Clean-energy firm NextEra to electrify school buses; capitalizing on Biden goal

Clean-energy giant NextEra Energy Inc. announced a plan to electrify thousands of school buses, capitalizing on President Joe Biden’s goal of accelerating the green transition.

NextEra Energy Resources, a subsidiary of the company, has agreed to work toward a joint venture with international bus and rail company FirstGroup to transition tens of thousands of public transit vehicles in the US and Canada to electric, the companies said Tuesday.

The plan would first electrify the 43,000 buses operated by FirstGroup unit First Student.

The announcement comes as Biden moves aggressively to combat climate change in his first days in office, including signing an executive order to replace the entire fleet of federal government cars and trucks with electric vehicles. His clean energy and infrastructure plan calls for converting all US school buses to zero emissions. NextEra, the world’s leading clean-energy giant, is uniquely poised to gain from Biden’s agenda.

“This is the sort of collaboration needed to accelerate mass adoption of zero-emission vehicles and the transition to a clean energy economy in the US and Canada," Rothschild & Co. managing director Markus Pressdee, who advised on the collaboration, said in an emailed statement.

Large batteries in school bus depots could also help serve as distributed-energy storage, supporting the electric grid, the companies said in the statement.