"Utility Con Edison and school-bus operator First Student see bus-charging depots equipped with solar and batteries as a win-win that supports the power grid."

"New York City utility Con Edison will need to be able to charge about 10,000 electric school buses on its constrained power grid within the next 10 years or so. A $9 million pilot project in Brooklyn could help it figure out how to do that.

The project is starting small. Four battery-electric school buses are onsite today, with 12 more expected by the start of next school year. They’ll be bolstered by a 500-kilowatt solar array and a 2-megawatt-hour battery onsite, as well as by solar panels on some of the buses themselves.

But Con Edison hopes that these combinations of onsite clean power and smart charging will help keep grid stresses and costs in check at EV-charging depots across New York City and environs.

All the assets at the site in eastern Brooklyn — buses, solar panels, and batteries — can modulate when they pull power from the grid, as well as send power back to the grid when the utility needs it."

Jeff St. John reports for Canary Media November 4, 2024. [2]