The grid was melting down in last week’s heat – until EVs came to the rescue

During last week's heat wave, electric school buses helped keep power grids running instead of straining them further. Around 230 electric buses hooked up to vehicle-to-grid (V2G) systems, which let a vehicle's battery send stored power back into the grid, supplied about 8 megawatt-hours of electricity at a time. That's enough to power roughly 1,600 typical homes for up to four hours, easing demand during the hottest, highest-demand hours.

California leads on this so far. Oakland's school district runs 74 V2G buses that send an estimated 2.1 gigawatt-hours back into the state's grid each year. San Francisco is set to launch an even bigger project next month, starting with 104 buses feeding about 3 gigawatt-hours annually, with plans to grow past 238 buses by 2028. Supporters say scaling this up nationally, even to half of the roughly 6,700 electric school buses already on U.S. roads, could add well over 100 megawatt-hours of flexible power during peak periods.

This isn't something homeowners sign up for directly, but it can still matter to your bill and your safety. When utilities rely less on expensive emergency power purchases during heat waves, those savings can eventually show up as lower rates for everyone. And in some places, like Glades County, Florida, these bus batteries have been used after storms to give people a place to charge phones and cool off when the power is out.