Green Bank offers free planning help as New Haven weighs school-bus electrification
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Summary
The Connecticut Green Bank presented a no‑cost accelerator planning service to help New Haven Public Schools assess electric-school-bus deployment, infrastructure costs and funding options; the committee discussed timing for joining a 2026 cohort and requested the accelerator agreement and slides for posting.
Kevin Moss, senior manager for Clean Transportation at the Connecticut Green Bank, presented an accelerator program that provides free planning services to school districts that are on accelerated electrification timelines under state law. "I'm Kevin Moss... I'm the senior manager for Clean Transportation at the Green Bank," he said, and described the program as a way to produce a district-specific roadmap covering vehicles, chargers and electric infrastructure.
Moss summarized Connecticut's statutory timeline, telling the committee that environmental-justice designated districts are on a 2030 timeline to deploy fully electric school-bus fleets and that the statewide target is 2040. He said utility and regulatory incentives will help defray infrastructure upgrades and that Green Bank financing can be braided with federal grants to lower project costs.
Committee members asked whether New Haven could join the Green Bank's 2026 cohort and how the district would coordinate with its vendor, First Student. Moss said the district is "far along" in considering electrification and that once the district gives the green light, the Green Bank's three-page accelerator agreement and planning work could move quickly; he offered to provide a PDF of slides and the agreement for posting.
Miss Downer said she would recuse herself from deliberations on electrification because of her employment relationship with a public-utility employee. Board members emphasized workforce-development opportunities tied to infrastructure investments and asked staff to schedule a January update to align with the Green Bank timeline.
Next steps described in the meeting included staff engagement with First Student, distributing the Green Bank accelerator agreement to board members and posting the presentation materials with meeting packets.