The Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) in California has completely electrified its school bus system, making it the first major U.S. school district to do so. The fleet has 74 all-electric buses made by Zūm, a Redwood City-based mass transit system company.

School Buses Environmental Effect

School transportation is the largest transport system in the USA. There are 500,000 school buses in operation around the U.S., and 90% of them are traditionally-fueled. These buses transport 27 million school children twice a day, emitting more than 8.4 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year.

In addition to harming the environment, students, as well as communities, are exposed to these fumes. The new EV school buses in Oakland alone will reduce around 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases annually.

Zūm All-Electric School Buses

Student transportation in the OUSD area will be decarbonized thanks to these new buses, and 2.1 gigawatt hours of energy will be sent back to the grid every year with the help of the advanced bidirectional chargers on each bus.

These chargers can send electricity both ways, charging the bus batteries and also taking any unused energy from the bus and sending it back to the power grid. They are managed with a VPP (virtual power plant) smart system that uses AI to work out how much electricity the bus needs, and how much it should send back to the grid, and when.