San Diego Gas & Electric to deploy truck, school bus charging stations
San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) will soon give a boost to the electrification of the area’s fleet of school buses by establishing a regional network of charging stations that will serve the familiar yellow coaches as well as mass-transit buses and commercial trucks.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) recently approved SDG&E’s plan for a minimum of 3,000 charging stations in San Diego County and the southern portion of Orange County that will accommodate a variety of commercial vehicles, including medium and heavy trucks, forklifts, and refrigerated truck trailers as well as buses.
“With this new initiative, our region is headed to a new phase of the clean transportation movement,” said Estela de Llanos, SDG&E’s vice president of Clean Transportation, Sustainability and Chief Environment Officer. “Imagine a future where zero-emission trucks carry produce and merchandise to your local stores and zero-emission school buses are picking up and dropping off your children.”
SDG&E told Daily Energy Insider it was compiling a list of approved vendors that would meet its safety and technology standards and would then assist its customers in determining which charging system they should purchase to best suit their individual needs.
The utility said there were more than 103,000 trucks and other commercial vehicles of up to 30,000 pounds operating within its service territory contributing to a constant stream of greenhouse gases (GHG) and particulates in the air. California has mandated a 40-percent reduction in GHGs from 1990 levels by 2025. The new SDG&E initiative will be implemented over the next five years and is targeted at companies and public agencies.
A key feature of the initiative features the ability of school districts to basically sell unused power from their buses back to SDG&E, helping offset the burden of acquiring electric buses, which can cost significantly more than the current diesel vehicles. “The large batteries on school buses will soak up electrons from the grid when energy is plentiful — such as during the day when there is abundant solar power — and discharge the energy when there is high demand on the power grid,” SDG&E said in its announcement.
Moreover, a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate in June will, if passed, establish a grant program to help school districts nationwide make the transition to electric buses by funding vehicles and chargers and providing technical training for its mechanics and other personnel. SDG&E has also requested that the CPUC approve a special rate structure for businesses that convert to electric vehicles, making electricity more competitive with other fuels.
While electric cars can be recharged at home using standard household AC power, heavier trucks and buses require DC current and, therefore, a different type of charging equipment. For example, Penske Truck Leasing this spring installed 14 chargers at its San Diego, La Mirada, and Anaheim yards. The chargers range from 50 kilowatts (kW) to 150 kW, capable of charging a large Class 8 truck to 100 percent in about a half of a typical day it would spend on the road.
