Savings From CNG School Buses

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Up to $1.8 billion in potential fuel cost savings from a national fleet of CNG school buses

Just north of Fort Meyers on Florida’s Gulf coast, the Charlotte County school district is moving on a plan to convert one-third of the district’s fleet of 100 school buses to CNG buses. A solicitation led the district to enter negotiations with a Floridabased CNG station developer and operator for a CNG station to fuel the buses the district hopes to purchase. Jerry Olivo, the district’s assistant superintendent for support services, says he aims to reach a fueling agreement that he can present to the school district’s board of directors this spring. It would likely resemble a CNG fueling agreement in place with the school district in Florida’s Leon County, home to Tallahassee, in the panhandle.

Under a 20-year agreement with Leon County Public Schools, CNG station developer and operator Nopetro built a 6-lane fast-fill CNG station at its own expense, which fuels 44 CNG school buses, with another 15 CNG to be added. The public station also fuels refuse trucks operated by Leon County, the City of Tallahassee and WastePro; and tractors owned by Saddle Creek Logistics. The school district’s throughput provided the anchor revenue Nopetro needed to extend CNG fueling to a part of the Sunshine state where public CNG fueling was previously unavailable.

Estimates place the number of CNG school buses in the U.S. at between 2,500 and 3,000, a small number relative to the approximately 480,000 school buses in the U.S., but a number that is growing. There is no central register of all school districts operating CNG buses. But with over 400 CNG buses out of a fleet of 1,600 buses in total, the Los Angeles Unified School District operates the largest fleet of CNG school buses in the country. Thirty-one of the 80 buses operated by California’s Montebello Unified School District run on CNG and California’s Arcadia Unified School District just placed 10 CNG school buses into service.

In Pennsylvania, the Ardmore school district runs about half of its 114 buses on CNG; 50 CNG buses are used to bus students to school in Butler County; and 58 of Lower Merion School District’s 113 buses run on CNG. Pennsylvania’s Rose Tree Media School District is converting 14 existing diesel buses to CNG with plans to purchase eight more, moves estimated to save the district $1 million in fuel costs over 20 years.

In Missouri, Kansas City Public Schools operates 47 CNG buses and Parkway School District, in western St. Louis County, operates 30. Lee’s Summit School District in Missouri is deploying what will total 149 CNG school buses (p. 1), along with 47 other CNG vehicles used by the district’s maintenance staff. Lee’s Summit schools estimates that it will save $11 million in fuel and maintenance costs over the long term as a result of making the move to CNG. Mansfield Independent School District in the Dallas Area operates 20 CNG buses out of a fleet of 180. Georgia’s Murrieta Valley Unified School District placed 10 CNG school buses into service in 2013 and the public school district in Portland, Maine placed an equal number of CNG buses into service in 2012. Students have begun travelling in CNG school buses in Weld County, Colorado, courtesy of a $5 million grant Noble Energy made to the county schools to buy 7 CNG school buses and build a CNG fueling station (page 5 of the Feb. 4, 2014 NGVToday).