March 3, 2026

V2G News spoke with Kevin Matthews, Head of Electrification at First Student, about how school buses became central to the vehicle-to-grid (V2G) conversation, and what it will take to move from pilots to durable programs in which the nation’s fleet of school buses becomes an integral part of a less expensive, more reliable, and more resilient electric grid.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

V2G News:

To set the stage, can you provide an overview of First Student and its role in student transportation?

Matthews:

First Student is North America’s largest student transportation company. We operate roughly 47,000 vehicles across 42 U.S. states and eight Canadian provinces, serving approximately 1,300 customers. Per day, we transport 4.6 million students to school and home again.

Student transportation is a safety-driven business. We are entrusted with transporting society’s most precious resource. Everything we do starts with safety, and that’s actually what led us to electrification.

V2G News:

How did electrification become part of First Student’s strategy?

Matthews:

About five years ago, we began looking closely at emissions exposure from diesel bus tailpipes,  not just for students and drivers, but for the communities we serve. That analysis led us to commit to transitioning our fleet toward electric buses over time.

Today, we have 470 electric buses operating across North America, approaching 10 million miles of service. By the start of the next school year, we expect to have well over 1,000 EV buses deployed, with hundreds more coming online shortly after.

We’ve secured roughly $600 million in grants and incentives across the U.S. and Canada to support that deployment. Electrification is now fully integrated into our organization, and we have in-house project managers, engineers, construction specialists, IT, and software teams dedicated to it.

March 3, 2026

This article is the second installment in our new State Profile Series, examining where bidirectional charging and V2G are most likely to move beyond demonstrations and into durable market structures. If Connecticut offered a model for how to experiment and then integrate, California presents a different case study: a state that has spent more than a decade building the policy and technical foundations for vehicle-grid integration, yet still finds itself largely in pilot mode. With the highest EV adoption in the country and some of the most advanced regulatory frameworks, California’s next step will determine whether V2G becomes embedded infrastructure or remains an extended demonstration.

No state has done more to promote electric vehicles than California. EVs now represent more than a quarter of new light-duty vehicle sales, and the state has aligned climate policy, transportation electrification, and grid modernization around a 2045 carbon-neutrality target. For more than a decade, regulators and utilities have acknowledged a simple truth: electric vehicles are not just new load, they are potential grid assets.

And yet, bidirectional charging in California remains largely confined to pilot programs.

The state has built regulatory frameworks, hosted annual Vehicle-Grid Integration (VGI) forums, funded technology demonstrations, and created interconnection pathways under Rule 21 for both DC and AC vehicle-to-grid (V2G) systems. But despite that early leadership, California has not articulated a long-term vision or target for scaling V2G into a durable grid resource. The result is a paradox: the largest EV market in the country is still experimenting with how to use those vehicles as grid infrastructure.

Note: The author thanks Zach Woogen, Executive Director of the Vehicle Grid Integration Council, and Grace Pratt, Associate at Caliber Strategies, for their review and helpful comments on an earlier draft. Any remaining errors or omissions are the sole responsibility of the author.

Rivian and EnergyHub have announced a strategic partnership that embeds utility-managed charging directly into Rivian vehicles, making them dispatchable resources for more than 150 utilities on EnergyHub’s distributed energy resource management platform. Through direct OEM telematics integration, the program enables always-on, feeder-level load shaping rather than relying solely on a handful of annual peak events. EnergyHub cites analysis showing that dynamic managed charging can significantly increase distribution system hosting capacity and defer costly grid upgrades, positioning EVs as tools for local grid optimization rather than simply incremental load.

While the partnership does not yet include active vehicle-to-grid exports, it sits squarely on that trajectory. Rivian has previously announced plans for bidirectional charging capability, signaling that its vehicles are being designed with future V2H and V2G applications in mind. EnergyHub is already running V2G pilots with commercial buses and preparing a residential pilot with DTE and GM, and executives note that many OEM discussions begin with V2G ambitions before turning to the foundational requirements of managed charging, data access, and utility integration. The announcement reflects a broader shift; EVs are no longer peripheral loads to be curtailed occasionally, but emerging grid assets that can evolve from flexible load to fully bidirectional resources as standards, program design, and regulatory confidence mature.

2/24/2026

General Motors is accelerating deployment of vehicle-to-home (V2H) capability through General Motors’s GM Energy division, reporting more than 246,000 V2H-capable EVs sold in 2025. Through integrated hardware, including the PowerShift charger, V2H enablement kit, and PowerBank stationary battery, GM is positioning its vehicles as residential resilience and energy management assets. The company is also developing a leasing model to lower upfront costs and expanding utility partnerships, including programs with Reliant Energy in Texas and a vehicle-to-everything pilot with Pacific Gas and Electric Company in California. While current deployments focus on backup power and bill management rather than full vehicle-to-grid export, GM reports positive internal V2G testing and is pursuing utility certification. For V2G News readers, the significance is clear: large-scale V2H deployment may become the on-ramp to broader bidirectional integration, building customer familiarity, installer networks, and utility relationships that can ultimately support grid-interactive EVs at scale.

2/23/2026

Researchers at the University of Oklahoma, through the Hudson College of Public Health, have launched Recharge OK, a National Science Foundation-supported initiative that retrofits electric school buses in Shawnee, Oklahoma, with vehicle-to-grid capability so they can provide backup power during outages and extreme weather events. In partnership with Shawnee Public Schools, Oklahoma Gas and Electric, Oklahoma State University, and regional stakeholders, the project converts buses not originally designed for bidirectional charging into grid resources that can support schools, hospitals, and other critical facilities, while also advancing air quality, STEM education, and community resilience. The effort echoes themes raised in our interview with Kevin Matthews in this edition, who described school buses as a logical entry point for scalable V2G, and it reflects a broader pattern: V2G interest is no longer confined to the coasts but is spreading across mid-America as utilities and communities look for practical resilience solutions.

2/26/2026

School transportation provider Zūm will deploy a fully electric bus fleet for Branford Public Schools beginning in the 2026–27 school year, positioning Branford as the first district in Connecticut to go fully electric and among the largest such deployments in the country. The fleet will be supported by modern depot charging infrastructure with built-in vehicle-to-grid capability, even if grid services are not yet contracted. As discussed in the interview with Kevin Matthews in this edition of V2G News, electric school buses are uniquely aligned with V2G due to predictable schedules, long dwell times, and centralized depot charging, characteristics that make them attractive grid resources as markets mature. And as we outlined in The Huskies Are Warming Up: Why Connecticut Is Poised to Scale V2G in Volume 2 | Issue 3, Connecticut has deliberately paired pilot projects under its Innovative Energy Solutions regulatory sandbox with a PURA-directed Bidirectional EV Working Group focused on program integration, sending a clear signal that bidirectional EVs are expected to move from demonstration to durable programs. That kind of disciplined, scale-oriented regulatory framework reduces uncertainty. It creates real incentives for fleets and technology providers to invest upfront in bidirectional hardware, even before export revenues are fully monetized.

2/16/2026

Hyundai Engineering & Construction is partnering with Hyundai Motor Group, Kia, and Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) in a 15-member consortium to integrate bidirectional EV charging into a virtual power plant platform, with demonstrations planned through 2028. The initiative aims to aggregate surplus electricity stored in EV batteries and dispatch it back to the grid, positioning vehicles as distributed energy assets rather than passive loads. While regulatory frameworks under South Korea’s Special Act on Activation of Distributed Energy are still evolving, the effort signals growing industrial alignment between OEMs, infrastructure developers, and utilities to commercialize vehicle-to-grid at scale. For the global V2G market, it is another indicator that large industrial players are beginning to treat EV fleets as flexible grid infrastructure embedded within broader distributed energy strategies.

2/24/2026

Jeju Special Self-Governing Province is moving beyond pilot rhetoric and embedding bidirectional electric vehicles directly into a structured distributed energy market program. Designated as a Special Zone under Korea’s Special Act on Activation of Distributed Energy, Jeju is positioning V2G alongside energy storage and power to heat within a coordinated virtual power plant framework that includes regulatory exemptions, market rule evolution, and financial sector participation. Rather than treating bidirectional charging as a standalone technology experiment, the province is integrating EV battery export into a broader local production and consumption strategy, signaling how V2G can transition from isolated demonstration to institutionalized market architecture.

2/26/2926