Student transportation provider First Student has rolled out the company’s first electric school bus in Oregon, supporting the Gresham-Barlow School District (GBSD). First Student partnered with GBSD to secure a grant from Portland General Electric’s (PGE) School Bus Fund.
First Student’s team of electric vehicle experts assisted the district through the grant application, infrastructure design, charger and bus selection, utility outreach and construction, and deployment.
“The launch of the electric school bus in Gresham has an immediate positive impact to the students at North Gresham Elementary – zero emissions and zero noise,” says First Student’s head of electrification, Kevin L. Matthews. “With more than 230 electric school buses on the road today, this is just the beginning of our mission to convert 30,000 diesel buses to electric by 2035, benefiting student passengers and the communities we serve.”
Replacing one diesel school bus with an electric one can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 54,000 pounds each year.
“We are excited to partner with First Student to add the first electric bus to our fleet,” says GBSD Superintendent James Hiu. “Electric school buses reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and this new bus serves as a symbol of GBSD’s commitment to the environment and our community’s future.”
First Student has actively consulted with school partners to help take advantage of available funding across North America to obtain electric school buses. First Student is also participating in a pilot program with PGE to determine how the electric school bus can support the utility grid.
The Electric School Bus Fund is funded via the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s Clean Fuels Program. PGE covers the incremental cost of the electric school bus and the total installation of charging infrastructure.
First Student is the largest operator of electric school buses in North America, with more than one million miles of service with EVs.