Utilities, schools see growing value in electric buses for virtual power plants

Electric school buses are turning into small power plants, and the trend says something about where the grid is headed. School districts in Massachusetts, California, and Connecticut are outfitting buses with batteries that can send power back into the grid during peak demand, a setup called vehicle-to-grid, or V2G. Utilities pay for this service through programs like National Grid's ConnectedSolutions, which paid one Massachusetts district close to $12,000 per bus per summer, though a company that runs similar programs says $6,000 a year is more typical. In California, Pacific Gas & Electric relies on school bus fleets to help avoid blackouts during high-demand periods.

This isn't something homeowners can sign up for directly, since it applies to school bus fleets and depends on special bidirectional chargers and utility programs. But it points to a broader shift: utilities increasingly value any battery, whether in a bus, a car, or a home battery system, that can store power and feed it back to the grid when demand spikes. If you already have or are considering a home battery or an electric vehicle with bidirectional charging capability, this is the same basic idea utilities are testing at larger scale, and similar demand-response programs sometimes extend to residential customers.

The technology still has some rough edges. A Virginia utility study found reliability issues in some buses when a small backup battery ran low, preventing the vehicles from properly charging or discharging on command. Engineers say those problems may be specific to certain equipment and could already be resolved.