New York announces Clean School Bus Program

5 December 2001

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) announced the details of a $23 million program designed to offset emissions of air pollutants in four New York City boroughs, including a $6 million program to install diesel particulate filters on 1,000 city school buses.

The PowerNow! Emission Offset program fulfills the Power Authority’s pledge to offset the air emissions generated by the Power Authority’s ten small natural gas-fired turbines at sites in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. The program will be financed, administered and implemented by the Power Authority with assistance from the New York Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

In addition to the installation of pollution control systems on 1,000 school buses, that will operate in the boroughs where the turbines were installed, the program also includes installation of eight non-polluting fuel cells at New York City wastewater treatment plants, plus a variety of other energy-efficiency and emission reduction programs.

The school buses that participate in the program will be equipped with catalytic diesel particulate filter (DPF) systems. The DPFs will be installed on vehicles in place of the muffler. Together with engine adjustments and the use of ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel, the DPFs will reduce emissions of particulates, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, as well as (to a lesser degree), nitrogen and sulfur oxides.

New York is the first state in the US to use this environmental technology for a large fleet of school buses. A pilot program for equipping up to 1,000 school buses with particulate filters is scheduled to begin this winter in the Bronx where four of the new turbines are located. This $6 million program will then roll-out, after the period of testing and evaluation, over the next year in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island which are the boroughs where turbines are located.

Source: New York Power Authority