A fleet of 74 electric school buses in Oakland, California, has been utilizing V2G technology to support the local power grid for the past two years. The project, operated by Zum, uses chargers manufactured by Tellus Power in the United States.
The buses possess a combined energy storage capacity of 11.5MWh. They discharge energy to the grid during peak afternoon hours, providing a total output of approximately 2 Megawatts, which is sufficient to power around 1,000 homes.
Over the two-year period, the fleet returned 1.7GWh of energy to the grid with an uptime exceeding 99.5%. This energy arbitrage allows the school district to sell electricity during high-demand periods, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.
Tellus Power reports that V2G depots can be deployed in months, significantly faster than traditional power plants. The company is currently expanding its V2G projects to locations including Burlington, Vermont; Burnaby, British Columbia; and San Francisco, California.
