An electric school bus


owned and operated by Twin Rivers Unified School District in Sacramento, California, receives a charge.


School districts with the most electric bus experience are learning the importance of managing their charges to avoid high energy usage costs


WRITTEN BY ART GISSENDANER


T 30 School Transportation News • MAY 2021


im Shannon is a self-confessed, risk-taker. That’s why even though many


eyebrows were raised five years ago when Twin Rivers Unified School District in Sacramento, California, seized upon the opportunity to ac- quire a fleet of electric school buses, Shannon did not hesitate. “We had the lousiest buses on the


face of the earth,” recalled Shannon, the district’s director of transportation. “They were in horrible disrepair and really old. I looked at it as an oppor- tunity to get a number of electric buses at a reasonable price. Everybody thought I was crazy to go with elec- tric. My background is in the photo imaging business, so taking a risk was okay for me. It was not outside my comfort zone.”


Shannon and his team fashioned a 280-page grant proposal for the Cal- ifornia Air Resources Board (CARB), which responded with a $17 million grant that Twin Rivers shared with two other districts. Twin Rivers re- ceived funding for 16 electric buses, the Elk Grove Unified School District received funding for 10, and Sacra- mento City Unified School District received funding for three. The grant also covered the chargers. Shannon said the total cost


awarded to Twin Rivers for its 16 buses was about $900,000. But now the district has 40 electric buses and expects to have an additional 18 by the end of August. “We are the largest electric school bus deploy- ment in North America,” boasted Shannon, who also owns a personal electric vehicle.


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