Electric Bus Virtual Power Plants – It’s Happening

Source: David Dodge | · GREEN ENERGY FUTURES · | November 13, 2024

It sounds like a futuristic scenario. During the day electric school buses quietly deliver students to and from their schools with zero emissions and at the end of the day park and provide the power their families use to cook dinner.

It turns out the future is now. We recently spoke with Jeremy Kureluk of Rental Bus Lines in Stony Plain, Alberta about how much they liked their electric school buses. At the end of our interview Kureluk mused that they hoped one day to use their electric school buses as virtual power plants to feed electricity to the grid.

That same week we met Rob Safrata at the Decentralised Energy Canada Forum at Whistlers in B.C. and he’s starting a company to do just that.

“I own two transportation companies. One’s a courier business, Novex Courier,” says Safrata. Novex was the first courier company to reach carbon neutrality in North America.

But Safrata also owns “West Coast Sightseeing. It’s a tour bus company. And I’ve been trying for six years to figure out how to electrify our entire fleet of 60 buses.

He wants to electrify his fleet of touring buse, but “They’re too expensive and the infrastructure is complicated and expensive and that’s the genesis of FUSE Power Management,” says Safrata.