IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v18y2026i2p838-d1840305.html

An Investigation into Electric School Bus Energy Consumption and Its V2G Opportunities

Author

Listed:
  • Rupesh Dahal

    (Mechanical, Material and Aerospace Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA)

  • Hailin Li

    (Mechanical, Material and Aerospace Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA)

  • John J. Recktenwald

    (Mechanical, Material and Aerospace Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA)

  • Bhaskaran Gopalakrishnan

    (Industrial and Management Systems Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA)

  • Derek Johnson

    (Mechanical, Material and Aerospace Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA)

  • Rong Luo

    (School of Mathematical and Data Sciences, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA)

Abstract

This study presents the electrification plan of a school bus (SB) fleet and examines its potential in vehicle-to-grid (V2G) applications. The data collected includes the efficiency of a 120 kW EV charger, energy consumption of a 40-foot electric school bus (ESB), and a diesel bus operating on the same route. The energy consumption data of the ESB and diesel school bus (DSB) were processed to derive the yearly average distance-specific energy consumption of 0.37 mile/kWh (0.60 km/kWh) grid electricity and 5.55 MPG (2.36 km/L), respectively. The energy consumption ratio of the ESB over the DSB is 14.92 kWh/gallon (3.94 kWh/L) diesel. Based on the CO 2 intensity, 1.956 lb/kWh (0.887 kg/kWh) of electricity produced in WV and that of diesel fuel, the distance-specific CO 2 emissions of the ESB were 5.38 lb/mile (1.52 kg/km), which are higher than the 4.08 lb/mile (1.15 kg/km) from the diesel bus operating on the same route. This study also presents the V2G potential of the proposed electrical school bus fleet. Based on the estimated grid-to-vehicle battery (G2VB) efficiency of 92% and vehicle battery-to-grid (VB2G) efficiency of 92%, the grid–vehicle battery–grid (G2VB2G) efficiency is 84.64%. The application of V2G technology is associated with a loss of electricity. Based on the 20% to 80% battery charge, and the estimated 92% VB2G efficiency, the proposed ESB fleet has the potential to provide 14,929 kWh electricity, 55.2% of the ESB fleet battery capacity. The increased cost associated with the implementation of the proposed V2G is about USD 7.5 million, a 400% increase compared to the charger satisfying the operation of ESBs when V2G is not used. The V2G application also is expected to increase the charging cycles, which raises concerns about battery degradation and its replacement during SB service lifetime. Accordingly, more research work is needed to address the increased cost and grid capacity demand, and battery degradation associated with V2G applications.

Suggested Citation

  • Rupesh Dahal & Hailin Li & John J. Recktenwald & Bhaskaran Gopalakrishnan & Derek Johnson & Rong Luo, 2026. "An Investigation into Electric School Bus Energy Consumption and Its V2G Opportunities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 18(2), pages 1-22, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:18:y:2026:i:2:p:838-:d:1840305
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/18/2/838/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/18/2/838/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:18:y:2026:i:2:p:838-:d:1840305. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.