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North Carolina Receives $30M for Electric School Bus Fleet

More than $30.1 million from the N.C. Volkswagen Settlement Program will be distributed by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to fund 161 new school buses across the state.

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(TNS) — The state of North Carolina has been awarded over $30 million for clean school bus replacements, including 43 new electric school buses.

More than $30.1 million from the N.C. Volkswagen Settlement Program will be distributed by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to fund 161 new school buses across the state, with the majority of the funding going toward new all-electric school buses.

Caldwell County has received the largest portion of the settlement money in the amount of $515,658 to purchase an EV (electric vehicle) white activity bus with a charging station.

"There was a grant application for electric buses or cleaner-running diesel buses," said Jay McCarraher, transportation director for Caldwell County Schools. "I talked to Superintendent Donald Phipps, and I told him I would like to go forward with this electric bus. I think we're going to move in this direction in the country as a whole ... so let's get a start in this and see how it works for us. Being in a more mountainous, rural area, we wanted to try it to see if it would hold up in our conditions ... We were excited to try to be the first in this area to have an EV bus."

McCarraher said that the new EV bus will be available for Caldwell County schools to use in just over a year.

The new zero-emission and low-emission school buses are replacing some of the dirtiest diesel buses in the state, including some older than 30 years that emit more than 20 times the nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter of today's clean buses.

As the clean school buses are ordered and delivered, the old school buses will be destroyed, ensuring they no longer pollute the air in communities near schools.

During the application process, McCarraher had to designate one of the white activity buses in the fleet to be completely decommissioned and replaced.

The new buses will reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 126 tons over their lifetimes combined. More than $16.5 million will fund 43 electric school buses and associated charging infrastructure, providing a 100% reduction in diesel emissions and greenhouse gases for these projects. NOx leads to the formation of ground-level ozone, which in turn aggravates asthma and can cause breathing trouble in young children and older adults. The small particles that make up particulate matter are linked to heart and lung conditions.

"They claim that each bus will run 200 miles a day without charging," said McCarraher. "But we don't have a route that runs more than about 110 miles in the morning route. We would have from that morning and the end of that route to charge in time for the afternoon route. Our thought process is, most of our athletics and field trips that schools take during the day, they would have enough charge and enough mileage to go. The EV bus also back-charges some when going down hills."

The grant recipients include public schools, charter schools, and a tribal school in 84 counties. Most of the buses, 130, will be placed in rural counties. Of those, 80 school buses were awarded to schools in the 37 historically under-resourced counties that DEQ targeted for additional outreach and support during the application process. The goal of that program was to support the equitable distribution of Volkswagen Settlement funding across the state. The full list of awarded projects is on DEQ's website: www.deq.nc.gov.

The N.C. Volkswagen Settlement School Bus Program involved a competitive application process where projects were scored by a selection committee of staff in DEQ's Division of Air Quality (DAQ). In total, DAQ received 42 applications seeking more than $58 million in funding for more than 330 clean school buses. The selection committee fully or partially funded at least one requested bus from each county that had an application.

The School Bus Program is the largest grant program in Phase 2 of the N.C. Volkswagen Settlement Program, which covers the remaining $68 million of the state's share of a national settlement with the automaker. The state is awarding the funds through grants and rebates to support the replacement of old diesel vehicles with clean alternatives and the installation of electric vehicle charging infrastructure across the state.

DEQ has also awarded more than $1 million in Volkswagen Settlement funds to state agencies to install Level 2 zero-emission vehicle charging infrastructure. These 103 charging ports will be installed at 25 sites, including state parks, museums, aquariums, government office buildings, universities, and community colleges. In this program, 22 of the charging ports will be in historically under-resourced counties. Thirteen of those chargers will be used to charge state agency fleet vehicles and support Gov. Cooper's efforts under Executive Order No. 80 to transition the state motor fleet to zero-emission vehicles, while the remainder will be available for public use.

DAQ will continue to accept rebate applications to install Level 2 charging infrastructure at workplaces, multi-unit dwellings, and publicly accessible locations on a first-come, first-served basis until allocated funds are exhausted. The amount of remaining funds available and information on how to apply are online at www.deq.nc.gov

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