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While some students enjoy summer break, their school buses are still hard at work. Rather than transporting pupils, they're hauling electrons and supporting the grid during critical periods of peak electricity demand.

Such is one of the tantalizing promises of vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, technology, and it's far from fantasy. More than 30 utilities across 21 U.S. states currently have V2G school bus projects, from California to Connecticut, North Carolina up to Massachusetts. Since they can charge their beefy batteries of 200 kilowatt-hours or more when power prices are low, the peak-shavers-on-wheels are proving to be a valuable tool for utilities, especially as demand surges and affordability discussions grow louder.

And applications go beyond buses. More broadly, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology enables batteries to communicate with and be discharged to external systems, whether that's an electric vehicle (EV) or something else. Such virtual power plant (VPP) programs are still in their infancy, and regulatory frameworks and standards to support them are far from established, but early studies are beginning to tease out the enticing possibilities for managing EV charging and smart battery dispatch.

On this episode of the Factor This Policycast, the latest in a series presented in partnership with national business association Advanced Energy United, we dive into a world where smart charging plays a critical role in grid reliability and keeping electricity prices manageable.

Host Paul Gerke leads a discussion between electrifying transportation policy principal Elizabeth Stears of Advanced Energy United and Leah Brams, market development manager at Highland Fleets, an electrification-as-a-service provider helping school districts, local governments, and commercial fleet owners affordably convert their traditional diesel vehicle fleets to EVs. They outline the policy reforms needed to unlock V2X's potential and identify the roadblocks to wider adoption. Brams and Stears identify how utilities can best leverage such technologies and share learnings from pilots- what works, what doesn't, and how we can refine policy to roll idling electric buses into peak-demand squashers.

Energy policy on your mind? Check out all episodes of the Factor This Policycast

Supporting the grid with managed EV charging and V2G technology | Factor This Policycast

Factor This

Supporting the grid with managed EV charging and V2G technology | Factor This Policycast