Kentucky School Advocate
October 2023
By Brenna R. Kelly
KSBA staff writer
When the first electric school bus in the state started rolling in Wolfe County in August, Superintendent Kenny Bell expected several benefits. The buses have no tailpipe emissions, lower operating costs than fuel-powered buses and require less maintenance. But there was one benefit Bell didn’t count on – quieter, calmer students.
“We were worried it would be a lot louder for the driver and the adults on the bus because you don’t have the noise of the engine drowning out the kids,” he said. “But actually, the kids are quieter. I think it’s because they don’t have to talk over the noise of the diesel engine.”
Soon 10 Kentucky school districts will have electric school buses. A total of 68 are headed to the state thanks to federal grants funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, said Elisa Hanley, branch manager for Pupil Transportation for the Kentucky Department of Education.
Over the next five years, the Clean School Bus Program will provide $5 billion to replace existing buses with zero-emission and low-emission models as part of an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiative.
Across the U.S., there are now 5,982 electric school buses either in use, on order or operating. That’s 3,200 more electric buses than last year, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI), which tracks electric school buses in the U.S. Thirty-nine percent of those buses are the result of the Clean School Bus Program, according to WRI.
So far, Kentucky has received $26.9 million with the next round of grant applications for the program due in January. The grants not only cover the cost of the electric buses – about $400,000 each – but also the infrastructure needed to charge the buses.
So far, the awards have ranged from one bus each in Union County and Barbourville Independent to 23 buses in Carter County. Hanley believes many more Kentucky districts may apply for the next round, and all will be watching to see how the electric buses fare.
“I think there are a lot of districts that really want to wait and see how it goes this year,” she said. “If the districts that get them love them and they don’t have any issues with them, then great.”
Hanley said some districts may also be leery of taking on a new project while the state is still dealing with a driver shortage.
“But the federal government is not waiting to give out this money,” she said. “They have $5 billion dollars they are putting across the country so, if we can get a piece of that pie and it’s going to benefit our districts, that would be awesome.”
The program also dovetails with Kentucky’s new-found status as a manufacturer of electric-car batteries, Hanley noted.
“It makes sense for Kentucky, if we’re going to be No. 1 in battery plants, supplying batteries to the nation, we might want to utilize some of that technology,” she said.
First in the state
The Wolfe County electric bus that began rolling this school year is one of four soon to be part of the district’s fleet. The initial bus was part of an earlier grant program which paid the difference in cost between an electric bus and a diesel bus, Bell said. The next three buses will be completely paid for.
“So basically, we’re getting four electric school buses for the cost of one regular school bus,” he said.
Before deciding to pursue the electric buses, district administrators and board members did extensive research, Bell said.
Wolfe County Transportation Director John Halsey shows off the state’s first electric bus. Provided by KDEWolfe County school board member Danny Linkous and Transportation Director John Halsey visited the plant where the electric buses are made.“All of our school board members were very active in doing research, finding out what they could about them,” Bell said. “It wasn’t a decision they made very hastily; they did a lot of due diligence before jumping in.”
The extensive research even had Bell sold on electric vehicles. After the district applied for the grant, Bell bought a Hyundai electric vehicle himself.
After about a month of using the electric bus, Halsey was able to work with the district’s electric provider to determine the operating costs per mile. The answer – just 5 cents a mile. For a diesel bus, the cost is 60 cents a mile, Bell said.
“That’s what we are seeing so far,” he said. “And that doesn’t even take into account the fluids, like oil and transmission fluid and all that, that you’re not going to have to change.”
That cost savings also doesn’t include brake pads, which will have to be replaced less often because electric buses stop when the driver lets off the gas, he said.
“We’re really excited about the savings aspect of it,” Bell said. “As far as performance, it has really performed well on our roads and we’ve got a lot of hills.”
Wolfe County Board of Education leaders, including board member Chris Smith (second from left) Superintendent Kenny Bell (third from left), board member Eddie Rose (second from right) and Transportation Director John Halsey (far right) join representatives from Thomas Built Buses and Boyd Truck Centers at Campton Elementary in celebrate arrival of the the new bus. Provided by KDEThe bus gets more mileage than promised, he said. Bell believes that’s because the bus regenerates power when it slows down – and school buses slow down a lot.While the savings aspect benefits the district’s bottom line, Bell noted that the district also decided to go with electric buses for the environmental benefits.
“We teach our students environmental sustainability, but I think it’s more important that we take action,” he said. “So, this is a good example for our students and especially where we live in the Red River Gorge area, it’s really important to be environmentally friendly.”
Bell said teachers plan to use the bus for 6th grade mathematics lessons that will ask students to compare the costs of operating the bus over the costs of a diesel-powered bus.
This isn’t the district’s first foray into green energy. Several years ago, the district put solar panels on the roof of one of its elementary schools, Bell said.
“I think we are a community that wants to be environmentally friendly and that wants to model that for our students,” he said.
Electric fleet
While Wolfe County was the first in the state to use an electric bus, Carter County Schools has the most.
“We were hoping to get, you know, four, six. And surprisingly we got all 23, which is over $9 million,” said Carter County Schools Transportation Director Robbie Cooley. Of that money, $460,000 paid for the charging stations.
The district has 21 of the buses and is in the process of installing the charging stations, he said. The district has two bus garages and will be able to install eight chargers at its east facility and eight at its west facility. The other seven will be installed at other district facilities including elementary schools. “It’s going to be interesting for us, we’ve never done this before,” he said. “So we are going to just phase them in.”
Once all the buses are in service and the older buses are removed from the fleet, electric buses will make up 32 percent of the total fleet.
The district hasn’t been able to determine how much it will save in fuel costs because the buses haven’t yet been charged, but Cooley said the district is working with its utility company to get a reduced rate and plans to charge the buses overnight when electric rates are less expensive. “Bottom line is we got 23 free buses,” he said. “Regardless of whether they were diesel or electric, you would have to fuel them or charge them anyway.”
Cooley said the district would never have been able to buy 23 buses at once, but would have had to phase out the older buses by buying a few new buses every year.
When students start riding the buses in November, Cooley expects the same side benefit Wolfe County has experienced – a quieter ride.
“It’s a very quiet bus and I think that’ll help bring the noise level down on the bus with students not having to talk over the engine,” he said. “That’s probably the biggest plus and, obviously, you don’t have the exhaust fumes.”
Like Wolfe County, the Carter County school board was very supportive of pursuing the electric buses, Cooley said.
“Without knowing what the future holds, if this just takes off over the next 10 years, we’ll have such a head start on figuring out the do’s and don’ts and what works best,” he said.
Though applying for the grant and then accepting bids for the buses and the charging infrastructure involved a lot of leg work for district transportation officials, Cooley said he would gladly do it again.
“For the amount of work and then what we received, it was well worth it,” he said.