Plum School District working to cover costs of adding electric buses to fleet

The Plum School District needs more money for its plan to partially convert its bus fleet to electric vehicles but sees long term savings in the move.

The district was one of seven in Allegheny County and 21 statewide to receive a share of federal grant dollars to replace diesel buses with electric. Plum was awarded $5 million to replace up to 25 vehicles, which are expected to last 12 years.

However, the district anticipates the buses alone will cost about $9.6 million, with other costs pushing the total up to about $12.8 million.

The other costs consist of $1.8 million to upgrade about 1.5 miles of electric lines to the district’s garage on Greensburg Road, $1.1 million to resurface the parking lot there and $250,000 for charging stations.

After grants, tax credits and expected cost savings, about 78% of the total $12.8 million cost currently is covered, according to a presentation administrators gave to the school board this week.

That leaves about $2.8 million uncovered, but Superintendent Rick Walsh said the district is working to get as much of that covered as possible.

In addition to the $5 million federal grant, the district is applying for nearly $5 million more to cover the cost, with that money coming from grants, tax credits and expected cost savings.

That breaks down as:

• $256,000 from Duquesne Light’s “Make Ready Program,” to cover the cost of designing and installing the electrical infrastructure at the district’s site. Preston Hartman, director of K-12 virtual learning for the district, said that includes trenching, conduit, piping and a slab for a transformer.

• Two federal tax credits totaling $1.25 million — a $1 million commercial clean vehicle credit and a $250,000 alternative fuel vehicle refueling property credit.

• The district has applied for $1.1 million in other grants — $800,000 from the Allegheny County Clean Air Program and $300,000 from the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Grant. The district should know if it is getting the grants by the end of October, Hartman said.

• The district is expecting about $2.4 million in indirect cost savings — about $980,000 in electric vs. diesel energy savings over 12 years and $1.4 million from reduced oil changes and breakdowns.

Not included in that tally is the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit, which is a federal tax credit providing up to 30% of project costs, up to $100,000, for electric charging infrastructure installed in low-income or non-urban areas. The district’s bus depot qualifies as not being in an urban area, according to the district.

Tax-exempt and governmental agencies also can benefit from certain clean energy investment and production credits under legislation enacted in 2022.

“We believe that we’re going to be very competitive in regard to being rewarded additional money, so we strongly believe that 78% (of cost coverage) is going to climb much higher than that,” Walsh said.

While facing a significant upfront cost to add electric buses to its fleet, buying and maintaining 25 diesel buses for 12 years would cost the district about $9.2 million, according to the presentation. The district currently spends $500,000 on buses each year.

“By updating our fleet, by having a balance of electric buses and diesel, we believe that we’re going to be able to look at using that money differently in the near future,” Walsh said. “It will update our fleet. There’s a lot of incentives connected with this. Our goal is to hopefully have this funded externally as close to 100% as we can possibly get it.”

It is not yet known when the electric buses will arrive or go into service.

Plum now is accepting quotes from vendors including Bluebird, International and Lion Bus. A purchase order is expected to be made in November.

Taye Coles, the district’s transportation director, said he is favoring Bluebird, from which the district is getting prices on 84-passenger and 72-passenger buses. Bluebird has sales and service facilities nearby, Hartman said.

“As of right now, Bluebird is leading in our findings as far as cost goes, as far as capacity and efficiency,” Coles said.

Coles said he has driven electric buses from International and Bluebird. While he has not driven any Lion buses, he said he has heard good things about them and wanted to give the company a chance.

“I have always had a bias, if you will, toward Bluebird and International,” he said. “Those are the main buses that you will see on the road. That is what we currently have in our fleet as diesel vehicles.”

Plum is reaching out to districts that already use electric buses about their experiences with them, including a district in Maryland that switched the majority of its fleet to electric, Walsh said.

The largest bus Plum now operates holds 72 passengers, Coles said.

Going to 84 passengers “will allow us to better serve our students and increase efficiencies in regard to our transportation routes,” Walsh said. “This is still an ongoing conversation.”