How electric school buses will keep Canadians warm during emergencies by Jameson Dow, Apr 28 2023, Electrek
Prince Edward Island has enlisted the help of Lion Electric‘s electric school buses to provide power in the event of emergencies, to keep community disaster relief locations running when the power goes out.
Lion Electric is a Canadian-based electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicle manufacturer that primarily produces the classic North American yellow school bus. Based in Quebec not far outside of Montreal, it has become a leader in the space.
Its LionC electric school bus has a battery capacity of 126-210kWh depending on options – quite a bit of juice. And most relevant to the news piece in question, it’s also capable of vehicle-to-grid operation.
Vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, refers to the ability of an electric vehicle to deliver energy back to the grid, rather than just to pull energy out of it. Not many cars have this capability because it has limited consumer applications (so far), but it’s more useful for fleets.
In this instance, Lion’s V2G technology will be used in Prince Edward Island, the smallest province in Canada, to provide power in temporary community shelters in emergency situations.
Last year, the island was hit by the tail end of Hurricane Fiona, which delivered up to 150 km/h (93 mph) winds in the province. The storm knocked out power for 95% of the island.
When the power was out, the province opened “warming centres” across the island to serve food and provide shelter (and, in a sign of the times, a place to charge their phones). One of these shelters was the North Rustico Lions Club in the tiny town of North Rustico, population 648.
To provide power during the storm, the Club ran a diesel generator day and night. But this will no longer be required in the future, as Lion’s V2G technology will be leveraged to provide cleaner, quieter, less-dangerous power for this warming center. And less dangerous is an important part, since Prince Edward Island’s one fatality during last year’s storm was a man who died of carbon monoxide poisoning while operating a generator.
The LionC’s battery means that two electric buses should be able to provide about three days’ worth of power for the Lions Club, according to Lion Electric. (And no, Lion Electric and Lions Club share no relation – the names are coincidental).
This is a pilot program, and costs will initially be paid by a combination of Lion Electric and the province itself. The province has ordered over 200 electric school buses from Lion, 82 of which will be in service by the end of next month.
But it doesn’t stop at emergency response – the province also wants to use these buses to help clean up the grid, by charging when demand is low or when there is an abundance of renewable electricity generation, and discharging into the grid to help offset dirty peaker plants when demand is high. The province proudly states that these two points make electrification of school buses a key part of their net zero strategy that leads the rest of the nation.
Refer also to:
2017: Fabulous Christmas gift for Prince Edward Island’s fresh water, farms, families and communities! PEI Water Act passes with amendment to prohibit fracking
In 2017, after making me wait an entire year, much longer than any other case the court heard (even though my hearing was only on a minor preliminary matter), Canada’s Charter and I lost horridly at the Supreme Court of Canada – but PEI won! There’s nothing better than a jurisdiction taking responsible action to protect their drinking water and citizens after watching the country’s highest court piss on the law to enable frac harms.
The supreme court could have left it at me losing, damaging our Charter, and hitting me with paying the Charter violator’s (AER’s) legal costs, but oh no, they were not content with pissing on me and the rule of law, they had to push their arrogance and pro polluter bias further. They intentionally lied in their ruling and sent their denigration of me to the media in their ruling summary which the media of course published.
I think the judges did this to punish me for daring to try to protect the public interest and my community as a solitary non criminal citizen instead of behind a big oil and frac synergizing NGO like Ecojustice (which refused to help me when they were Sierra Legal Defence Fund because they said my case was not in the public interest, Pffffft!), Suzuki Fdn (also refused to help me warn Canadians about frac’ing, no reasons given), Sierra Club, Pembina Institute, etc. and shame me into quitting. I didn’t, so my lawyers did instead. And to make me shut up about frac’ing and how bad, unjust and inaccessible Canada’s legal-judicial industry is. I won’t. Instead, I flip them the bird, ex supreme J Rosalie Abella especially:
Thank you Michael de Adder for this brilliant, apt and tremendously funny cartoon!
PS
What does word denigration mean? by Merriam-Webster
1 : to attack the reputation of : defame 2 : to deny the importance or validity of : belittle.
Did you know?
If you “denigrate” someone, you attempt to blacken their reputation. It makes sense, therefore, that “denigrate” can be traced back to the Latin verb denigrare, meaning “to blacken.” When “denigrate” was first used in English in the 16th century, it meant to cast aspersions on someone’s character or reputation. Eventually, it developed a second sense of “to make black” (“factory smoke denigrated the sky”), but this sense is somewhat rare in modern usage. Nowadays, of course, “denigrate” can also refer to belittling the worth or importance of someone or something.