Dominion Energy Virginia Wants 1,050 Electric School Buses By 2025
Dominion Energy Virginia has published a bullish plan to convert 50 school buses in its territory to electric buses by 2020. That’s just the start, as the company plans to add 200 more per year to hit its target of 1,050 fully electric school buses by 2025.
The company has a request for proposals in the works for electric vehicle manufacturers with plans to open the application to school districts in its Virginia territory this Friday, September 5th, 2019. This sense of urgency feels like the pulse of this company, with its tagline “Actions Speak Louder” adorning its marketing material across the company.
“We’re committed to lowering our carbon emissions, but we can’t do it alone,” Dominion Energy Chairman, President and CEO Thomas F. Farrell, II said. “Transportation is the number one source of carbon emissions in the US, and by partnering with this industry, we can expedite the development of innovative, cleaner, more sustainable solutions. We think that electric school buses will provide a wide range of benefits for the customers and communities we serve, including cleaner air, cost savings for school districts, and enhanced grid reliability.”
The compelling mandate to convert so many local school buses to electric in just 5 years is very simple for Dominion Energy Virginia. It’s an A plus B equals C formula that shows just how powerful the need to clean up local air quality can be.
- One bus reduces C02 emissions by 54,000 pounds each year
- 50 buses reduces emissions by 2.7 million pounds
- Replacing 1,050 buses over 5 years with new electric ones will reduce emissions by 810 million pounds, the equivalent to taking 78,000 cars off the road!
School buses carry with them the added pressure to protect our most valuable citizens — our children. Dominion’s website states that the air in a fully electric school bus is 6 times cleaner than the air in a traditional diesel school bus. That creates a powerful, two pronged push to replace diesel school buses with fully electric buses as quickly as possible.
I, for one, don’t want my kids spending hours each week sucking down some of the worst air in the city as they make their way to school. That’s doubly true when we already have solutions to replace diesel buses that make great financial sense at the same time.
Speaking of financials, Dominion Energy Virginia sees the electric school buses as unique assets that it wants to tap into when their time spent as kid haulers is up for the day. Dominion is excited to use the buses as vehicle to grid (V2G) batteries, and what’s even better is that the company has stepped up to pay the difference in price between traditional diesel buses and the fully electric buses in order to gain access to this new V2G resource.
In other words, the power company is making the switch to fully electric buses a no-brainer, offering cleaner air to the communities and children they serve while saving the school districts that operate them some much needed cold, hard cash. Green skies ahead indeed.
Source: Dominion Energy via Daily Energy Insider
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