S3:E7: Green Light for Colorado’s Electric School Bus

It's the launch of the Beneficial Electrification Toolkit at EESI! This resource is a one-stop-shop for utilities to learn, plan, and implement a beneficial electrification program. To explore this kind of electrification in action, we travel to Durango, Colorado, a small rural town in the southwest corner with a big source of pride: the first electric school bus with vehicle-to-grid capabilities in the state. This bus, which first hit the road in January 2022, not only takes students to school every day, but also helps store excess clean power, distribute energy back to the electric grid, reduce local emissions, and provide better air quality. The Durango School District worked with their local rural electric cooperative, La Plata Electric Association, to apply for a grant to pay for the bus and a fast charger in this pilot program. Dan and Emma talk with Dominic May from La Plata and Karla Sluis and Daniel Blythe from Durango School District about how the bus has performed so far and where they hope to take the program from here.