CTE Hosts All-Day School Bus Electrification Workshop at First Clean Energy Schools Symposium
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 30, 2023
CONTACT
Kate Mason
615-419-5185
More than 50 school leaders from 16 states traveled to Washington D.C. this week for the first-ever Clean Energy Schools Symposium - a national convening of school decision makers who are transitioning their schools to clean energy. National clean energy non-profit Generation180 hosted the March 26-28 gathering and Tuesday's sessions, facilitated by the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) and sponsored by the World Resources Institute (WRI), were dedicated to electrifying school transportation.The US school bus fleet contains roughly 480,000 vehicles carrying millions of students each day, yet only 1% of these buses are electric. Replacing all diesel school buses with electric school buses (ESBs) would drastically curb children's exposure to harmful air pollutants, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and has the potential to substantially reduce operating expenses for school districts - but will require proper planning and technical support to ensure success.
CTE facilitators, Grace Leslie, Erik Bigelow, and Niki Rinaldi El-Abd provided attendees with an introduction to transition planning, emphasizing the importance of understanding operational feasibility and technology requirements of existing fleet operations. The all-day workshop evaluated various operational strategies to combat common challenges to ESB implementation, and showcased the results of a completed ESB transition plan. Districts had an opportunity to submit their data in advance for an individualized transition plan output from CTE, and were given the opportunity to discuss these results with CTE's experts and other ESB stakeholders in attendance.
Attendees also heard from a panel of school district, utility, and transportation solutions provider representatives about their experiences with electric school bus (ESB) adoption and advice to those considering ESBs."Teaching school systems how to develop comprehensive fleet transition plans reduces risk and empowers the districts to make informed decisions," said Lauren Justice, CTE's Development Director.Federal leadership in attendance throughout the symposium included Cindy Marten, Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education and Alejandro Moreno, Assistant Secretary of Renewable Power at the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as Karl Simon, Director of the Transportation and Climate Division at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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ABOUT CTE
The Center for Transportation and the Environment is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a mission to improve the health of our climate and communities by bringing people together to develop and commercialize clean, efficient, and sustainable transportation technologies. CTE collaborates with federal, state, and local governments, fleets, and vehicle technology manufacturers to complete our mission. Learn more at cte.tv.
