For decades, rural Scott County, Va., has been transporting thousands of students daily in diesel-powered school buses. Drivers shift the rumbling yellow vehicles into low gear to climb the Blue Ridge Mountains, expelling plumes of carbon dioxide, a cause of climate change, and particulate matter, which can cause respiratory ailments.

On Saturday, the General Assembly approved legislation introduced by Del. Mark L. Keam (D) (HB 2118) offering school districts grants to replace pollution-belching buses with nonpolluting — but more expensive — electric ones. Separately, the legislature rejected a proposal by Dominion Energy to authorize $400 million in spending to purchase 1,500 electric buses.

But some rural school district transportation directors say replacing diesel buses with electric ones is unrealistic, citing a laundry list of potential problems, including battery life, charging station challenges and cost.

“Electric buses simply would not be workable in this area,” said Tim Edwards, director of transportation for Scott County Schools. “Scott County’s terrain is too hilly, mountainous.”

Some rural school districts say electric buses are not practical for them. | Dominion Energy

Ben Truett, head of transportation for Alleghany County Schools, agreed that electric buses “would work in cities, because of their flat terrain, but not in the mountain areas” of Virginia. “The batteries do not have enough range or power.”

A spokesman for Gov. Ralph Northam did not respond Wednesday when asked whether he plans to sign Keam’s bill.

Keam says his legislation, which would allow school districts to seek competitive grants from a new state fund, offset by federal and private sector philanthropic contributions, would provide major health benefits. In Virginia, he said, nearly 130,000 children suffer from asthma, which leads to many missed school days. With approximately 17,000 school buses transporting more than 1 million students, electric buses would improve their health, he said. Studies have estimated that average exposure to particulate matter inside diesel buses is three to six times greater than ambient levels.

Battery electric buses’ fuel and maintenance costs are about 60% lower than conventional diesel vehicles, but they cost two to three times as much. | Dominion Energy

However, Keam has acknowledged that electric school buses aren’t ideal for rural districts. “My bill really wouldn’t be helpful” to those areas, he said. “Virginia needs a plan on where we put charging stations” before encouraging rural areas to apply for the competitive grant, he said.

Erik Bigelow, senior engineering consultant at the Center for Transportation and the Environment, agrees that current batteries are suitable for flat land but don’t have the power or range in rural areas. Improved battery technologies could give buses the range needed to run rural routes, but that could be years away, he said.

Hydrogen fuel cell buses could offer longer range but require expensive fueling infrastructure.

Battery electric buses’ fuel and maintenance costs are about 60% lower than conventional diesel vehicles, but the increased purchase cost — a premium of about $200,000 per vehicle — have limited deployments to date. Alternative procurement strategies could accelerate the transition, however. The school district in Montgomery County, Md., last month approved a contract to lease 326 school buses over the next four years — the largest single procurement of electric school buses in North America — without increasing the district’s costs. (See related story, Schools’ ‘Budget Neutral’ Bus Deal Could Accelerate BEB Growth.)

Infrastructure

But reducing upfront costs does nothing to address range anxiety.

The leading electric bus maker, High Point, N.C.-based Thomas Built Buses, averages 134 miles on a fully charged 220-kWh battery. Some bus routes in Alleghany and Scott counties are more than 100 miles round trip, the directors said. Given the power needed to climb steep hills, they doubt a fully charged battery would last an entire trip. Both counties run buses that get about 360 miles to a 100-gallon tank, with most requiring a top off several times a week.

The lack of charging stations also concerns the transportation directors, especially Edwards. Scott County has only five buses returning to a central depot each school day; the remaining 41 stay at the drivers’ homes.

While HB 2118 provides funding for charging stations, Edwards asked for clarification: “Does that mean each driver would have a charging station at their home?” If buses were rerouted to a central location, it would double the amount of time and miles drivers are on the road, costing the cash-strapped district money it can ill afford.

Additionally, Edwards questions whether the county has the infrastructure to operate charging stations. The district still has schools using coal furnaces for heat, because some parts of the county’s electric infrastructure is 60 to 70 years old, said Edwards, the district’s former maintenance director. “Homes running air conditioning in the summer and electric heat in the winter couldn’t power buses without problems,” Edwards said.

Proponents of vehicle-to-grid technology say school districts could charge their buses when prices are low at night and profit from selling power during the day when prices are higher. But Truett worries the school district could fall prey to powerful electric utilities. “I don’t see a mutual benefit here,” he said. “It’s not 50/50.”

Even with grants, the rural districts fear they would struggle to keep electric buses on the road. While the maintenance is cheaper, nobody in their garages has the know-how to repair one, the directors said.

Truett, a self-described environmentalist, wants the district to carry students in environmentally friendly electric buses, but even if they were practical, the $400,000 price tag per bus is beyond the district’s budget.

Alleghany County, where one in five people live in poverty, has a fleet of 56 buses. “We are talking tens of millions of dollars to replace our fleet,” Truett said. “This district doesn’t have that kind of money. And I sure hope the state doesn’t make electric buses an unfunded mandate.”

Edwards echoed that sentiment. “It’s Cadillac versus Ford,” he said. “Even if we won a Cadillac, it requires upkeep, costly upkeep. It requires special tools and knowledge, things we don’t have here.”

If the state requires school districts to purchase electric school buses, Scott County, with an 18% poverty rate, would also be “in a world of hurt,” Edwards said.

Dominion Bus Plan Rejected

Rayhan Daudani, a spokesperson for Dominion, Virginia’s largest electric provider, says battery-powered buses are a “win-win” for schools and the power grid. “The buses use less fluids [and] require no oil changes,” he said.

The power company announced in August 2019 it would pursue what it called the nation’s largest electric school bus deployment, beginning with a $13.5 million pilot to provide 50 electric buses to school districts. The first recipients are some of Virginia’s largest school systems: Alexandria, Arlington, Norfolk and Richmond. The first buses were delivered in October.

Dominion Energy’s proposal to spend $400 million to purchase 1,500 electric school buses was rejected by Virginia lawmakers. | Dominion Energy

Dominion said it hoped to replace all 13,000 diesel buses in its service territory. (See Dominion Sees Green in Electrification.) But legislation that would have allowed the utility to purchase 1,500 buses at a cost of $400 million was rejected by the House of Delegates on Feb. 27, the last day of the legislative session (SB 1830). The bill failed even after the program was reduced to 1,250 and then 1,000 buses, according to a report by the Virginia Mercury. Other amendments would have required that one-quarter of the buses go to districts serving low-income students and given the State Corporation Commission authority to determine whether the program was “in the public interest.”

Dominion would have paid the increased cost of the buses and owned the batteries, while school districts would own the buses. The State Corporation Commission reportedly estimated the cost — excluding charging infrastructure — at $345 million, including $108 million in profit. Dominion would have offset the cost by raising residential customers bills by $12 annually.

Observers said some of the opposition to the bill came from resentment over Dominion’s efforts to block legislation that would have restored state regulators’ power to conduct rate reviews, legislation that the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee killed Feb. 15.