P-J photo by Sara Holthouse At the December Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Beth Olson discussed the key takeaways of a recent report done by NYSERDA in regards to the electric bus initiative from the state.

CLYMER — Clymer Central School has recently had an electric bus study done for them by NYSERDA, in order to help prepare for the state electric bus mandates that are coming down the line.

During the December Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Beth Olson said reading the initial report was confusing and complicated for everyone and after talking with the author of the report, there are a few key takeaways for the district.

“The key takeaway from the report is they are recommending the size of the battery that is going to be the best option for the buses that we have,” Olson said. “So, for example, they could recommend larger batteries, but that would require a longer chassis, which would not fit our bus garage. So, battery size is based on the size of the bus that we can fit in our garage.”

As far as chargers go, National Grid has provided the district a report as to the electrical grid that the bus garage has access to. This includes how many chargers can fit in the bus garage and how fast they can charge. The study has also looked at the bus routes for the district, and has come back with two routes that something needs to change with, because there will be too many miles for the electric buses to be able to run on one charge. Olson also noted that the report says there will be six of the eight runs that will need a charge midday in order for the buses to be able to complete their runs again in the afternoon.

“So, again, there is going to be a science to that because you want to minimize the amount of time you are charging midday because that is going to be at the highest rate of which you are going to be charged and you want to maximize the overnight charging because that’s when there’s going to be the lowest rate,” Olson said. “So there’s going to be a science to that, that is most likely going to require additional personnel to monitor to make us the most efficient that we can be.”

An important thing to note from the study, Olson said, is that the study only looks at getting the kids to and from school, without looking at any other types of extracurriculars like athletics. She said the run to BOCES for those students will count, but then will require finding time in the day to charge again for the bus to be able to go back out later in the day. Olson said the report said there will be a way to see how many miles are left on the bus, to know how long they have until the next charge is needed.

A meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 18, that will include Panama and Sherman schools, because in addition to the individual study, Olson said it was asked to do a collective study to see if there was any efficiency that would be gained by merging the three transportation departments for the electric bus initiative.

“I’m curious to see where that’s going to go or what that’s going to look like, because our particular report is very Clymer focused,” Olson said. “I don’t see how they’re going to be able to merge the information from the three without doing an additional step such as if you use some type of routing software that puts all of our district routes in there, then we can see where the overlap is and then you may even be able to consolidate a run or do something along those lines.”

Olson said they have not been advised to take that specific step, but that she thinks it will probably be necessary. She added that they will go to the meeting and see what comes out of it, to come away with another piece of information.

The board discussed the possibility of making a bigger bus garage to accommodate bigger buses, but it was noted that the report was based on the school’s current infrastructure, and that it will be up to the district to decide what the next steps to take are to make the initiative the most cost effective for the district. Potential length, weight and height concerns for the electric buses and the doors of the bus garage were also discussed, along with an idea to possibly look into getting one or two of the bigger buses, along with the rest of the buses that match the current size. The state mandate is that the entire bus fleet for schools be electric by 2035.

“This report or this exercise is our effort to, we’re looking into it and trying to find the best fit for our district,” Olson said.

Olson said there will be more to come on this in future meetings.