Thirteen school districts in the state are participating in a new Bus2Grid program, which uses excess energy stored in the batteries of electric school buses to aid in grid management during periods of high demand.
The project is being led by the Illinois Energy Consortium powered by Future Green (IEC-FG). IEC-FG is a not-for-profit organization formed as a collaborative effort of the Illinois Association of School Boards, Illinois Association of School Administrators, and Illinois Association of School Business Officials, according to Tim Farquer, Bus2Grid founder and administrative lead. The project received $15 million in funding from the Renew America’s Schools grant program, administered by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Electric school buses — which are growing in number, due in large part to federal funding from the Environmental Protection Agency — are unlike city transit buses, which tend to be operational all day. School buses generally operate only in the mornings and afternoons when students need to be ferried to and from school. Therefore these vehicles, and their sizable batteries, often sit idle all day, making them ideal energy sources.
Other school districts, in Southern California, are participating in similar vehicle-to-grid (V2G) projects.
In this particular initiative in Illinois, each school district will receive at least one electric bus, which will be charged through a mix of on-site solar, battery storage and energy delivered by the electric grid.
“Many of the districts will have more than one [bus] as our microgrids go live,” Farquer said via email. The system is designed to allow the buses to discharge energy to school buildings, and back to the electric grid. “In both scenarios the discharging action helps alleviate pressure on the local grid.”
Synop is the technology provider for the software used to operate the vehicle-to-grid system.
“Our software integrates with all stakeholders to form an interconnected system,” Gagan Dhillon, co-founder of Synop, said via email. “This allows Synop to receive signals from utilities when energy is needed, locate vehicles, assess their [levels of charge], and execute the discharge back to the grid when possible.”
Aside from aiding in grid management, vehicle-to-grid systems like these can serve as revenue generators for schools, or other fleet operators. Synop has helped to deliver 67 megawatts of energy back to the electric grid, or enough to power 50,000 homes at any hour, company officials said.
With the growth of electric school buses, bidirectional chargers and technology providers like Synop, vehicle-to-grid projects like these can be expected to grow, observers have said.
“We’re actively engaged in discussions with utilities to expand these initiatives, having already proven the technology’s value,” Dhillon said. “Utilities are recognizing the benefits of V2G, making it a compelling area for growth.”
As electric school buses become more the norm, their prices will begin to reach parity with diesel models, helping to expand them into more school districts, Farquer said.
“Leveraging the buses as energy assets accelerates the achievement of price parity,” he said. “The overall goal of our project is a replicable model that is brand agnostic.”
