Grant County School District in West Virginia has just taken delivery of three all-electric buses from GreenPower Motor Co.
All three new e-buses are Type D zero-emission BEAST models, measuring out 40-feet-long and seating up to 90 students each. The corrosion-resistant aluminum body is manufactured by Constellium and is mated to a steel Truss chassis.
Combined port charging is standard with Level 2 rates up to 19.2 kW and DC Fast Charging rates up to 85 kW for full charging in less than three hours. School districts and mass transit are seen as attractive early markets for fleet electrification, given the relatively short routes and regular operating times for the vehicles.
"GreenPower continues to manufacture and deliver its all-electric, purpose-built school bus products to its dealer in West Virginia and dealers across the nation for school districts in a timely manner despite the current uncertainties of public policy, tariffs and funding," said Brendan Riley, President of GreenPower. "This week's delivery to our West Virginia dealer is for the second school district in West Virginia under the Clean School Bus Program since the contract with EPA was signed just four months ago and the federal funding became available in mid-March."
Delivery of the West Virginia-manufactured school buses under the EPA grant was paused for a few weeks as part of the freeze on spending implemented by the Trump Administration as the new EPA team evaluated program spending. After the freeze was lifted, GreenPower's first delivery to its dealer in West Virginia under the CSBP was for Kanawha County and the current announcement is the second set of buses under the award to Grant County.
Calhoun County's school buses funded under the CSBP will be the next delivery for GreenPower. GreenPower has delivered 22 of its all-electric, purpose-built, zero-emission school buses in West Virginia for deployment in school districts across the Mountain State, including 16 BEASTS and six Nano BEASTs.
West Virginia is embracing fleet electrification through school districts, and also recently passed legislation supporting development of microgrids to power data centers.
