Schools Can Tap Electric Bus Fleets for Extra Energy and Profit

Alex Macheria is Vehicle Grid Integration Program Manager for PowerFlex, a firm that recently acquired The Mobility House where Alex worked for three years. He brings his love of wheels to the job, tackling the complex world of vehicle grid integration (VGI) and its multiple benefits. PowerFlex helps to connect fleets of electric vehicles, notably electric school buses, to the grid, simultaneously unlocking savings for fleet operators and utilities. By connecting these distributed storage devices, power grids call on EVs as capacity resources during peak periods, paying operators for their precious kilowatt-hours. In turn, a school district can earn as much as $2,000 per year per bus, while getting energy resilience to boot.

The Mobility House has been in the energy management space since 2009 doing cutting-edge projects that link EVs with the grid, notably at the Johan Cruyff Arena in the Netherlands where fans plug in their EVs to support the stadium’s power requirements. In America, The Mobility House has worked with five electric utilities developing synergistic VGI approaches. Now with PowerFlex, a division of EDF Renewables North America, Alex and his colleagues will provide the same services at scale… accelerating the VGI technology in the commercial sector.

Ted asks Alex how he describes what he does for work at a cocktail party. Tough question, notes Alex. VGI is a complex topic covering a number of functions that involve electric vehicles’ interactivity with grid services. His work is building on traditional unidirectional EV charging, tapping into the benefits of stationary energy storage assets. Electric buses travel predictable routes on set schedules, allowing for their valuable energy storage capacities to be at the ready during utility peak periods, especially in summer.

Alex digs into his job and how PowerFlex works with clients and utilities, uncovering means to dispatch power back to the grid. He is working to explore and tap revenue opportunities for fleet operators, and benefits for utilities. A typical electric bus has an order of magnitude more storage capacity than a typical Tesla Powerwall, capacity that can be used to buy power during low-cost periods, offsetting high-cost peak charging. Utilities are getting on board having had significant experience with distributed generation — notably with solar systems that feed back into the grid with net metering. VGI builds on that with far higher voltage. Thus these systems need to be carefully engineered and managed. Alex discussed different utilities’ interconnection requirements, programs such as the Emergency Load Reduction program that provide compensation to fleet operators… up to $2 per kilowatt-hour during extreme utility peak conditions.

Another interesting aspect of Alex’s work is V2B, or Vehicle to Building. Schools are now being set up to receive power from Ebuses. Alex explains that the electric buses can be charged by solar at a bus yard, and then moved to a school site if there is an outage, plugging into the school to power its critical loads. This energy resilience is more and more attractive as California schools experience Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS), events now sanctioned by California regulators that allow utilities to shut down the grid due to extreme fire danger.

The conversation focuses on an interesting pilot program involving school districts in Pittsburg and Fremont, California. It brings all these VGI aspects to the fore in a pilot that involves seven parties funded by the California Energy Commission. PowerFlex has been orchestrating the team…. funders, schools, engineers, non-profits (including the World Resources Institute), all working to develop a viable business model for replication. He salutes the team citing their passion for the project. In fact, it is the passion of the stakeholders that has overcome the project’s complexity. And at the end of the day, Pacific Gas and Electric gets critical capacity resources during peak periods, the school districts get savings and resilience, and the communities get more reliable power and cleaner buses and thus cleaner air.

The final question is just for fun: Growing up in Kenya, did Alex ever imagine that he would be involved in advanced VGI activities in America? Well, not really, he notes. But he describes himself as a huge nerd; his dad worked for a utility and was always tinkering. So Alex reports that he has found himself exactly where he is supposed to be, with great people and mentors around him, a great family, Kenyan coffee and woodworking… and delving into cutting-edge projects that are case studies for replication.