First State Times

The Delaware Department of Education (DDOE) hopes to help five school districts fund a total of 14 electric school buses and 17 propane buses through the federal Clean School Bus Rebate Program.

The department — which qualifies the same as a school district as an applicant for this rebate because the state is a funder, purchaser and title owner of almost 500 school buses – submitted the rebate applications for:

• Brandywine – 7 propane
• Caesar Rodney – 2 propane
• Capital – 3 electric, 1 propane
• Colonial – 3 electric, 1 propane
• Red Clay Consolidated – 8 electric, 6 propane

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Rebate program incentivizes both electric and propane school bus purchases since both are cleaner than diesel engine buses. Delaware school bus fleets already contain about 108 propane buses, and the additional requested propane bus rebates continue that transition effort. The 14 electric school buses requested would be Delaware’s first.

“We’re grateful for the support of the Delaware Department of Transportation and the Loudoun County School District in Virginia on this project. The expertise and advice of these partners helped us draft a strong proposal that, if successful, will help us continue our transition to a cleaner school bus fleet,” Secretary of Education Mark Holodick said.

DART, the state’s transit operator within the Delaware Department of Transportation, began its transition into electric transit buses with six buses, and Loudoun County School District in Virginia began with five in a 700-plus fleet. Representatives of both entities told DDOE of the need to understand the operational limits, maintenance, worker training, charging and other logistics before making electric buses a larger part of a fleet that must remain fully reliable. Because the Clean School Bus program requires getting rid of older buses when the new ones are purchased, neither the old nor new buses can simply be treated as “spares” in a fleet – they must be operated daily.

The EPA rebate program requires that the new clean buses replace older school buses that are currently in service, with the primary category for replacement being diesel buses from 2010 or before. Delaware has engaged in a concerted effort to replace older school buses over the last few years with newer, cleaner ones, and 99 percent of the state-owned buses were already newer than 2010, with 76 percent 2016 or newer. The Delaware rebate applications, if all granted, would replace all state-owned school buses that are 2012 or older.

The EPA expects to make award announcements in October with plans for future application rounds in the coming years that could allow the state to further expand its cleaner bus fleet.

Original source can be found here.