Name: Wheels & Watts: Powering EV Charging for K-12 Schools
Uploaded: 2025-11-12T20:16:10.755Z
Duration: 1 h 12 min 16 s
Description: Wheels & Watts: Powering EV Charging for K-12 Schools

Transcript for "Wheels & Watts: Powering EV Charging for K-12 Schools": Is it? Good afternoon and welcome to our wheels and watts webinar today is Wednesday November 12 and our topic today is powering e fee charging for Grade K to 12 Schools. My name is Lisa Lee and I'm one of the Safe Routes to School coordinators in the state of New Jersey and so if you are here today from a school thank you for joining us I've heard back that some people are in the process of applying for grants to get electric school buses some may be just considering and we wanted to let you know that this webinar we've really designed it to help to meet your needs. We have, some great speakers, joining us today, and, you know, I just wanted to let you toss out into the chat, if you'd like, your name and where you're from you could be from a municipality it could be a school district we'd love to know who's here with us today and, and maybe also put into the chat, you know, what are your specific interests? Why did you attend today? I know for us, those of us who are Safe Routes to School coordinators in New Jersey, you know, our focus just like you may be to keep students safe and to keep them healthy. So, while Safe Routes to School typically encourages biking and walking to school we know that's not possible for everyone and that there are circumstances where it's still not safe for kids to bike and walk and so they may be riding a bus and you may or may not know this but you know diesel buses are one of the sources of air pollution that is really harmful especially for children because they're young their lungs are growing and oftentimes they are closer to you know the ground or the road where the tailpipe emissions come out of and you know we've discovered that schools even and also around the bus as well the fumes from idling school buses that are diesel engines actually go into the buildings so they could affect your school staff your students and so it's really important to keep that in mind so I want to bring up and introduce my colleague Stan who's the assistant manager of our EV accelerator program and we're gonna take it away and we're glad that you're here Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming here. Also, please mind that, this is Stan Yaroch. Please, you access the docs tab to access various supporting documents today. So, why are we talking about charging electric vehicles and particularly at workplace, which schools, are also workplace? This is because, this is the investment in sustainability, and it attracts talent. It serves customers, which are students, and it positions your school district as a leader. So, today, we will go through the benefits of workplace EV charging, and we have special guest, for case study, and that's Jenny Ludmer from Sustainable Princeton. We will also discuss considering the right stations for your needs, tax credits, grants, and rebates. We will go through ED installation site strategies, and then we will discuss Charge at Work and EVA certification. We will have lots of space for questions and answers. Our speakers are, as I mentioned, Jenny Ludmer from Sustainable Princeton, Kate Crook from LinQuel, George Couturatis from Brian Electric, and Lisa was already, there. So there you go. That's myself. And so I want to start by saying that, transportation is actually the greatest source of greenhouse emissions in The United States. And perhaps not just in The United States, but United States is what matters here. And the transportation is the only sector with rising emissions because we tend to drive more and more. So, almost 40% is, is transportation. Driving electric vehicles is an upward trend. Electric vehicles have no tail pop emissions. And depending on how electricity is sourced, we may not have any carbon emissions whatsoever. A record 438,000 electric vehicles were sold in third quarter this year. We no longer need incentives because electric vehicles are more affordable. The prices are lower. Elsewhere in the world, there are no incentives. 80% or more of charging sessions are happening at home. However, about 30% of Americans don't have home charging because they just don't own the home. So this is a issue with access. Where you can charge? You can go to public. There are lots of public spaces. You can go to fast charging station. You can go to, local level two charging station. But is it really really public charging and equivalent to gas station? Well, not exactly because you need to wait. So for public charging, you need to adjust your schedule. You need to figure out what you do when you charge. When you fast charge, it is maybe not so much issue because fast charging is fast. But, however, as a primary source of charging, it's actually expensive. And for the level two affordable charging, it may not be near my home because it is so long that you want to park it, walk home, or do something, and then return when your vehicle is charged. So this is where workplace charging fits in, and that includes also schools. That increases EV charging accessibility. So in this diagram, you see that the most popular the most important is home charging as a primary charging. The second one is at work, And only, fast charging is good for on road when, you need to charge and go. So 78% of American commuters, they drive to work. They park their vehicles for eight hours a day. That's a long time. We don't need to charge fast. Right? Because it's it's a long time. And 1,300,000 of workplace charges will be needed to support projected 26,000,000 of electric vehicles by 2030. So that's a lot of chargers. EZWrite provides free technical assistance to install them. So scan the QR code to get onboard, and we'll help you out. So but there is something special about, electric school buses. Normally, we don't talk about electric school buses in this series, but electric school buses are something that, as Lisa mentioned, that helps to improve the health of of our children. We can also use, the infrastructure for charging electric buses for, public. However, we have to mind that electric school buses take priority because we want to make sure that they are ready to dispatch. And they typically use they are typically used during the overnight. However, and specifically when they are fast chargers, they can be potentially offered to the public or to the staff during the day. Now, the level two charging that it's primarily used for teachers and students, I have seen, seniors in high school, they actually drive now. They can be used exclusively for them during the school hours. However, outside of school hours, during the night or during weekends, the level two charging can be offered to the community for overnight charging. So these are just some thoughts. So now I would like to introduce our speaker, Jenny Ludmer. She's a program manager from Sustainable Princeton. You can access her presentation deck using the QR code. Jenny, take it away. Thank you, Stan. Everybody is hearing me okay. I hope if not, just put it in the chat. As Stan said, I am my name is Jenny Ludmer, and I'm a program manager for a local nonprofit, called Sustainable Princeton. We work with the Princeton municipality as well as the, local school district to help them with their sustainability initiatives. So I will keep going. I wanted to start by taking a look at the timeline of the district's electrification project. This definitely doesn't happen overnight. It's taken many years. We started in 2022 when the district had four diesel buses. They were eager to get rid of. They were at the end of their life. So I assisted in them applying for a federal EPA clean school bus grant, but that wasn't awarded with we weren't successful with that grant. And because those buses were at the end of their life, they had to get replaced. And so they were replaced with gas buses. It took two years before the district reapplied. And this time they applied through the state program, which is through, New Jersey's DEP. And, they were successful with that grant. But by this time they only had one diesel bus at the end of its life. So, everything had to basically be redone in terms of getting quotes and working with, the different vendors. So that's kinda my point with this slide. It takes time and it takes persistence. And I'll tell you more about that, successful grant application in just a minute. So along the way, as you're preparing grants, you're, pulling quotes from vendors. You're gonna be getting a lot of questions. These might come from board members. They might come from your staff. But there are gonna be concerns. The top ones that I had are here on this slide. So the one of the big concerns was winter, how buses are gonna perform if they work. And so there are, my deck has links to several resources that can help you answer those questions and examples of places that are in colder environments, and where they have seen success with the buses. The next question was looking at whether or not they were, the environmental issues with batteries. And for sure, you can acknowledge there there are concerns with hard mineral extraction. This is a real concern. However, studies have looked at, the life cycle emissions. And when they compare electric vehicles with these batteries to gas vehicles, they find that, that is, that the electric vehicles have lower life cycle emissions. So that is important. Also you're going to have, you're going to want, I guess I should say, I wanted to do a lot of education. So with the business administrator of the schools and the facilities director, we toured, we're lucky that Princeton University is right in our backyard. They have a fleet of 17 electric, passenger buses. One of them is pictured here. And so we got to go tour their fleet, understand their charging system, and, just get gain comfort with it, but also learn about their challenges. The other thing I did with the district's transportation coordinator is that I took, her to Jersey City School District that already had several electric buses. So, again, the same question. She got to talk to another, transportation coordinator, right. And speak their language and learn about the, successes, but also the challenges. I also went to a couple of different events that the Clean Cities Coalition put together. They I'm not sure about their ability to continue to host these events, but certainly something to, keep your eye out for. Because these were great events. You got to literally look under, electric buses, but also, speak to representatives from the DEP and the federal EPA, about your situations, and I found that to be particularly helpful. So this is, the kind of the nuts and bolts of the grants that the district is working to, finalize. So they were awarded 600,000 for two electric buses from the DEP. Once the federal, government, started shutting down the clean vehicle credit, they also offered an additional 40,000 per bus, as a part of their grants. Initially, the district had received 620,000 from the DEP, and that 20,000 was gonna go towards charging. However, the district decided they really wanted, fast charging. And so because of that, the BPU offered 50,000 per fast charging station and 50,000 per your make ready costs, which are your electrical costs for this station. So that a 100,000 as compared to the 20,000 from the DEP meant that we told the DEP no thanks on that money, and we're able to apply for the charger to be covered through the BPU. So it helps to have an understanding of these different grants when you're when you're stepping into this. Okay. So with, our grant, what we plan to do was decommission one diesel bus. They did not require decommissioning, but they requested it. So we had one end of life bus. That was our plan. The other one was a relatively new bus. It was a gas bus. And so because they didn't require it, the district opted to sell that bus. And instead, we, purchased the district purchased two electric buses with, a DC fast charge system that you can see here. And, one side note on this is, the administration turned over this summer for the school district. And somewhere in that turnover, they sold, that diesel bus and didn't decommission it. So I had to go back to the DEP and ask them, okay, you didn't require this in the first place. We were going to try to do it, but we never, you know, this happened and we didn't, and they were generous and that they told us, okay, just submit a new form saying that you're not going to decommission it. So that was great because it made me very nervous. So this is the budget. This is what the, numbers look like for our grant application. Once you put all of these funding incentives in, you add in the cost of charging installation, as well as the charger and the two electric buses, you come down to, comparable costs of buying two gas buses. So that's what allowed running these numbers is what allowed the district to, be willing to jump into this. So another thing that happened to us is that the district was gifted a level two charger from the Clean Cities Coalition. And so they opted as a part of this installation to install that. You can kinda see on the right the plan, that was put together for the installation of the fast charger. One thing that the it was difficult for the, district to fit the in that into their buses. You can see that they're parked pretty tightly, but they they figured out a way to do it. It just took, some logistics. And that level two charger, isn't actively being used now. It's just there as a backup, but it will allow the district moving forward, with their maintenance of vehicles to think about electrifying them. And and then, of course, the other thing I'd mentioned about this is the electric buses look just like any other school bus. They are yellow buses. So, having as much press as you can to help the public know about this, and get the word out is important because the students and the drivers can tell a difference, but the public, won't necessarily see it. And with that, I will end and pass it back to, Stan. Fantastic presentation, Jenny. Our next speaker is, Kate Crook. Jay, Kate, take it away. Let me try that again. Thank you for the warm introduction, Stan. My name is Kate Crook. I'm the partnership and engagement director with LinkWell. And LinkWell, we provide hardware and software solutions for electric vehicle charging infrastructure. So we are a manufacturer of hardware as well as the background software solutions provider. In my daily life as well, I also served as a school board representative for over five years, and this is one of my favorite topics to talk about is electric school buses and introducing our students, and the communities that are associated with our students to twenty first century technology. Because EVs, electric vehicles, electric buses are part of this educational journey. It's that shift to twenty first century, living, and it's something that we should be learning about together so that we can all understand and hopefully implement some of this new technology into our school communities. I've also been driving an electric vehicle for over a decade now, and hopefully will be able to share a little bit of my story and LinkWell's story as we continue on today. We've already heard a lot about the different types of chargers, but one thing I love to start and talk about, and especially since this conversation is geared towards educators and the school community, is what were all those acronyms everybody was just talking about? Level one, level two, DCFCs. What is that? And this is the different type of charging hardware that's available to fuel our fleets, our buses, our communities, chart vehicles that we have out that are gonna be at our k through 12 schools. So So I just wanna break it down to you very very quickly and go over the different types of charging that's available so that you can choose, we're gonna talk about that in a second, the right hardware and software for the vehicles that are in your community. And then what's important too is, again, to know those vehicles. So hybrid vehicles, you might hear about them. A hybrid vehicle still runs on gasoline. There's no plug to a hybrid, so therefore, they do not need charging infrastructure. There are hybrid buses out there, that are out there that, again, they wouldn't be part of this conversation because they do not plug in. But then we have our PHEVs or plug in hybrid vehicles, and that's where it starts to get sometimes confusing for folks because these types of vehicles can run on both gasoline as well as electricity. So they have all the components of a gas vehicle as well as the components of a plug in vehicle. However, this gets into that fueling infrastructure. We wanna make sure that if you have a PHEV, something like the RAV four Hybrid, which is, something that some schools are adopting for their, campus vehicles, for example, or a Jeep Grand Cherokee, hybrid and plug in hybrid vehicle, to know that these PHEVs only operate on a battery that's about 15 to 25 kilowatt hours. And what that really means is it only gets about 15 to 40 miles of range on that electric battery before it switches over to gas. What that means for fueling infrastructure as you will see on the screen that level one and level two charging is usually what's most common to fuel those type of plug in vehicles. Those type of plug in hybrid vehicles usually can only use that level one or level two type of charging. The last type of electric vehicle is that fully electric vehicle. The electric buses that Jenny was just talking about, those are battery electric vehicles, B EVs, sometimes referred to as ZEVs, zero emission vehicles. Again, it's a million acronyms here in the EV world but those zero emission fleets, and vehicles run completely on batteries. So they're fueled by the batteries and generally those types of vehicles have batteries that can take hundred, two hundred kilowatts of power kilowatt hours of power, which gets you, for a commuter vehicle. The average right now is looking around 270 miles of range. So the folks in your communities who are driving their Chevy Bolts, their e v sixes, their Ford f one fifties, the average right now based on 2023 data is those types of vehicles can get around 270 miles of range in the new the new models that are coming out. Electric buses are around that 150 sometimes 200 mile range. And what that gets to is those larger kilowatt hour batteries can then be charged using some of the different types of charging equipment, those level two or level three fast charging equipment. And what those means again if you look at the chart on the screen is those different types of chargers have different range capacities as well as the time it takes to charge those vehicles. So I love to share this chart because it puts it all in perspective all in nice one, one nice kind of unit, and you can take a look at the different types of chargers that service the different types of vehicles. Once you know what type of vehicles are in your parking lots, in your school communities, whether it's a bus, whether it's your teachers, whether it's your, commuter fleet or, community fleets, perhaps you have a school district that has a superintendent that drives from the different, schools, from the middle school to the elementary school. If you're switching those type of vehicles, once you choose the type of vehicle that you have, you wanna choose the right type of hardware that works best for that vehicle. And then most schools, we wanna make sure we work smarter, not harder. In order to do that, we use software. So there's software solutions that you can use that different software providers, put into the hardware that you've chosen that can help you choose what to best to do to service your community. So there's things like private charging. Private charging is something a software solution can do for you where you can limit who has access to those chargers. So for someone who wants to make sure that those charging stations are available solely for their school bus fleet, you can use software to do that. As I think Stan had mentioned at his intro, there's opportunities within the within the school community to have your charging stations use software to have it so that during the day your teachers and staff, as well as your fleets can use those charging stations. But let's say after hours, after 05:00, those charging stations open up and they could be public access. That's something that can all be controlled using software solutions. Something that might not be so popular within the school community but is definitely something that you can consider as a school as a workplace with your HR function is using driver discounts which is a software solution that sets up for maybe the charger could be set for free for let's say your teachers, for your guests, for maybe your students. So this is something that they would receive a code, they can use the charging stations, and they can get discounted or free charging at those charging stations. Software solutions also provide site hosts the opportunity to set energy and time limits as well as load management, which is an opportunity to add more charging ports without increasing the utility infrastructure. We definitely know in certain areas the capacity of our utilities might be a little behind, but we still wanna get that charging infrastructure in the ground. So you can use software to put all the charging stations that you will potentially need in the future in the ground, but then use this the software to set it so that you do not have to overload your circuits or capacity. So that is a load management feature. Again, you can put the charging stations in, but you can make it so that you can toggle up or down the capacity that the chargers will put out. After we've chosen our hardware and our software, as someone who sat on a school board, I know what's really important is making sure that we are spending our constituents funds appropriately and finding the best bang for our buck, and it can make your head spin. I've sat at this the table. I know how it is. We listened to Jenny kinda go through some of the grants, applications and some of the details that she needed. But what I can say to you is grants and funding is changing all the time, and you don't have to be an expert in all of it. What we've done here at LinkWell is we offer this free service. It's on our website. You can go to linkwell.com, and I think Stan's gonna put it in the chat so you can copy and paste it. If you can find incentives on the website based on your site location, your zip code, the type of charger that we just went through, what what is it that your school community is looking for, your utility company, whether you're in a DAC, a DAC, or an environmental justice community could have impact on funding opportunities, as well as the driver access. Are these public or private chargers? So you can type all that information in, and don't worry. There's an opportunity to say I don't know. And what it will do is it'll pop up all the grant and funding opportunities that are available to you so that you can see how you can reduce those out of pocket costs. Something I wanna point out too to this particular group is something that's brand new, and this is what just came up just the other day, earlier actually this week, is there is a new Massachusetts EVIP, which is for multi unit dwellings, as well as educational campuses. So this is some of the information that you will find to utilize that tool. So if you're in the Massachusetts area, I know there's some folks, I believe in that area, listening in today, There is an opportunity for, reduced rates on and rebates and funding opportunities in for school districts, specifically for school communities to put electric vehicle charging infrastructure at their location. So, that is something that if you want more information you can go on our website, reach out to myself or my team. And there is another grant that's going on right now too for some folks. Again, you want to take a look in New Jersey, the Department of Environmental Protection, the NJDEP is providing grants, through the Pay to Plug In New Jersey Electric Vehicle Workplace Charging Grant, which is something that's going on right now. So you wanna definitely look into that and see if you're eligible to take advantage of that funding incentive. New York also has some school bus funding as well that there's some ins and outs to it and there's complexities, but what I can say is the LinkWell team has a funding department that can help you navigate these things. Don't try to go through it on your own. We're here to help as well as our friends from e v EZride and Eval can help walk you through some of those grant requirements. Don't leave money on the table. And finally, what's super important for our teams that are on, the call today is that we wanna make sure that, you know, that there's opportunities to purchase through cooperative purchasing, through New Jersey Starts, for our Sourcewell, and other grant or excuse me. Other cooperative purchasing opportunities for school districts, not for profit organization, and government entities can take place or can take advantage of those negotiated, cooperative purchasing pricing to save money on that infrastructure, as well as on the school buses themselves. Oftentimes, you can find those products on your cooperative purchases as well. How'd I do? I think I kept it within time this time. Now I'd like to introduce, my partner in crime sometimes. This is George from Brian Electric, and Brian and Brian Electric is a great team that, we've gotten to interface with a lot to do charging installs across New Jersey. And Brian, Brian Electric and George, take it away. Thank you, Kate. So, yeah, I'm gonna go through oh, I think we lost it for a moment. Hey. Can you give me a hand real quick? Can the presentation back? There we go. Thank you. So I'm gonna go through in a brief way some considerations when you are installing EV charging stations. So going through the EV charging station process in a nutshell, there's eight simple steps, for it. And the first two can actually happen simultaneously. So scheduling a consultation, ideally with a turnkey provider who can, fully understand everything involved. You you wanna get an understanding of what chargers are the right fit for your setup. You heard earlier today, there's a mix between DC fast chargers level twos, you know, for all different applications. And then performing the site visit will help determine, you know, are we getting the infrastructure from existing infrastructure, or are we going to build a new service, utilizing the utilities, to assist us in that? Then once you determine where exactly you're getting the power from and what stations you're getting and everything else, then you're gonna receive your estimate, discuss, maybe renegotiate exactly what the fit is for you, talk about which type of software is the right fit for you, everything else involved. Then you're gonna execute your contract, your purchase order, your, you know, agreement with the installer. If at that point you haven't already done so, even if it's using existing infrastructure, you wanna submit a utility application, especially because a lot of utilities will have incentives out there, speaking specifically in New Jersey, PSE and G, JCPenel, Atlantic City Electric, they all have utility rebates that can help save you money as well, but they will still require an application even if it's with existing infrastructure. So if you didn't do it prior to it, by the time you execute that agreement, you wanna make sure you're submitting that utility application. Then it's onto ordering the material, designing the engineer drawing, submitting for the permits. And once that is all approved, once that's all ready, installation itself actual boots on the ground, that's when you actually see everything happening. And typical installation, you know, the the quote, unquote boots on the ground can be anywhere from one to about three weeks in the field. So, ideally, if your installer is doing everything else behind the scenes proactively, you're minimizing the actual disruption in the field, when when completing the install. And then the last piece is activation and commissioning, making sure your fleet management is set up, making sure if you are opening it to the public, any pricing is set. Like, Jenny mentioned earlier, you could possibly have different access, policies for faculty and staff, for the public, for the fleet. So you wanna consider all those, aspects in the activation commissioning section. Now another thing that's important to note is ADA guidelines. So ADA is, you know, not a concrete law when it comes to EV charging stations because there's a lot of, you know, guidelines that kind of fall in in conflict with one another. So for right now, the guidelines are set as this. If you are using existing stalls that are non ADA, then you can continue to do so. So for your EV buses, more than likely, the fleet is going to be sitting in bus specific parking stalls. So just making sure you're keeping in consideration the equipment and where that's going and how that will impact you. But for publicly accessible ones or or mixed use accessible ones, you wanna make sure that you're considering it, especially if you have a wide variety of them. Now I've seen a whole slew of ADA examples out there, but I'm showing you right now correct install versus an incorrect install. Some important things you wanna make sure you're considering. One, the station should actually line up with the walkway. Believe it or not, some people will have that, you know, not lined up. And then the problem is, if you see the example on the right, if you had two vehicles there, then you wouldn't be able to fit a wheelchair in between to actually access the station. Additionally, you wanna make sure the bollards are spaced out just enough so that way you can get a wheelchair through, but you're not going to get a car through to protect the station. And lastly, you also want to make sure that the curb itself is not blocking or obstructing the access to the station. So pulling the curb back behind it or leveling it underneath, so that way everything is to grade is ideal, when you're considering ADA setups. Now another thing for those of you in, high flood risk areas, flood and design flood elevation is important. Now as it is right now, code would state that the chargers themselves are equivalent to a gas pump in that they are a, replaceable piece of technology. And as long as they have their flood detection, then they do not need to be elevated, you know, to match DFE. However, all of your distribution equipment, your panel, your CT cabinets, your transformers, those all do have to be elevated for design flood elevation. So you can see a few examples here. It can be something as simple as just adding a pad and elevating them a couple inches. Right. Or if you notice the bottom right example, it could be something very significant, where you're almost installing a second Floor, in order to put all of these, distribution equipment pieces up. And then one other thing that I don't have a slide for, but I do want to note as it is a growing, conversation piece, consideration when you are installing chargers in a garage or or in an enclosure is fire prevention. So as of right now, there is no exact laws, but they are currently updating the code as they always do, and we expect within the next couple years that they will have actual code. At this time, the biggest recommendation is having shunt trips installed in your EV panel and also having heat detection, above your stations in an appropriate spacing. So that way, god forbid, any of them do catch fire or the vehicle catches fire, the heat detector will cut power to everything. And then making sure you have easily accessible extinguishers, not standard fire extinguishers, but, battery preventive specific fire preventing, extinguishers are ideal for those areas. Now some other location considerations. Again, I mentioned the theme of flood mapping. You always wanna make sure you're checking your utility territory map to understand, you know, which utility you have and what incentives you'll have. For certain incentives, if there's a, overburden community mapping, a lot of times these incentives will award additional funding if you fall within them. And then while it's going away at the June of next year, if you are still eligible for a federal 30 c tax credit or the federal elective pay incentive money, you do have to just qualify by being in one of the shaded areas of the map. But the important thing with that is they are going away by the June year, so you have to be fully installed by that deadline. Talking about utility capacity map. So, again, as I've mentioned, a lot of times you can have new services bill and might not get the best understanding of can you actually feed your service or not. A great first step is looking at these utility capacity maps. Every utility out there will have one in some degree. They might not all look like this these examples, but they are out there. And it's important to know, you know, just getting the understanding. Do you have available power? Do they need to add extra power? Especially when you're talking about DC fast chargers, You know, the amount of power that you can be adding to the grid can significantly impact not just your own service, but everyone around you. So taking a look at the capacity maps helps you get a better understanding, get a better feel for what is it going to take to get these stations installed. And with that, I will now pass it on to Lisa. Thank you, George, and hello everyone. So I'm going to talk to you about an opportunity to get national recognition for EV charging stations that are installed at your workplace. Schools are workplaces if you have them then you can also get national recognition right now in the past year we helped Belleville, Roselle, and Garfield get I think silver eval recognition and they haven't even installed their chargers yet so simply having things such as sustainability goals and having that interest to do this can be enough to get you a national award. So, this slide kind of goes over one of the websites partners that we work with, CalSTART, who's actually partnering with NJDEP on some of the fleet electrification programs here in the state now. They also partner with, Fourth Mobility, which is another non profit based out of Oregon, that really promotes EV adoption and EV charging but CalSTART has this site called Charge at Work you can make a pledge that you're going to be doing this that helps you get a point for the recognition but they also have this Resource Center on their website and also the Project Builder portal, which both have helpful resources inside. So I just wanted to bring this to your attention. So EVAL stands for the Electric Vehicle Adoption Leadership program and it's a national program funded by the US Department of Energy supporting clean workplace transportation it's a certification that you may want to have for your school district or for your municipality or even just for your company that shows that you really value environmental and sustainable transportation it can be a way to attract employees to your workplace who really you know believe in green transportation and it's also aligned with the LEAD program which is you know it's in the same family eval is actually officially LEAP the leadership for electrification for employers and so companies that have get eval certified can also earn two lead certification points. So the website is here for eval but we really want to actually hold your hand and help you walk through this process because we can help you get a much higher award level if you work with us than if you try to just do it on your own similar to Safe Routes to School it's kind of complex and so you know DOT asks us to really hold the hands of all the schools, that get Safe Routes to School, awards and it's the same way here if we work with you we can help you and give you tips on how to maximize your award level their site also has helpful resource tools educational materials and technical assistance information that would be really helpful for those of you who are just starting this process anyone is eligible as long as you're a workplace and as long as you're not only electrifying your fleet vehicles you can get certified so you know like Stan was mentioning earlier if you put in chargers for your buses but you also maybe are getting chargers at your schools like maybe at your Administration Building at your Board of Ed you can become eval certified I'm originally from California and I know when I go home to visit my dad you know there's a local high school and middle schools a lot of them have set up with solar arrays they're great because they block the rain and you can actually take that solar power and help to decrease your electric grid usage and costs so we would encourage you don't just electrify your school buses consider getting an EV charger for your staff for your teachers so that they can have a clean commute as well there's four tiers of award bronze silver gold and platinum and we are actually working with sustainable Jersey it it's not for certain yet but the plan is for eval to also become a sustainable Jersey point generator so that you will also be able to like similar to safe routes to school use eval to get sustainable Jersey points which you can then apply for sustainable Jersey mini grants for schools or municipalities so the adoption leadership certification looks at you know your goals it looks at how you interact and communicate with your employees the planning that you're doing any other types of mobility incentives you have whether or not you have chargers and if you're doing anything else that's innovative and that could be even if you don't yet have them maybe you are working with you know a company that's nearby that has EV chargers whether it's Target or Walmart or another private company to you know negotiate a program where your employees can go and charge their vehicles there now obviously that's not gonna work for school buses but in the interim, you know, you could actually come up with a, you know, a cooperative like shared services program maybe there's a local bus vendor near you maybe you get the electric school buses and find out whether or not they have some time and that you could in the meantime charge your buses there I don't know but they're trying to come up with innovative ways that you can get points and so we encourage that and they also look at you know if you give incentives for your teachers or community members to ride the bikes or take transit So, again, like I said, we are here. We have resources to help you get the highest level of award. Some of the benefits, like these digital resources, you know, Stan and I are here where we will help you at no cost whatsoever, just purely because we're interested in helping to advance EV adoption, and some of the benefits are like I said noted before but most importantly provide a healthier environment for your community right so many times in New Jersey we're so densely populated there's a lot of cars anything that can cut down on the air pollution emissions is good for our communities our children and you know our neighbors so right now there is a cost for the certification however even by attending here today you're going to get another 20% off the certification price there's also already 25% off for government entities nonprofits like schools and then if you have multiple sites you're planning to do we can help you negotiate a multi site discount so for example Passaic County I just helped them to get certified at four of their work sites it was actually the cost was less than them certifying one site so do work with us all right so next steps I want to give us time for Q and A but you know have your sustainability lead or whoever the person is in your district or organization that's working on this stuff you know reach out so that we can you know help you to get certified or just help you with the technical resources all of us here you know we work together George Kate and, you know, we're looking forward to helping, power forward the sustainable transportation. There's a lot of, groups that have already gotten certified in The U. S, so remember this is a national program and you can get national exposure and a network with some of the folks you know in other places to learn from them especially if you know we might be new or starting it there may be others who are more ahead. So, all of us are going to be at the New Jersey League of Municipalities next week, so you can come and meet us at the booths. I'm gonna ask my colleagues here to come back on the stage, including Jenny, and, we're gonna open it up for q and a. Alright. Does anyone have any questions? Put them into the q and a. I'm gonna let Stan take over now to see if he's got, questions. Or, you know, Fahim, I know you're here from East Orange. Thank you for coming. If you have questions, put them either in the chat or the q and a. Well, before anyone else has a question, I would like to ask Jenny And Jenny, by the way, it was great presentation. You mentioned that the district in Princeton decided to opt for DC fast charging. Do they, do they have any issues with the low demand fee? I mean, when, the fast charging is generating spikes in electricity use. Are there any issues with that? I mean, moment. it's certainly something that I'm concerned about. So I encourage them to only use that, at night, for that reason. But yeah. No. I haven't analyzed they just installed the charger in October, so I haven't had a chance yet to review the electricity data to see. But, yeah, you're right. That that's a sign could be a significant issue. Yeah. It's which kind of goes back to the free charger that they got, the level two, because it could as well work pretty well for them because it would, Yeah. be charging at lower, charging, speeds. So, anyway. Yeah. No. That was, it wasn't my advice to go with the level three. They they really wanted that. That's what they were comfortable with. You know, they they the buses are on a fixed route during the day, of course. But. then they also have other things in the afternoon, activities and sports and travel on weekends. And, I think they were just nervous. But I would think with any other, installation, it would be level. two. So it's not necessarily a bad idea. to have one DC fast charger in your fleet. And Jenny, you make a good point and and that's why we're all here. I think today and we continue to get out there and spread the word is to make sure that again folks, especially schools who are interested in adopting new technology, understand and bring in resources like ourselves who can kind of put people at ease. School buses, I'm a parent, I could tell you years ago my children had an app where you could it was called Where's the Bus, and it would tell you exactly where the students were. And school buses are some of the most routed and traceable and trackable, routes. So you know before that even bus that bus takes off for the day where it's going to be, how long it's gonna be on the road, what it's gonna be used for, and how long it's gonna be traveling, and what the mileage is for that route. So knowing that and trusting our transportation professionals who really truly understand the needs and the routes is you can then choose where and how to fuel those buses with the right type of technology. To your point, a level three gets things done faster, but do you do you need it necessarily? Or like you had said, do you have one DCFC, one fast charger for the emergency type situation, but then have level two chargers for buses. Also things to consider too, again, when you work with your fleet professionals and your charging, installers is to make sure that not necessarily do you need a one for one charging station per bus. You know, not every car has to or every bus has to be plugged in at the same time. So there's definitely ways that people can consider how their sites are gonna be set up to make sure that they're servicing the fleet the correct way and the most efficient way. We have a poll. If, if Kate Kate, you're on mute again. Do you think we can run the poll? We absolutely can run the poll. I'm gonna share it right now, and I'm gonna open it up to those who are online. where are the most harmful exhaust emissions concentrated around a diesel school bus? Is it next to the bus? Is it behind the bus? Or is it inside of the bus? And folks can vote, I believe, if they can open up that on the right hand side of their screen, it should say poll with a little red dot. You can open that up and you can actually vote. Sorry. I think that we should not be biased by the oncoming, responses. The system should, hold on to display these results until everybody voted. You've got some spoiler here. Okay. I think we can, stop the poll in five, four, three, two, one now. And, 75% people said it's inside of the bus and 25% is behind the bus. Now you may think that because the exhaust pipe is at the end, that the most emissions should be behind the bus, but unfortunately, that's not the case. Most, emissions are inside of the bus. That is actual research that was done, and it's five to 10 times higher than outside of the bus. So go figure. Yeah. The article link that I that I linked in the chat too is pretty interesting from the New Jersey Education Association. The guidelines there that kids stay, I think it says, either five or 10 feet away, from the bus. I'm sure that's also for safety, but also just so that they're not so close to, you know breathe in those fumes if the vehicles are idling but but you know Safe Routes to School our team we they've done research at Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers that also show that, you know, idling, goes inside the school buildings, which I think is just really scary to know. And so, you know, that's one of our focuses is to encourage, you know schools and or parks places where you know where people tend to idle and watch like the soccer games to just turn off their engines and you know I know school buses have a certain it's a little bit different because they've got to warm themselves up in the morning I think before they go but you know I don't know how long they have to really warm up anymore I think in the you know in the old days like, when I was a child, they really you did really have to warm up your car, but most modern vehicles, you don't have to do much warm up anymore. So something to think about. I don't know. Stan, do you know anything about that? Do school buses really still have to warm themselves up? Or No. yeah. So there is nothing. I think I always just tell people bring a blanket in the, in the in your vehicle. So if you're cold, you just put that on. You know but it looks I don't see any do we see any other questions actually I have a question for Jenny have you heard from like the drivers or you know like so how long have they been in service Your buses one bus started driving at the start of the school year, and the other one started about a month later. And, yeah, no. The drivers are perfectly happy with it. Yeah. It's gone well so about, far. like, others, like, parents and students? Have they have they said, like, oh, we love this. It doesn't smell bad anymore. I have not heard those comments directly, but I wouldn't be surprised that they aren't. out there. I'm just you know, I'm not necessarily the recipient of that. I'd have to go to the schools that they're servicing and find out. Well, I know that. if you if you asked and shared the answers Yeah. as, Yeah. you. know, as a safe routes to school person, but I know I used to go to a lot of schools in the early morning when the kids are dropping off, you know, like this, for example this Friday is Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day and I know like when we do our walks sometimes we've walked by like a yard where they were maybe other types of companies were warming up their vehicles it was just terrible right so it's it's children are most affected and also people who are moving, like, if they're jogging or if they're exercising, Mhmm. it's, you know, really is really bad for our bodies and stuff too. So I am just thrilled, so thrilled that, you know like the school buses are starting to be a transition to electric vehicles it also. can save a lot of money right let's be honest you don't have to gas up those vehicles anymore and you just plug in. I think, you know, people never know what to expect, but when I first got my EV, I just love it now. I just plug in, you know, when I need it in the evening, and it's ready to go in the morning. I don't ever have to worry about, you know, trying to run to the gas station anymore. No. more oil changes. And I was laughing. I went to a meeting with the police this morning at Passaic County, and I was saying to him, I have an EV. I don't have to get my vehicle inspected anymore. So So it saves a lot of time. You think? what's, you know, I got a final note too from the school community is what's really important is to remember is that schools, again, set the example and they set the tone for their communities. And when schools step up and adopt new technology, things that, again, their students are going to be facing in their modern life. You know, are the kids today or like you said, Lisa, the buses are different than the way they were when we were in school, and our students, our kids are expecting a different experience than the one that is, has better air quality, is quieter. As someone who is a special needs parent, I have to say, I always like to say when it comes to our schools adopting this type of technology, is these types of infrastructure as well as the vehicles themselves are quieter. There's less stimulation. There's less noise. There's less smell. And, you know, it's just something that, especially with special needs students, not all, but some I know mine, is if they're appreciative of the less stimulus that causes with the with the electric school buses and the electric vehicles that our family has chosen to drive. And as someone who goes to or has gone to about a million kids, concerts and swim meets and soccer games is when you are. traveling between different schools, it is a pleasure to be at a community that has charging stations at their school campuses so that families like ours who travel with an electric vehicle can plug in while they're watching those games and then get back on the road and get home and enjoy the rest of their weekends together. So, for school communities out there listening, it does make a difference in the communities, that they serve and the with families being able to adopt this technology and for students to be able to see it in practice. Learning doesn't just take place inside of those classroom walls, it starts with how we get to and from our educational facilities. So, if there's ways that our team can help, let us know. And I look forward to seeing some of the folks that are on this call today, at the New Jersey event next week. Thanks for having me. Yep. Thank you. Thank you again, Jenny, for being our special guest speaker today. I think we're probably taking a break in December for the holidays. So we'll probably be back with our next, webinar series, in the new year. I can't believe it's coming up so close, but happy holidays to everyone. Thank you for joining us today, and, you know, we're glad that you're becoming innovators with us, so, and things that are better for our planet and better for all people. Thank you. Bye bye. Right. Bye.