The Hawaii Department of Education announced recently it was awarded a $4.99 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to begin electrifying school bus fleets across the state.
“We are very excited to begin modernizing our school bus fleets to use cleaner energy and further reduce the carbon footprint of our schools,” Randall Tanaka, assistant superintendent for the Office of Facilities and Operations, said in a statement. “Electric buses will help to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions to the immediate benefit of our communities and we thank our partners at the EPA for this step toward a cleaner and healthier future.”
The funding includes $4.58 million for 20 electric buses, $260,000 for electric charging infrastructure, and $150,000 for five compressed natural gas buses.
The new vehicles will be used to replace traditional diesel-powered models over the next two years, and will be operated and maintained by school transportation service providers on Kauai, Oahu and Maui.
This is the first round of funding from the EPA Clean School Bus Program, which is part of President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021, which authorizes the EPA to offer rebates to replace existing, older buses with zero-emission models in order to reduce emissions.
EPA awarded a total of $912,929,000 to school districts nationwide in 2022, as part of a $5 billion investment in low- and zero-emission school buses over the next five years, according to EPA's website.
