Wylie ISD considers grant for electric school buses

ABILENE, Texas ( KTAB/KRBC ) — Electric vehicles are becoming more common on the roads every day. Thanks to a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, Wylie Independent School District has the opportunity to introduce 22 electric school buses, which, if accepted, would make up one-third of the district’s bus fleet.

The grant is part of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiative called the Clean School Bus Program, which has provided $5 billion over the last five years to clean a substantial portion of the nation’s fleet of nearly 500,000 school buses. The Wylie school board recently discussed the possibility of accepting the grant, which would replace a third of their bus fleet. Many questions arose regarding the possibility of incorporating these new buses.

“Number one, we wanted to know what kind of range we were talking about. We wanted to know if we have mechanical problems. Who do we turn to? The battery life. What’s the life of an electric bus? What does that look like,” Wylie Superintendent Joey Light asked when outlining the discussion topics during the school board meeting.

The EPA grant offered to Wylie is for the buses alone and does not cover infrastructure changes, such as charging stations that the school would need to operate these vehicles. However, there are potential monetary opportunities to cover those expenses, which would prevent the school’s budget from being affected by this change.

“We are actually looking at what they call stacking grants. So, not only is the grant from the EPA involved, but we’re also looking at one from TCEQ and how they may stack. They have said that there is a potential that there can be no cost to the district for the busses and the infrastructure,” Light explained.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) offers grants similar to the one recently presented to the school by the EPA. The Wylie school board has not decided whether to accept the EPA grant. They plan to conduct further research on electric vehicles and assess their potential long-term benefits for the school before deciding.

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