Agency Administrator Michael S. Regan visits during an event to highlight funding for electric school buses at the Coral Reef High School on March 11, 2024 in Richmond Heights, Florida. Miami-Dade County Public Schools received nearly $20 million to purchase 50 electric school buses as part of President Joe Biden’s Investing in America Agenda. The program is helping schools nationwide purchase over 2,700 clean school buses in 280 school districts serving over 7 million students across 37 states.
In an interview, the senior legislative and regulatory policy manager at Moms Clean Air Force, Melody Reis said there has been a “tremendous amount of enthusiasm” for the program., which estimate as of December 2023, there are 8,570 committed electric school buses across 1,132 school districts or private fleet operators across the country.
The Moms Clean Air Force national manager for health equity, Almeta Cooper said health statistics show a much higher incidence of asthma among children of color. Steelton-Highspire is replacing six of the school district's seven buses with First Student's electric buses, which are being backed by chargers with electricity coming from a 1.7-Megawatt solar array stationed on the Steelton-Highspire campus.
Put very simply, these vehicles are stationary for a large part of the day and could be used as a ‘virtual power plant’ to store energy when there is too much strain on the grid or supply extra power in times when it is needed to meet demand.