New York City School Bus Umbrella Services (NYCSBUS) announced the approval of a charging infrastructure and automated load management (ALM) to support the operations of 25 electric school buses, which NYCSBUS was awarded from the EPA's Clean School Bus program.
According to the Vehicle-to-Grid Integration Council, ALM is the use of software or other behind-the-meter technologies to strategically share charging capacity across multiple charging ports at the same charging site, helping safely connect multiple charging ports whose total nameplate load would otherwise exceed the rated capacity of the customer connection.
By deploying this technology, NYCSBUS will be able to avoid or defer the need to upgrade the distribution system infrastructure to accommodate new EV charging loads.
To help establish this charging infrastructure, NYCSBUS has selected The Mobility House, an electric vehicle (EV) charging and energy solutions company, to advance its charging technology and drive the expansion of its electric school bus fleet.
In 2022, The Mobility House was part of the team that won $8 million from the NYSERDA New York Clean Transportation Prizes program for bi-directional charging infrastructure.
“We are excited to work with The Mobility House, thanks to generous funding from NYSERDA, to serve as the blueprint for how to rapidly scale school bus electrification in New York to meet the state’s ambitious goals,” said Matt Berlin, CEO of NYCSBUS.
By utilizing data-driven analysis and the application of ALM technology, such as The Mobility House's ChargePilot charge management software, NYCSBUS can now charge up to 17 buses at its Zerega site with 268 kW of nameplate charger capacity while staying under the maximum load limit of 80 kW set by the utility provider.
Without this ALM technology, NYCSBUS was limited to charging up to 7 buses at the Zerega site.
In total, the electric school buses and accompanying charging infrastructure will be installed and deployed in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, with the majority going to benefit the Bronx area.
