PowerFlex Opens Revenue Stream for Fremont Unified School District With Bidirectional Bus Charging and V2G

Fremont Unified School District (FUSD) serves roughly 33,000 students across more than 40 schools in Fremont, California. Among the largest districts in the San Francisco Bay Area, FUSD is known for its academic strength, strong diversity, and biliteracy. The district has paired that reputation with an aggressive push toward zero-emission student transportation.

The Challenge

Turn Idle School Buses Into an Asset Rather Than a Cost

Districts move to electric school buses for familiar reasons: cleaner air for students, quieter routes, and lower fuel and maintenance costs than diesel. The harder economics come after the purchase. School buses run two short shifts a day and park for the summer, leaving expensive battery capacity unused for most of the year, including the summer afternoons when California's grid is under the greatest strain. Bidirectional charging offers a way to put that idle capacity to work, but it depends on infrastructure that can charge, discharge, and still keep every route covered.

PowerFlex’s Solution

Bidirectional Charging With Open-Standards V2G Generates Revenue Through Demand Response

INSTALLATION TYPE

EV Charging

INSTALLATION SIZE

20+ Chargers, including 6 Bidirectional DCFCs

LOCATION

Fremont, CA

INCENTIVES

California Energy Commission Clean Transportation Program • Replicable V2X Deployment for Schools • PG&E V2X Pilot • PG&E Emergency Load Reduction Program

PowerFlex supplied the charge management and market aggregation technology for a two-phase vehicle-to-grid (V2G) project at the district's transportation yard, commissioned in August 2025 as one of the first V2G school bus depots in the Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) utility territory. The site runs more than 20 bus chargers, including 6 new high-power bidirectional DC Fast Chargers enrolled in PG&E’s Emergency Load Reduction Program (ELRP).

ChargePilot® by PowerFlex manages daily smart charging of the buses, shifting load into cheaper overnight windows while guaranteeing every bus is ready for its scheduled route. When the platform receives notice of a load reduction event from PG&E, it adjusts charging profiles so buses discharge energy back to the grid —earning the district revenue through the ELRP while still ensuring vehicles hit their target state of charge.

Built for future scalability, the deployment uses replicable, open standards to maintain interoperability between vehicles, hardware, and software regardless of manufacturer.

The FUSD project is part of a $2.9 million multi-district initiative, Replicable V2X Deployment for Schools, which utilizes school bus fleets to mitigate regional grid emergencies.

“We've already seen how the electric buses can contribute to cleaner air for our community. Now, we have the opportunity to use these buses to deliver clean and reliable energy too.”

Erny Epley

Director of Transportation, Fremont Unified School District