Together with its with its partners at Highland Electric, Blue Bird, and local Exelon utility ComEd, the West Aurora school district kicked off this week by deploying 27 fully electric school buses — the largest such deployment in the state. Here’s how they made it happen.
The new Blue Bird electric school buses will be rolling up to 77 kids each out to West Aurora schools this morning, promising those students clean, quiet operation and more than 130 miles of all-electric range courtesy of their 194 kWh lithium-ion NMC battery packs. Those batteries will be sending electrons to a Cummins Accelera PowerDrive 7000 drive system and TM4 SUMO electric motor — a smooth and capable unit putting out 250 kW (~350 hp) of power and some 950 Nm (700 lb-ft) of torque.
These buses are more than zippy enough, in other words, to get kids safely and quickly up to speed (even if they’re not exactly CoolBus-level quick).
The new electric school bus fleet reflects West Aurora’s ongoing leadership in improving operational efficiency and environmental performance across its schools, which have invested heavily in solar energy, energy efficient building upgrades, and waste energy reduction efforts in recent years.
“West Aurora is proud to strengthen our commitment to our schools and community by adding electric buses to our sustainability efforts,” explains Dr. Angie Smith, SD129 Associate Superintendent of Operations. “We continue to work to find ways to provide a healthier environment for our students and families, while also achieving savings for our taxpayers. We hope to be able to demonstrate to other districts that electrification of even a portion of your fleet can make a difference that we can all benefit from.”
Funding for the new school bus fleet and its associated charging infrastructure includes nearly $1 million from local Exelon utility ComEd, as well as nearly $5 million in additional stacked incentive funds from the Illinois and Federal EPAs’ Clean School Bus Programs.
Those funds helped cover the cost of both the Blue Bird electric school buses and the 14 60 kW Zerova DC fast chargers that help power the fleet, providing flexible charging capacity to meet route demands and support future fleet growth.
“Reducing emissions from vehicles, especially heavy-duty vehicles like school buses, is one of the most effective steps we can take to improve air quality and public health in Illinois,” says Brian Urbaszewski, Director of Environmental Health Programs at Respiratory Health Association. “ComEd’s continued support of transportation electrification funding is allowing businesses, communities and school districts like West Aurora to achieve their electrification goals and help eliminate pollution and create cleaner air for all our communities.”
Electrek’s Take
Illinois policymakers are doing a fantastic job helping to accelerate EV adoption, promote grid stability, and clean up the state’s air, removing the heaviest surface level polluters and making real efforts to protect the health and safety of Illinois’ children.
“These kids and drivers will no longer breathe in tailpipe emissions. These buses will not release tailpipe emissions throughout the community. And the partnership between the school district, Highland Electric Fleets and ComEd ensures these buses will charge at times that are most beneficial to the local grid,” said Tim Farquer, founder and administrative lead of Bus2Grid. “In addition, when fully charged, these new buses hold more than 4 megawatts of stored energy. That’s the equivalent of over 300 Tesla Powerwalls. That makes us equally excited to see this partnership unlock the potential for these school buses to export energy and reduce constraints on the local grid. This project reflects everything Bus2Grid stands for, and we couldn’t be more happy for our friends at West Aurora, Highland Electric Fleets and ComEd for working together to pull this off. I can’t wait to see more and more of these projects deployed around the state.”
Couldn’t agree more, Tim. Here’s hoping there’s a lot more of these stories to come.
SOURCES | IMAGES: West Aurora SD129, ComEd, via BusinessWire.
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