Lion Electric announces successful deployment of electric school bus vehicle-to-grid in New York
by CM Staff
School buses can be used to sell power back to the energy grid when demand for energy is high.
MONTREAL — The Lion Electric Company, a manufacturer of purpose-built all-electric medium and heavy-duty urban vehicles, announces that it has been successful in using its electric school buses to supply electricity back to Con Edison utility customers, as part of the company’s vehicle-to-grid (V2G) pilot deployment in White Plains, New York.
The project, which began in 2018 in partnership among Lion, Nuvve, White Plains School District and National Express, is known by the company to be the first successful deployment in the state of New York of a vehicle-to-grid pilot, whereby electricity flows from electric school buses back to the grid – marking a significant milestone in advancing V2G technology in North America. As a result of the deployment, Con Edison is now able to successfully transmit energy from the LionC school buses of the White Plains School District back into the grid, which energy can then be distributed to customers aided by Nuvve’s V2G technology.
The success of this initial V2G pilot deployment means that school buses – which are ideal for V2G integration due to their daily use patterns and overnight storage – can be used to sell power back to the grid when demand for energy is high, saving operators money and contributing to the condition of the grid. As such, all of Lion’s buses and heavy-duty vehicles come equipped standard with V2G technology onboard, providing new ROI opportunities for its customers to unlock and realize.
Organizations and governments that pursue increasingly ambitious carbon neutrality goals based largely on renewable energy sources and zero-emission transportation, will be interested in the V2G technology and its applications in energy grids.
“We think electric school buses may provide an opportunity to achieve two of our company’s goals, which are reducing carbon emissions, and maintaining our industry-leading reliability,” said Brian Ross, Con Edison’s manager for the project. “We are innovating to help our state and region achieve a clean energy future in which electric vehicles will have a big role.”
All of Lion’s vehicles are purpose-built for electric propulsion from the ground up, and are manufactured at Lion’s North American facility, which has a current capacity to produce 2,500 electric vehicles per year.
