Duquesne Light Company (DLC) hosted the inaugural Southwestern Pennsylvania Electric Fleet Expo on May 24 at Robert Morris University’s UPMC Events Center. Attendees included more than 200 transportation and sustainability leaders from local businesses, municipalities, school districts and nonprofits interested in planning for electric fleets.

The event was hosted in partnership with Local Government Academy, Pittsburgh Region Clean Cities, Sustainable Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission.

Through a variety of educational sessions, attendees learned about the electric vehicles (EVs) available for their fleets and how to effectively maintain and fuel them. They were also informed about the record number of funding opportunities available to help them offset upfront costs of transitioning to an electric fleet. Several local fleet managers already incorporating EVs into their fleets shared about their experiences with vehicles, charging and funding.

One of the main attractions of the expo featured the opportunity for attendees to experience many of the latest electric fleet vehicles in person, including electric box trucks, transit vans, refuse trucks and more. Many of them enjoyed a quiet ride on an all-electric school bus, courtesy of Student Transportation of America (STA).

As part of its Fleet Charging Program, DLC recently completed a project in partnership with STA to install charging infrastructure needed to power electric school buses for Pine-Richland School District. Through this program and its Electric Fleet Advisory Service, DLC is partnering with local fleet operators like STA to create free roadmaps to fleet electrification. The program also assists with funding and installing EV charging infrastructure for those fleets.

“Since we started partnering with Duquesne Light, it’s been a great relationship for us. From working with the contractors to getting the infrastructure in, it’s been seamless,” said Kevin Barnhart, regional general manager at STA. “We can now focus on receiving the buses and getting them in service knowing that when the time came, our charging stations were ready to go.”

“Through our actions, we all have an opportunity to improve air quality in our region by transitioning to electric fleet vehicles,” said Kevin Walker, DLC’s president and CEO. “This also leads to operational savings for our fleets, since electric vehicles are less expensive to fuel and require less maintenance due to fewer moving parts.”

Leading by example, DLC is incorporating electric vehicles into its own fleet and aims to electrify 30% of its total fleet by 2030.To learn more about how DLC can help you plan for an electric fleet, visit www.DuquesneLight.com/ElectricFleet.