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Unlocking Value: Michigan Electric School Bus Workshop

On November 13, 2025, the Electrification Coalition (EC), Highland Electric Fleets, and Clean Fuels Michigan hosted an electric school bus workshop at Dearborn Public Schools to spotlight Round 4 of the Clean Bus Energy Grant (CBEG) Program and discuss the wide range of electric school (ESB) bus benefits, including operational savings, workforce upskilling, and public health benefits. 

Attendees had the unique opportunity to hear from a diverse panel of experts, including Lisa Book, Supervisor of Transportation at Dearborn Public Schools, and Chris Dean from Dean Transportation, who shared their experiences and lessons learned from cold weather operations to charge management.

Sessions covered key themes including:  

  • Michigan’s progress in ESB adoption thanks to federal, state, and utility funding
  • Job creation and retention through the ESB workforce development and career development opportunities in schools and colleges
  • Maximizing incentives and operational savings through Public-Private Partnerships and business models such as fleet as a service (FaaS)/charging as a service (CaaS)
  • ESB adoption and charging infrastructure deployment best practices and lessons learned
  • The short-term and long-term benefits of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology and microgrids as part of the transition to clean transportation on the school campus and beyond.

Michigan’s Clean Bus Energy Grant Program provides cost-matching opportunities with the EPA Clean School Bus Program recipients. In little over a year, the program has awarded $81 million of the $125 million allotted to the program. Round 4 is now open and is expected to be the final round.

Applications for Michigan’s Clean Bus Energy Grant Program are due by December 18, 2025. Apply soon to get your ESB project started!

Apply to the CBEG Program

Please feel free to reach out to EC Policy Associate Carolyn Bidó at cbido@electrificationcoalition.org with any questions about the Michigan CBEG Program, or about electric school bus deployment in general.

“The adoption of electric school buses was a learning curve. We attended an informational session by Highland Fleets and became interested immediately. We wanted to take off the onus of planning for the school district, and we weren’t staffed enough to deal with everything. We still wanted to ensure SD involvement throughout the process, but we also wanted to mitigate the financial risks.”
Tom Wall, Executive Director, Business Services & OperationsDearborn Public Schools

Amy Malaki

Amy Malaki is the head of policy and sustainability at SkyNRG and SkyNRG Americas, pioneering global leaders in sustainable aviation fuel production and supply. Prior to SkyNRG, Amy was the associate director for the transportation portfolio at the ClimateWorks Foundation where she developed philanthropic investment strategies to advance a sustainable, equitable and low-carbon mobility system. She also pioneered the organization’s international aviation decarbonization strategy. Prior to that she focused on Asia business development at Better Place, a Silicon Valley electric vehicle network startup. She has a B.A. in Chinese and China studies from the University of Washington and an M.A. in international policy studies (energy and environment) from Stanford University.