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Oakland Unified Is the First U.S. School District with 100% Electric, Bidirectional V2G School Bus Fleet

May 28, 2024

Zum purchased 74 electric, V2G bidirectional buses to transport students to and from Oakland Unified School District.
Annually, the buses can provide 2.1 gigawatts of energy back to the grid.
Oakland is the first major U.S. city to have an entire electric school bus fleet.

California continues to lead the way with EV adoption, this time in Oakland. It is the nation’s first major city to switch its entire school bus fleet to battery-electric and V2G bidirectional.

Keeping the Air Clean With an Electric School Bus Program

Zu m (pronounced “zoom”) provides electric school bus transportation for the Oakland Unified School District. Using grant money from federal and state organizations like the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Program and the California Air Resource Board, Zum purchased 74 electric school buses and bidirectional chargers. Zum will manage the buses through an AI-enabled tech platform that allows the bidirectional chargers to return 2.1-gigawatt hours of energy back to the grid.

Ritu Narayan, the founder and CEO of Zum, said about the program, “This historic milestone is a win-win proposition: Electric school buses with V2G provide students with cleaner, fume-free transportation and allow us to send untapped energy from the bus batteries back to the grid, creating an enormous impact on grid resilience. Zum is proud to have delivered on this ambitious project a year ahead of schedule.”

How Air Pollution Affects School-Age Children

According to Narayan, the school bus system moves over “27 million students twice daily,” so transitioning them away from gasoline and diesel fuel matters. The current fleet of school buses adds 8.4 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere annually. The gas and diesel fuel exhaust contributes to air pollution that exacerbates asthma in students whom the buses deliver to and from school. Students with asthma are more likely to miss school, which affects their academic performance.

The switch in Oakland matters, especially as disadvantaged students in Oakland have high rates of asthma caused by exposure to air pollution from diesel fuels. Exposure to air pollution doesn’t just affect breathing, it also slows brain development. According to a study conducted in 2015, children attending school in areas with high air pollution had more behavioral and cognitive problems compared to students in less polluted areas.

Kim Raney, Executive Director of Transportation at Oakland Unified School District, said, “Providing our students with cleaner and quieter transportation on electric school buses will be a game changer ensuring they have an equitable and stronger chance of success in the classroom.”

Supplying Renewable Energy to Electric Buses

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is providing the 2.7 megawatts of energy needed to charge the electric school bus fleet. PG&E is headquartered in Oakland, so the utility company was able to accelerate the program. As of August 2023, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy reported that less than 10% of Oakland’s energy came from non-renewable, carbon-based sources. According to Ava Community Energy, the power supplier for Alameda County, no coal is used to create energy.

Mike Delaney, the Vice President of Utility Partnership and Innovation at PG&E, said, “Achieving this advanced fleet electrification and vehicle-grid-integration milestone for the people and students of Oakland reflects our commitment to delivering excellent customer service outcomes for our hometowns using breakthrough thinking, collaboration and swift execution.”

About Zum

Oakland isn’t the only community where Zum is changing the air quality. The company has a goal of adding 10,000 bidirectional school buses around the country. Zum has already added electric school buses in significantly larger districts like San Francisco Unified and Los Angeles Unified. Using 10,000 bidirectional school buses will be able to create up to 300-gigawatt hours of energy to local power grids each year.

Zum is also switching gas and diesel buses to electrified options in other states including Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Utah. The company has been recognized for its goal of transforming the student transportation industry with electrification.