held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday at Steelton-Highspire Jr./Sr. High School marking the deployment of six new electric school buses. Getting them operational will make the district unique not only among others across the state but also nationally.While that means that the school district will have an all-electric fleet, there is a seventh diesel-run bus still available as a backup.Large Pa.
The electric school buses look like any other school buses except much quieter. The school buses use regenerative braking, which reduces the brake system to be used around five times less than a conventional diesel vehicle,“Once the drivers get fully accustomed to it, they will rarely touch the brakes,” said Kevin Matthews, head of electrification for First Student.
“One nice thing about all of these electric buses is there’s a system in here that will alert them,” said Mark “JJ” Carnes, business manager for the Steelton-Highspire School District. “So when you turn the key off you have to walk to the back of the bus and there’s a button in the back of the bus that you have to press to verify. It makes you walk to the back so you’re checking each seat so there’s no kids left on the bus.
Steelton-Highspire also boasts a 1.7-megawatt solar array that powers every building in the school district. “I looked at that and was like OK we can get electric school buses,” Carnes said. “So obviously the natural thought in my brain is if I can charge the buses with the solar array I don’t have to buy fuel anymore. We spend around 15 grand a year for fuel just for the buses. So another $15,000 added to the pot. So now school buses once they go live on top of the solar array that saves us about $30,000 a year, which is about half of a teacher’s salary.
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