Sourcing Renewables  -  December 15, 2020

White Plains school buses feed Con Ed grid with new vehicle-to-grid tech

Electric school buses that transport students in the White Plains area are being used in a project experimenting with vehicle-to-grid technology to provide power to the Con Edison grid.

Nuvve Corporation, a San Diego-based green energy company, has started using the batteries from five electric school buses, provided by Lion Electric, to execute New York State’s first transmission of electric power from a bus to a utility grid. The project first began in 2018 between Lion, Nuvve, White Plains School District, National Express and First Priority Group and involves connecting the five buses to a charging and discharging depot in North White Plains.

Nuvve’s V2G platform determines the optimal time to charge the buses based on lowest rates and then reverses the flow of power from each bus into the grid on nights and weekends when the buses are parked and not in use. Each bus has the capacity for 10 kW of energy.

“We think electric school buses may provide an opportunity to achieve two of our company's goals: reducing carbon emissions and maintaining our industry-leading reliability,” Brian Ross, Con Edison's manager for the project, said in a statement. “We are innovating to help our state and region achieve a clean energy future in which electric vehicles will have a big role.”

The project is meant to explore using such technology to improve grid reliability and if deemed beneficial the team is looking at the 1,000 school buses in Westchester and 8,000 in New York City that could potentially be converted to electric models with V2G capability.

While the e-buses cost more upfront than traditional diesel, the V2G technology allows the buses to discharge energy back into the grid and perform grid services, resulting in shared revenue and a lower total cost of ownership.

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