San Francisco startup Zum is deploying electric school buses in Oakland, aiming to turn them into grid batteries that can help support the power grid. The company plans to electrify 10,000 school buses, which could significantly reduce harmful emissions and improve air quality. Electric buses can also charge during off-peak hours and provide power back to the grid during peak times, making them a valuable resource.
Author: Jeff St. John
URL: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-fleets/the-biggest-electric-school-bus-as-grid-battery-project-in-the-us-goes-live
When Ritu Narayan, CEO and co-founder of [Zum](http://www.ridezum.com/), looks at the 74 electric school buses and chargers her startup has deployed at a former industrial site in East Oakland, California, she sees a future where clean transportation and a clean and reliable grid come together.
“Today marks the next phase in our evolution,” Narayan said at an [event last week](https://www.ridezum.com/press-release/nations-first-all-electric-school-bus-fleet-oakland-ca/) marking the official launch of the country’s first all-electric school-bus fleet. By financing and installing thousands of electric school buses for the Oakland Unified School District, and tapping their spare battery capacity to support the power grid, the San Francisco–based, transportation-as-a-service startup plans to “become a fully fledged energy company,” she said.
The 74 electric buses in Zum’s Oakland fleet, which serve the district’s special-needs students, will “eliminate 25,000 tons of harmful emissions, improving air quality and health outcomes for students and families,” Narayan said. Swapping out the roughly 500,000 diesel school buses in the U.S. for electric buses could slash an estimated 8.4 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year.
A [dream of EV enthusiasts for decades](https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/ev-charging/evs-are-one-step-closer-to-becoming-roaming-grid-batteries), vehicle-to-grid charging is something for which electric school buses are [particularly well suited](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/electric-school-bus-fleets-test-the-u.s-vehicle-to-grid-proposition). Unlike cargo trucks or city buses, they operate only a few hours per day while picking up and dropping off students. That leaves plenty of time for them to plug in and soak up off-peak electricity in the middle of the day — including the [surplus solar power that floods California’s grid](https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/batteries-are-taking-on-gas-plants-to-power-californias-nights) when it’s sunny out — and discharge it in late afternoons and evenings, when California’s grid faces its most [severe imbalance of supply and demand](https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/grid-edge/californians-saved-the-grid-again-they-should-be-paid-more-for-it).