Get Energy Smart! NOW!

The legislative session is about to close in Richmond. Lawmakers are working late hours. Deals are being cut. Good bills are being left on the table amid the end of season rush. And …

Virginia is on the cusp of becoming a national leader in electric school buses (ESBs). Dominion has announced plans for a major program, en route to providing 100% ESBs in its service area, and has already initiated the first 50 ESBs with participating school districts. Governor Northam has taken portions of the VW diesel settlement fund for a small ESB demonstration program. The legislative session had multiple ESB bills in play.

At this time, the last one standing seems to be HB75 with Senate and House conferees announced earlier today.

Upfront, to be clear, even as it has weaknesses, this legislation should be supported.
It helps move Virginia down a better path
with multiple benefit streams.
It is progress, not perfection

Delegate Kory’s original HB75 might best be described as having been a legislating of Dominion’s desired program. Since then it has been amended in ways that could enable local school districts to wrest some power away from Dominion but which likely will leave Dominion in the driver’s seat.

In short, HB75 would enable Dominion (the Commonwealth’s sole “Phase II Utility”) to move forward with an ESB demonstration project as “in the public interest”. Defining it, in law, as “in the public interest” limits the State Corporation Commission’s ability to provide oversight and restrict Dominion’s charging of ratepayers for the program’s costs. The bill will enable Dominion to ask for rate adjustments relative to ESB program costs.

Let’s be clear, ESBs have tremendous benefits for the public across multiple domains from improved student health to reduce noise on the streets. For ratepayers, the ESBs will help foster a more resilient and better operating grid. Thus, ‘charging back’ to the ratepayers isn’t necessarily a bad thing and reducing the SCC’s ability to do a stove-piped analysis that only considers ratepayer interests is probably in the general interest of all Virginians.

Looking at this legislation, there are several oddities that merit questioning and at least one merits change even at the last moment by conferees:

• 40 Percent: The program is limited to a maximum of forty percent of school buses procured by involved school districts in any specific year. There is, well, simply no good justification for this. Consider some scenarios:
  • This is a structure mandating, in essence, that school districts can’t determine that they want to go 100% electric school buses and do so via this program.
  • What if the most sensible set of projects, one year, is a set of smaller school districts which are each buying a small number (10? 15?) of buses. The 40% would, it seems, preclude these smaller school districts from buying in reasonable scale.
  • Thus, conferees — cross out lines 46-49 creating a percentage limitation on any year’s projects.
• 2025 Sunset: The legislation (section [G]) sunsets the program as of 31 December 2025.
  • Sigh, when we should be mandating an accelerating path toward 100% ESBs, we are going mandate an end to the program? Really?
  • Honestly, what this really ties to is Dominion’s poorly structured plan for 200 ESBs per year through 2025 to then move to perhaps 1000 ESBs per year starting in 2026. That structure, honestly, is far from ideal nor is a legislating an end to the program.
  • However, 2025 is a long way away in electric vehicle years. The 2025 Sunset really is relatively meaningless as expanding and accelerating ESBs should (will) be part of the 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, … legislative cycles. Thus, conferees, please ignore any complaints about this sunsetting provision. ESB proponents will, in any event, be back again and again and …
• Absence of evaluation and reporting
  • HB75, as amended, has no provisions for assessing, evaluating, and reporting on ESB demonstration projects.
  • A simply reality, while it is clear that ESBs will provide significant (co)benefits, there is not truly robust understanding as to what these are and how significant they might be. As put in another discussion:

There are a wide range of issues surrounding ESB deployment and operations. Understandably, a ‘Facilities’ assessment will be stove-piped assessment of direct ‘facilities costs’ streams (acquisition (purchase), operations, and maintenance costs). However, ESB benefit streams go far beyond lowered fuel costs and reduced maintenance. They include reduced student exposure to diesel fumes (and thus reduced asthma and cancer rates), reduced absenteeism due to illnesses, reduced noise, reduced CO2 levels inside the bus, improved bus performance and safety, and other impacts with real implications for improved educational performance.

A simple truth: we don’t have a meaningful handle on these value streams. Without such an understanding, how can we determine whether and how fast to go electric?

It is possible that ESB educational performance implications, alone, could be significant enough to justify a significant acceleration of any ESB program.

• • The absence of an assessment requirement is a serious gap in the legislation. We don’t know what we don’t know. And, the legislation doesn’t provide guidance for filling the gaps in knowledge. As per above, the 2020 legislative session is far from the last time legislators will be dealing with ESBs. Created a learning process, to enabled more informed decision-making in the years to come, almost certainly would have tremendous value.
  • Conferees, if you can, consider adding in a statement requiring regular public reporting by involved entities (both the “Phase II Utility” and the involved school districts) with a requirement for the Virginia Department of Education to provide a consolidated ‘summary’ analytical report well prior (perhaps 1 October of each year) to the legislative session.

Is HB75 the electric school bus bill that the Virginia legislature could and should have fostered and passed? No.

Does HB75 merit passage as ‘progress’ (even as not perfection) toward safer, healthier, better performing, less polluting, and more user-friendly public school transportation? Absolutely.

UPDATE: In Richmond today:

Some relevant Electric School Bus discussions

Reflective of a long interest in and support for plug-in hybrid electric school buses (PHESBs) and Electric School Buses (ESBs), here are some relevant posts.

• Some insights re Dominion ESB program from a recent meeting, 6 Feb 2020, highlights issues which local school districts might want to focus on in decision-making about electric school buses.
• Dominion buckling itself in the driver’s seat: Electric School Bus edition, 1 Feb 2020, questions whether a private firm should dictate public policy with an examination of the complexity of school bus cost-benefit analysis.
• Who killed the Electric School Bus? 31 Jan 2020. Highlights how an ESB manufacturer is promoting pro-diesel fuel disinformation.
• Beware of shiny objects: Examples from (Dominion) Virginia Electric School Bus discussions, 31 Jan 2020, calls for a focus on core issues of, assessment of full cost-benefit streams from, and avoid distractions in development of an ESB program.
• Thinking about Virginia legislature and (Dominion) Electric School Bus legislation, 24 Jan 2020, calls for legislators to consider how (and how much) a smartly structured ESB program could benefit all Virginians, including the economic development implications of a ‘made in Virginia’ requirement in this market-creating program.
• Dominion Energy ESB (Electric School Bus) Program advances: questions remain, 16 Jan 2020, highlights the announcement of where Dominion will be placing the initial 50 school buses.
• Legislating for Electric School Buses: Some Thoughts and Principles …, 6 Dec 2019, calls for developing a truly Public-Private Partnership, rather than private interest driven, ESB program; that the project should be accelerated; there is a need for robust cost-benefit analysis; and that Virginia should leverage an ESB program for economic development.
• Dominion Virginia Energy’s Electrifying Bus Announcement: Thoughts on this potentially game changing move, 3 Sept 2019, lays out the Dominion announced program, discusses benefits from ESBs, and issues meriting consideration as Virginia goes electric.
• Mobilizing momentum for cleaner, cheaper school busing (Electric School Buses, Fairfax County, VA, edition), 29 Aug 2019, discusses a Mothers Out Front Fairfax electric school bus event featuring multiple elected officials.
• Electrifying Momentum Toward Electric Buses (Fairfax County, Virginia, edition), 20 Aug 2019, provides an overview of the benefit streams that accrue from moving from diesel-powered to ESBs.
• DC’s electric buses — for tourists and for urban health, 1 May 2018, highlights some benefit streams from going electric.
• Systems Power: Three thoughts for Virginia’s next governor, 17 Aug 2017, lays out why soon-to-be Governor Northam should pursue a Plug-In Hybrid Electric School Bus (PHESB) program.
• Clean Energy Jobs Take The PHE-School Bus, 20 Nov 2009, lays out a five-year program to drive down PHESB costs to make them cost-competitive with diesel buses (using a seven year total cost period) while creating over 2,000 jobs as part of the recovery program.
• Obama Admin Plugging In School Buses, 20 Apr 2009, discusses a $10 million, 60 PHESB demonstration program.
• Energize America: W5 Solution: PHESBs, 5 Jan 2009, lays out how PHESBs would provide wins across five domains: job creation; boost economic performance; strengthen long-term economic competitiveness; enhance energy security; and reduce emissions.
• Plugging in for a better tomorrow: the school bus ‘solution’, 16 Dec 2008, lays out why PHESBs make sense and how a 1000 purchase order could drive down purchase prices by over 50 percent.