Nuvve Holding Corp., developer of vehicle-to-grid technology and deployments, has received a proposed award of $1,910,703 by the California Energy Commission (CEC) under the CEC's Electric School Bus Bi-Directional Infrastructure funding opportunity.
The grant will fund Nuvve's groundbreaking project, RESCHOOL: Resilient Energy Solutions for Schools, which is intended to showcase the transformative potential of electric school buses (ESBs) and bi-directional charging infrastructure to enhance the resilience of California's power grid. The initial project phase includes plans to produce a scalable model for other California school districts to implement their own zero-emission and bi-directional infrastructure.
The RESCHOOL project will enhance existing electric school bus and bi-directional charging infrastructure deployments with battery energy storage, microgrid, and islanding capabilities to demonstrate how ESBs play a vital role in bolstering the reliability of California's power grid, particularly during extreme weather events and emergency situations. By integrating bi-directional electric school buses and their charging infrastructure into resilient microgrids, the project aims to reduce the cost of clean transportation systems while optimizing energy availability during power outages.
Initially, the project will benefit two participating San Diego County school districts already equipped with Nuvve's bidirectional chargers and its V2G GIVe platform: Cajon Valley Union School District and San Diego Unified.
"The project builds on our long experience aggregating electric school bus battery storage to discharge energy to the grid and further enhance resiliency through microgrid capabilities," said Nuvve CEO Gregory Poilasne. "It also underscores Nuvve's commitment to advancing clean energy solutions and reducing costs while strengthening the resilience of California's power infrastructure."
"As a proponent and early adopter of clean transportation solutions, we look forward to continuing our efforts to support the health of our students, our community and our planet. Cajon Valley is grateful for Nuvve's support in securing these much-needed funds," said Scott Buxbaum, assistant superintendent for Cajon Valley Union School District.
"This CEC grant will ultimately improve air quality, provide revenue for additional student programing and will help us support the power grid to reduce outages during emergency situations. We see this as a win for the district, for students and teachers and for the environment as a whole," said John Burciaga, fleet maintenance manager for San Diego Unified School District.
The Phase 1 grant award is pending approval of the schools' respective projects at a publicly noticed CEC business meeting and execution of a grant agreement. Phase 2 will allow project teams awarded in Phase 1 to use the bi-directional charging infrastructure blueprints to replicate the initial projects in additional California school districts.
