AMHERST — Amherst-Pelham Regional Schools, through its private transportation provider Highland Electric Fleets in Beverly, will continue to electrify school buses through a $500,000 grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.
The Healey-Driscoll administration last week announced $9.5 million going to eight school districts and private transportation providers as the third round of the School Bus Deployment program. The initiative, funded by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, helps communities replace diesel-powered school buses with electric alternatives, as well as providing the expertise needed for the switch to electric.
“Electric school buses are an example of how we can improve public health across the state,” Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Rebecca Tepper said in a statement.
So far, the program has awarded more than $27.5 million to school districts and consultants, leveraging more than $100 million in external funding.
For the Amherst-Pelham district, the grant helps build on money received last year from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which announced that the schools would add three new electric school buses to the fleet of buses using a $600,000 grant from the Clean School Bus Program, created in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
The money received then was to buy the buses, each valued at $200,000 each, as the schools negotiated a lease agreement with Highland, the transportation company that applied for the grant on the district’s behalf. The district also had one electric bus on order through another EPA program known as the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act, awarded in 2022.
Highland Electric Fleets is a company dedicated to the electrification of fleets. It manages the electrification process for clients and procures and implements the necessary infrastructure over long-term contract periods, usually of 10 to 15 years.
But those buses weren’t anticipated to begin serving students until 2026 or 2027, with an official explaining this would give “time to design, purchase, and install charging infrastructure.” In addition, the challenges of not having sufficient high-speed charging infrastructure across the state is preventing the district from moving entirely away from diesel-powered buses.
Previously, in 2016, Amherst was one of three Massachusetts communities, along with Concord and Cambridge, that received funding to participate in a pilot project to purchase and test electric school buses.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
