School Bus Logistics LLC (SBL) and Microgrid Labs Inc., a consulting and software company specializing in commercial fleet electrification and microgrids, have established a partnership. Together, the companies will help school districts prepare for, and make the switch to, electric buses.
The push to convert the nation’s diesel bus fleet to electric is gaining momentum, driven by new state and federal policies aimed at producing more clean-energy vehicles. In March, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued the final version of a new rule that sets higher fuel efficiency standards for manufacturers producing school buses and other heavy-duty vehicles. This new rule will go into effect in 2027 and will lead to 40% of school bus production being electric by 2032, according to the EPA’s regulatory impact analysis of the rule.
“We’re hearing a lot from clients that they’re looking to start, or continue, their electrification journey but struggle with putting the right foundation in place,” says Robert Jacobus, founder and CEO of SBL. “While we aren’t the company to help them make decisions on equipment, we are experts in getting their routes streamlined and optimized so that they can feel confident that the equipment they do end up purchasing will meet their stop and run needs.”
SBL helps school districts nationwide create efficient bus stops and routes to reduce overall costs. Its route optimization offerings provide districts with a clear understanding of their routes’ length and time, as well as the opportunity to combine and streamline routes — a solution that also helps address ongoing driver shortages.
“When a district has a solid understanding of their future routes, we can more easily aid them in the evaluation of their electric infrastructure needs,” says Chuck Ray, business development director at Microgrid Labs. “This involves modeling electric bus feasibility across the fleet, right-sizing the charging system and assessing their district’s specific operations using our modeling platform, EVopt, to answer the critical questions about electrification. Districts gain a solid grasp about where to deploy, what to buy and how to fund their zero-emissions goals.”
EVopt delivers data-driven insights and supports the life cycle of fleet transition — plan, design, build, deploy, operate and optimize. It leverages a fleet-as-a-system approach to model and simulate energy consumption for the local operating environment, determining the correct bus battery sizes for every route and optimizing the charging system design, which saves capital costs at every phase of electrification. The platform utilizes data validation from national labs and proprietary algorithms co-developed through federal R&D.
