"EV buses can help municipalities reduce emissions from transportation—the biggest source of CO2 emissions in the US—but they also present an opportunity to bolster the electrical grid through bidirectional charging programs that can turn buses into batteries. As a result, efforts to make use of electric buses as both transportation and battery storage are underway across the US—particularly in California, a leader in vehicle-to-grid (V2G) experiments.

In Beverly, Massachusetts, electric school buses provided 10 MWh of power back to the grid on 30 different occasions last summer, according to Highland Electric. For context, 10 MWh is more than enough energy to power a home in Massachusetts for an entire year, per SEIA data.

Montgomery County, Maryland, located outside of Washington, DC, is the most populous county in the state. Highland Electric has worked on five bus-charging depots there, some of which could support dense areas in the future, Leach said, although they are not yet connected for V2G."

I always thought bidirectional charging could help with renewable energy storage, but I never thought about the potential of using EV buses (school buses specifically) for V2G. I love the idea. School buses have a predictable schedule and they're parked most of the day, and the usage is very low during the summer. They could use that to power the school or the surrounding neighbourhood.

Are there any potential problems with this that I'm missing? I don't expect cities or neighbourhoods to completely rely on buses for electricity, but it sounds like a solid energy backup option.

When they start selling those school busses off at end of service life, I am buying.

The following submission statement was provided by /u/cartoonzi:

"EV buses can help municipalities reduce emissions from transportation—the biggest source of CO2 emissions in the US—but they also present an opportunity to bolster the electrical grid through bidirectional charging programs that can turn buses into batteries. As a result, efforts to make use of electric buses as both transportation and battery storage are underway across the US—particularly in California, a leader in vehicle-to-grid (V2G) experiments.

In Beverly, Massachusetts, electric school buses provided 10 MWh of power back to the grid on 30 different occasions last summer, according to Highland Electric. For context, 10 MWh is more than enough energy to power a home in Massachusetts for an entire year, per SEIA data.

Montgomery County, Maryland, located outside of Washington, DC, is the most populous county in the state. Highland Electric has worked on five bus-charging depots there, some of which could support dense areas in the future, Leach said, although they are not yet connected for V2G."

I always thought bidirectional charging could help with renewable energy storage, but I never thought about the potential of using EV buses (school buses specifically) for V2G. I love the idea. School buses have a predictable schedule and they're parked most of the day, and the usage is very low during the summer. They could use that to power the school or the surrounding neighbourhood.

Are there any potential problems with this that I'm missing? I don't expect cities or neighbourhoods to completely rely on buses for electricity, but it sounds like a solid energy backup option.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yugu6w/ev_buses_v2g_ev_buses_could_help_decarbonize_more/iw99hqo/

Have fun refurbishing the battery pack

Honestly in ten to fifteen years that really should be a stupidly easy thing to do yourself or have a shop do for you. Not to mention that there will be even more dense battery packs by then so more range.

There's going to be so many conversions that have next to zero range because people overload them hilariously.

There’re going to do a V2B pilot in Oakland, CA with FCEV buses and a library that serves as a cooling/“clean” air center. The buses are New Flyer Xcelsior XHE40 with Ballard fuel cells and Siemens electric drives.

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It's gonna take a while but then people will realize how beneficial EVs are for the stability of the grid, despite all the worries about actually producing and delivering the necessary energy.

These are a triple win because they also don't expose young lungs to diesel pollution.