NYC’s newest electric school buses come with a money-saving twist

First Student is adding 40 electric school buses in Brooklyn and Queens for NYC Public Schools, after finishing the first phase of a charging project with Con Edison that cut charging-infrastructure costs by 20%. The savings came from a system called First Charge, which runs electrical cables above ground on poles instead of burying them in trenches. That makes installation faster, cheaper, and less disruptive, which matters in a dense city where digging up paved bus yards is expensive and complicated.

The project also uses software that schedules bus charging for off-peak hours, when electricity is generally cheaper, to help manage costs and ease strain on the power grid. Funding came partly from Con Edison and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), including six electric bus vouchers through the state's School Bus Incentive Program and support for converting four diesel buses to electric. First Student says it's also considering adding solar power and a "smart energy hub" at its Brooklyn facilities.

This ties into a statewide deadline: New York requires all new school buses purchased by 2027 to produce zero emissions, with the entire school bus fleet zero-emission by 2035. For homeowners, this isn't a direct rebate program, but it shows how cities are finding cheaper ways to build charging infrastructure, an approach that could eventually influence costs and options for electrification closer to home, including how utilities price off-peak electricity.