Electric buses on the way
Twelve new vehicles, which will cost $4.8 million, will arrive on P.E.I. by year’s end
P.E.I. will receive 12 new electric school buses by the end of 2020.
The dozen buses, as well as the installation of charging stations, will cost $4.8 million. P.E.I.’s provincial government will contribute $2.7 million, while the federal government will contribute $2.1 million.
In an announcement via Zoom on Monday morning, federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna said the buses would be manufactured in Quebec by Lion Electric.
“Every taxpayer dollar needs to grow the economy and create jobs. It needs to tackle climate change, build a cleaner and more resilient future,” McKenna said.
“That’s exactly what this announcement is doing today.”
The new electric school buses will be the first put in use for Island schools.
The province had pledged to tender one electric school bus in the 2019 capital budget as a pilot project.
This had not occurred prior to Monday's announcement.
Premier Dennis King said the funding represented “an important first step” to moving P.E.I.’s entire fleet of 300 school buses to electrification.
“We anticipate the first bus to be here sometime in November, around the 25th, we hope, with the remaining buses arriving by the end of December,” King said.
The new buses will replace existing diesel buses, King said.
King added the new school buses will remove 12 tonnes of carbon emission per year from P.E.I.’s atmosphere, the equivalent of taking 26 cars off the road.
The $4.8-million price tag for the 12 buses is higher than the $4.4 million amount the province announced for the purchase of 42 gas-powered school buses in August 2019.
Education Minister Brad Trivers acknowledged the higher up-front cost of the electric buses, which is partly due to the additional cost of the installation of charging stations.
“In the long run, there is an 80 per cent energy cost reduction as well as a 60 per cent reduction in maintenance cost,” Trivers said.
“It’s a win-win-win. Our education system is going to win as we have this transportation for our students and it, of course, is going to have huge benefits for the environment.”
As of 2018, P.E.I. emitted 1.7 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year.
Transportation accounts
for almost 50 per cent of these emissions.
The P.E.I. government pledged in October to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2040.
This target has not yet been enshrined in legislation, but a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1.2 megatonnes per year, 40 per cent below 2005 levels, was passed in the legislature in the spring of 2019.
“In the long run, there is an 80 per cent energy cost reduction as well as a 60 per cent reduction in maintenance cost.”
Brad Trivers