (the latter is a complex engineering project). Much collaboration. Speaking of which . . .
Galentine’s Day WASBE Forum is Wednesday February 14, noon Pacific. WASBE is Women Accelerating School Bus Electrification. We’ve got 42 women planning to attend so far, from organizations like CALSTART, First Student, EPA, Zum, ABB (a charging company), Cajon Valley School District, the Alliance, Forth, Suffolk Bus, PacifiCorp, Generation 180, WRI, Mothers Out Front and more. If you’re a woman in ESBs and you haven’t received an invitation, reply to this email or reach out to my cofounders Susan Mudd of the Environmental Law and Policy Center or Malinda Sandhu of Lion.
Circling back to my opening thoughts, winter is a rough thing, generally getting rougher each year with our changing climate and aging power grid. I think tonight will be a good time for an adult beverage. I’ll be raising a glass to all my readers and the admirable work you do, and also to the much larger group of school bus people who are not my readers, yet. If you think this newsletter would be helpful to a colleague, please forward it to them. Warm wishes, and I’ll be back next month with my February newsletter.
Financial support for this newsletter is provided in part by the World Resources Institute. While the World Resources Institute may engage as a partner on content, it does not control, nor does it necessarily endorse, the contents of this newsletter.
Alison Wiley (she/her/hers)
I am on the ancestral lands of the Multnomah, Chinook and Cowlitz peoples.
Whose land are you on?