Resilient Communities, Resilient Grid: How Electric School Buses Can Help

This web meeting summarized key findings from The Climate Center’s new white paper, “Resilient Communities, Resilient Grid: How Electric School Buses Can Help,” released in September. Attendees learned how bidirectional electric school buses can make communities more resilient to climate disasters through vehicle-grid integration, and heard from leaders developing bidirectional electric school bus resilience projects. Speakers also covered what barriers currently stand in the way of deploying these technologies at scale and what policy solutions can remove these obstacles.

Presentation and Resources

• Meeting slide deck
• Report: Resilient Communities, Resilient Grid — How Electric School Buses Can Help

Speakers

Alex Macharia

Vehicle-Grid Integration Program Manager at The Mobility House

Alex Macharia is a Vehicle-Grid Integration Program Manager at The Mobility House, specializing in the implementation of commercial bi-directional projects for fleets in the US, as well VGI program development. He has worked in various roles within the automotive industry over 15 years, including roles at Nuvve and Cummins, where he managed automotive partnerships and OEM vehicle integration projects respectively. Alex has a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Central Oklahoma and a master’s in Engineering from Purdue.

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Matthew Belasco

Director Of Maintenance, Operations, and Transportation, Pittsburg Unified School District

Matthew has been working for 20+ years in the field of school business management. He has led his current team in their quest for a green school bus fleet. To that end, most of the school buses are powered by alternative or renewable energy. Four Electric buses are included in this deployment, powered by a solar and wind farm.

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Kurt Johnson

Director, Vehicle-Grid Partnership

Kurt Johnson is the Director of the Vehicle-Grid Partnership, a new organization advocating for bidirectional utilization of electric vehicles (EVs) to lower electricity bills and keep the lights on. Vehicle-Grid Partnership activities include supporting bidirectional EV owners in utilizing their EVs to lower electricity costs and enhance resilience, as well as organizing a national vehicle-grid integration policy conference taking place in Washington, D.C. on May 12, 2027.

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Michelle Levinson (Moderator)

Senior Manager, World Resources Institute

Michelle Levinson is Senior Manager with the World Resources Institute’s Polsky Center for the Global Energy Transition. She brings expertise in electricity and transportation decarbonization, regulatory policy, and project finance.

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