Bethany Whitaker

Senior Consultant

Vermont Energy Investment Corporation

Bethany is a Senior Consultant in VEIC's Transportation Efficiency Division. Bethany leads VEIC's efforts to support and accelerate adoption of heavy duty electric vehicles. She is the technical project manager for the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resource's Electric School Bus Pilot program. She is also working with the Martha's Vineyard Transit Authority to transition their fleet to all-electric vehicles. This project includes deploying electric buses and integrating vehicle charging with energy storage and on-site renewable generation (solar).

Bethany has a B.A. in History and Asian Studies from Tufts University and a Master's in Public Policy from the University of Washington.

The first purpose built all-electric electric school buses arrived at three Massachusetts schools in late 2016. We now have roughly 12 months of experience charging, operating and measuring the performance of these vehicles. This presentation will share some of the lessons we learned from this pilot, including unexpected challenges that arose during the pilot, and ways to avoid them in the future. We will also share the data on vehicle efficiency and reliability recorded during our project.

Presentation: The Massachusetts Electric School Bus Pilot – Findings and Lessons Learned